There are several reasons why travellers do not visit
Colombia, but perhaps they come down to the same thing: the cocaine industry
and the people who control it. Even the Colombian government acknowledge that
80% of the world's supply of the drug comes from Colombia, and 70% of this
was now grown in the Amazon region.

Colombia is without doubt a very beautiful country with
mountains, forests, beaches, colonial towns and cities, but it is just not
safe. Everyone, from people who live in the towns and cities to the
countryside, including tourists are at risk. It is one of the few countries in
the world that the Beetle would not visit herself. The Beetle’s former
Spanish teacher, a London based Colombian was herself viciously mugged within
minutes of arriving in her hometown of Medellín.

The new Colombian government have just announced a policy
called Trees for Drugs, under which poor farmers would be paid to protect the
forest instead of growing coca and are appealing for international funding from
the international community to help fund a scheme to pay poor farmers to
protect trees instead of cutting them down to grow drug crops.

Cocaine-users across the world are helping to destroy the
Amazon rainforest, Colombian Environment Minister Cecilia Rodriguez has warned.
Dr Rodriguez said the message to the world's drug users was clear: “I
should call the attention of all consumers of cocaine that they're are
harming dramatically the tropical rainforest of the world, because this is what
the world needs for its oxygen.”