Columbia and drug traffickingToday, when someone thinks of Colombia, unfortunately they almost always think of two things, coffee and cocaine (with the associated guerrilla warfare). It is true that over the last 50 years these two products, one legal and the other not, have made large monetary contributions to the Colombian economy. Coffee is Colombia's main agricultural product and is also the country's second largest export. Coffee production involves 300,000 farms and employs almost one million people (Steiner 6). In contrast, cocaine is a completely illegal product, but yields almost twice as much as coffee (Steiner 6). Furthermore, unlike coffee production, cocaine employs fewer employees but makes more money (Steiner 6). The history of Colombian drug trafficking is something relatively recent, as it concerns the last 50 years of contemporary Colombian history. After World War II, there is evidence of “the export of drugs from Colombia to the United States…since the 1950s Medellín was an international drug trafficking center…” (Salazar 78). Basically, drug trafficking had its small beginnings in the 1950s, and in the 1960s different groups of drug lords began to consolidate into drug cartels. “Drug dealing activity in Colombia dates back to the 1970s with the cultivation and export of marijuana…” (Thoumi 139). In the 1970s, drug lords like Pablo Escobar, an extremely powerful mafia leader of the Colombian drug ring, took control and created a completely illegal and clandestine economy centered on narcotics. Gradually, these drug lord groups and their cohorts, which split regionally, began to take control. In the end the situation...... half of the document ......ergioarboleda.edu.co/pymes/agrarian_sector.htmSalazar, Alonso J. La Cola del Lagarto: Drogas y Narcotráfico en la Sociedad Colombiana. (The Lizard's Tail: Drugs and Drug Trafficking in Colombian Society.) Medellín, Colombia: Regione Corporación, 1998. Steiner, Roberto, Alejandra Corchuelo. Economic and institutional repercussions of drug trafficking in Colombia. Bogotá, Colombia: Centro de Estudios sobre Desarrollo Económico, Universidad de Los Andes, 2000. Thoumi, Francisco E. Drogas ilicitas en Colombia: Su Impacto Económico, Político y Social. (Illicit drugs in Colombia: their economic, political and social impact.) Colombia: Programa de la Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo, PNUD, 1997. Tokatlian, Juan G., Bruce M. Bagley. Economics and Politics of Narcotics. (Economics and Politics of Drug Trafficking) Bogotá, Colombia: CEI Uniandes, 1990.