White Pow(d)er!

In advance of next year’s World Cup and Africa Cup of Nations competitions, authorities are already seeing an increase in the amount of cocaine trafficking through Zambia. Well, South Africa already has the hookers. And really, it’s not a party unless you have the blow to go with them.

From a publication called AllAFrica.com: “In recent months seizures of hard drugs have become the order of the day for a country where usage of such drugs is virtually unknown.”

There are a couple of peculiarities with the story though. First, there is the small matter of Zambia being separated from South Africa by Zimbabwe and sort of Botswana depending on which overland route you take (Angola for the Cup of Nations makes way more sense as it borders Zambia to the west). Second, it’s a ways off until the World Cup. Do traffickers need this much of a head start to stockpile?

The latter can be answered “perhaps”. A November 15 arrest in Zambia nabbed three Angolans who were picked up as mules. Between them they had swallowed 249 pellets of cocaine totaling 2.87kg (about 6.3 pounds).

As an aside, anyone in South Africa next summer and doing coke, just maybe take a second and think this might be how it got from South America to your nose. Okay, now snort it if you got it.

Anyway, while six pounds is a nice party for you and some friends for say, all of February and half of March, it’s not going to keep Pablo Escobar armed to the hilt. And certainly isn’t going to keep half the world high when it descends on South Africa next summer.

Prior to that arrest the largest seizure of blow in Zambia this year was for 700 grams. So, it’s not like shipments are coming in by the truckload. Or if they are authorities aren’t finding them yet. But in the absence of tankers and trucks of narcotics, it’s going to take an awful lot of people bringing in these small amounts to meet any kind of nominal demand.

Fear not though as it seems if you can survive the stabbings and the robberies, there are people who are willing to have their GI tracts rented so you can maybe at least get high.