Use drugs, run out of fuel - say what???

 

I hadn't expected "fuel crime" to become a thing in the illegal drugs industry, but here you go.

Colombia has a severe problem, cocaine. The South American country is the world’s largest producer of the narcotic, and it continues setting record highs for the cultivation of coca, the drug’s key raw ingredient, and cocaine production. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported for 2022 (Spanish) that the amount of land cultivated with coca soared 13% year over year to 230,000 hectares. This, the agency believes, possessed the potential to produce a record 1,738 metric tons of cocaine, yet another all-time high.

. . .

It is estimated that around 75 gallons, or 284 liters, of gasoline, is required to treat the approximately 440 pounds of coca leaves required to produce one kilogram of cocaine hydrochloride ... which means 130 million gallons, or 492 million liters, of gasoline was consumed during 2022 to produce 1,738 metric tons of cocaine. This tremendous amount of gasoline combined with soaring oil prices ... makes it extremely costly for Colombia’s illegal armed groups, which control the Andean country’s cocaine trade, to acquire the required volume of gasoline.

For those reasons, there are considerable incentives for criminal bands to steal oil from Colombia’s extensive network of petroleum pipelines, which are amplified by strict government controls on the sale of large volumes of gasoline.

. . .

Colombia’s Caño Limon and Transandino, known by their Spanish initials OTA, pipelines are the main targets for petroleum theft. Various criminal bands and illegal armed groups tap the pipelines with primitive valves to extract the oil flowing through them, often leaving pools of environmentally damaging petroleum behind ... Official records indicate the Caño Limon pipeline has suffered 1,600 attacks since commencing operation in 1986, most of which were bombings, but also includes the application of illicit valves to steal petroleum.

There's more at the link.

I've been aware of thefts of petroleum products from pipelines for decades.  In Africa, it's a growth business.  Hardly a month goes by without reports of large quantities of oil being stolen from sabotaged pipelines, many times sparking a conflagration that kills countless people trying to get free fuel.  Nigeria is probably the worst hotspot (you should pardon the expression) on the continent for that.  However, those crimes target the fuel itself, for its own value.  The criminals don't regard fuel as just another component needed for a much more lucrative and deadly crime.

This leads to another thought.  Could fuel rationing, either by default through short supply or by government edict, help reduce the amount of drugs on the market?  I'm not advocating that, you understand - just thinking things through.  There are wheels within wheels on this issue . . .

Peter