UK coke-heads urged to boycott 'unethical' Colombian cocaine

The Observer | UK News | Plea for boycott of 'unethical' cocaine:
"A 'boycott cocaine' campaign to shame the middle-classes into shunning the fashionable drug has moved a step closer after the Foreign Office gave its blessing."

It seems the FO thinks that a boycott of cocaine will end the civil war in Colombia the way boycotting South African wine ended apartheid. (I'd laugh if the underlying subject matter weren't so deadly serious.) The better analogy would be that it might be another "feel good" campaign like the one against "conflict" diamonds from west Africa. But, just like the diamonds and unlike the South African wine, there is no way for consumers to tell where their cocaine comes from.

It seems that everything this week is reminding me of college. Those were the days of Cesar Chavez and the grape boycott. The United Farmworkers Organizing Committee was urging a boycott of California-grown table grapes to force the growers to sign a labor agreement with UFWOC which many regarded as more a hard left political movement than a genuine labor union. The response of supermarkets was to bring in grapes from South Africa and Chile.

Meanwhile, at UVa, a brilliant roommate and fellow Republican produced fliers which were spread around The Grounds featuring a large thunderbird symbol and urging a boycott of Mexican marijuana, alleging oppressive treatment of the pickers in similar language to that used by UFWOC in its materials urging the grape boycott. The initial reaction was to make a lot of local potheads feel very guilty about toking up.