As rebels move out of Colombia drug trade, corporations look to move in

“What’s important here is we don’t go 500 years backward to the times where indigenous people were working for outsiders and marginalized”
The New York Times (US)
Thursday, March 9, 2017

Colombia has received billions of dollars in American aid to eradicate the drug trade. But in the coming weeks, the government says, it will begin processing licenses for a small number of companies, including PharmaCielo, under a 2015 law that allows the cultivation of medical marijuana. A Canadian company called PharmaCielo, with the government’s approval, is working to produce the drug legally in Colombia and is looking to hire. It is an unorthodox experiment by Colombia, one that underscores the region’s changing attitudes toward drugs after decades of fighting them. (See also: Colombian cannabis: Small farmers did better under FARC)