To make cocaine less potent, Colombia looking to modify gasoline supply

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Buzz kill: To make cocaine less potent, Colombia looking to modify gasoline supply​

https://breakingdefense.com/2026/01...t-colombia-looking-to-modify-gasoline-supply/
During cocaine production, after coca leaves are harvested, they are soaked in gasoline or a similar fuel, which acts as a solvent. Once the fuel absorbs the coca alkaloid, the plant matter is discarded, leaving a liquid that contains the extracted substance. That liquid then undergoes a chemical separation causing the coca extract to solidify, producing a crude paste. The paste is then transferred to a lab where impurities are removed and the substance converted into cocaine powder for export.
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The Colombian government, Sánchez explained, is actively working with universities inside the county, as well as companies and “anybody in this world” to see if there is a viable way to modify the nation’s gasoline supply to ultimately make cocaine less potent. The gambit recalls a reported secret decade-long CIA operation to similarly sabotage Afghanistan’s opium production.
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Gasoline is likely being used because it's a cheap, easily available non-polar solvent. Replacing gasoline with ethanol as a motor fuel may work, as it's a polar solvent, but I suspect modifying gasoline so it doesn't work in cocaine production, does work in spark ignition engines, and makes sufficient profits for refiners is likely impossible. But, hey, I'm not a chemical engineer. Nor, I suspect were the people making the suggestion.
 
1635yankee said:
Gasoline is likely being used because it's a cheap, easily available non-polar solvent. Replacing gasoline with ethanol as a motor fuel may work, as it's a polar solvent, but I suspect modifying gasoline so it doesn't work in cocaine production, does work in spark ignition engines, and makes sufficient profits for refiners is likely impossible. But, hey, I'm not a chemical engineer. Nor, I suspect were the people making the suggestion.
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Ethanol can’t be transported through pipelines and moreover Colombia doesn’t have a sugar cane ethanol industry on the same scale as Brazil. Colombia does have a big oil and refining industry.

Which brings us back to the fact that Colombia has a big oil industry. You could ban gasoline outright and it’s still possible to crack and fractionally distill gasoline or any of the constituent solvents on a backyard scale. It’s done in the Russian Caucasus region.

In short, reformulating gasoline for this very specific consideration is most likely impossible and amount to magical thinking and a way to deflect US criticism.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Too likely to infect unrelated plants.
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There were concerns that myco toxins would adversely affect the health of the farming communities. Also keep in mind that the carcinogenic “Agent Orange” compounds used as defoliants in Vietnam were considered to be less potentially dangerous than myco toxins.
 
TinWing said:
There were concerns that myco toxins would adversely affect the health of the farming communities. Also keep in mind that the carcinogenic “Agent Orange” compounds used as defoliants in Vietnam were considered to be less potentially dangerous than myco toxins.
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I don't remember having heard that, but it would not surprise me if that was the case.
 
Lc89 said:
Why not resort to the Bukele cure instead?
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Because it’s not as a big a problem as you’d think. El Salvador had gangs victimizing entire communities. Why? Because the gangs didn’t have a source of income aside from low level extortion. In short, the El Salvadoran gangs were financially unsuccessful, desperate bands of young men. Eventually, after incarcerating tens of thousands of young men without real due process, in conditions that are inhumane, they’ll have to release the vast majority. The same thing happened in the United States after the paranoid prison boom of the 1990s.

In Colombia, the communal violence of the 1980s and 90s is long gone. Tourists are literally safe walking around communities that were no-go zones 25 or 35 years ago. I’ve even read that small scale personal use possession and sale has been defacto decriminalized in some parts of Colombia. In short, it’s not a big deal anymore. It’s also not as economically significant. The drug trade is increasingly economically insignificant compared to petroleum.

What solved the violence issues in Colombia? Political settlements worked, even with reverses in recent years. Economic growth did wonders as well.
 
TinWing said:
Because it’s not as a big a problem as you’d think. El Salvador had gangs victimizing entire communities. Why? Because the gangs didn’t have a source of income aside from low level extortion. In short, the El Salvadoran gangs were financially unsuccessful, desperate bands of young men. Eventually, after incarcerating tens of thousands of young men without real due process, in conditions that are inhumane, they’ll have to release the vast majority. The same thing happened in the United States after the paranoid prison boom of the 1990s.

In Colombia, the communal violence of the 1980s and 90s is long gone. Tourists are literally safe walking around communities that were no-go zones 25 or 35 years ago. I’ve even read that small scale personal use possession and sale has been defacto decriminalized in some parts of Colombia. In short, it’s not a big deal anymore. It’s also not as economically significant. The drug trade is increasingly economically insignificant compared to petroleum.

What solved the violence issues in Colombia? Political settlements worked, even with reverses in recent years. Economic growth did wonders as well.
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Bukele is among the most popular heads of state in the world. There must be a reason.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Too likely to infect unrelated plants.
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also because its the livelihood of a lot of poor communities in the area - not necessarily selling it to drug manufacturer.


Very small amounts of cocaine occur naturally in the coca leaf and you have to have tons and tons of it to be able to extract relatively little cocaine. The leafs need to undergo a number of chemical processes (of which soaking with gasoline is one of them) before those compounds turn into cocaine. Instead a lot of people there will consume the leaf as a short burst of energy when they go about their jobs. In some areas its basically the only thing people can cultivate.
 
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Lc89 said:
Bukele is among the most popular heads of state in the world. There must be a reason.
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Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety - Benjamin Franklin
 
Reddington777 said:
In some areas its basically the only thing people can cultivate.
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Rectification:
In some areas its basically the only thing people can cultivate to make a living.

Local vegetable and fruit growers face a strong competitive market from non-local industry like Europe as they are disorganized, small and hence unable to compete at scale for large distributors orders despite very modest prices. Cocaine producers have used this imbalance to direct indigenous farmers into cultivating narcotics. International trade agreements had an aggravating effect by offering more opportunities for cartels to smuggle and hammer down local farmers into the drug trade*.

Tempering with Gasoline chemical properties won't probably change anything. The problem is systemic and needs more than one pronged approach to seriously tackle the issue. Pointing to Gasoline usage, here is more Deus Ex-Machina.

*similar problem with the local fishermen
 
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Cocaine still has some legitimate uses, surgery for example.

The effect on the circulation leads to a rotted septum true but it you had had nasal surgery you will more than likely have had a dose of cocaine. It reduces bleeding and swelling in that region.

It is applied on a gauze with a string (Female hygiene product) which is placed in the nose with tweezers soaked in a saline/cocaine solution.

As an anaesthesia practitioner, it was my job to prepare these for use.

Not aware of any alternative being available.

It seems there are a shed load of folk around the world of politics making use of this treatment right now actually.
 
The problem is not the concentration of the active ingredient but the stupidity of the user, I remember from my time as a smoker that all attempts to quit addiction failed because my nervous system simply wanted more.

If you cut a cigarette in half to smoke less, the brain commands you to inhale more eagerly and frequently.

If you water the wine, the body will need to drink more until it gets the dose it is used to.

The only way to quit a bad habit is to make it unpleasant: Unbeknownst to me, my wife would trick my packets of tobacco by pouring a drop of bleach inside, and that made the taste so unbearable that my brain stopped asking for that stimulant.

But in my opinion, drugs of Colombian and Afghan natural origin will soon be obsolete by others of synthetic origin that will be responsible for destroying the neurons of future generations.
 
Lc89 said:
Why not resort to the Bukele cure instead?
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Sadism and bloodthirst are not a viable strategy, and Bukele is simply the gangster who won the gang war. Cocaine is just a pretext for this kind of bloodymindedness that does nothing but get citizens shot dead in the street by governments.
 
Arjen said:
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety - Benjamin Franklin
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From the most violent capital in the world to the safest in the Northern Hemisphere. A remarkable achievement, one that some thought impossible. Let's not bother the founding fathers.
 

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