After Escobar: How the US Imposed its Own Drug War on Colombia

Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno from the Drug Policy Alliance discusses the bloody aftermath of cocaine trafficker Pablo Escobar's death, the subject of her new book, There Are No Dead Here: A Story of Murder and Denial in Colombia.

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"The whole premise of the war on drugs is that if you focus on the supply side, you'll solve all of the U.S.'s problems with problematic drug use," says Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno, the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. But "no matter how much money you put into fighting organized crime, there are always going to be new leaders ready to step into the shoes of those who've been arrested."

The failure of the supply-side approach to fighting the drug war is an overarching theme in McFarland's new book, There Are No Dead Here: A Story of Murder and Denial in Colombia. It recounts the bloody aftermath of cocaine trafficker Pablo Escobar's death, when the Colombian military, surviving drug lords, left-wing terrorists known as FARC, and paramilitary groups vied for power. Focusing on three individuals who successfully helped expose the atrocities and win justice, the book examines the impact of U.S. intervention in Colombia's drug trade.

Before joining the Drug Policy Alliance last September, McFarland spent over a decade as a drug policy analyst at Human Rights Watch.

Reason's Nick Gillespie sat down with McFarland recently in New York City

Edited by Mark McDaniel, graphics and introduction by Todd Krainin.

Music: Modem by Kai Engel. All music licensed under Creative Commons. (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US.)

Credit: JAIVER NIETO/El Tiempo de Colombia/Newscom, Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Newscom, Tracy Barbutes/ZUMA Press/Newscom.