Tonight’s telly – Monday 28 January
Former Blur bassist and self-confessed cocaine consumer Alex James travelled to Colombia in tonight’s Panorama to look at how the drug makes it from over there to Britain. He’d been invited by the Colombian president Alvaro Uribe who wanted a British celerity consumer to come over and experience how the drug was destroying his country.*
As a viewer I didn’t really need convincing that Colombia has been ravaged and torn apart by cocaine, nor that people who consume the drug should know that it has a bloody journey long before it gets anywhere near your nostrils. However, James entered into the scheme with something bordering on naiveté. He experienced some terrifying encounters with everyone involved in the process – dealers, farmers, anti-drugs squads and most chillingly a hired hitman who produced his gun whilst chatting and driving a taxi in Bogotá. He landed in land-mine infested coke fields to rip up plants and trekked through the jungle (in ridiculously unsuitable shoes) to see how they made the initial resin.
Despite these eye-opening scenes, amazingly James’ voice didn’t seem to show much emotion. He claimed to ‘hear devastating news’ or ‘be terrified’ but he seemed to react to each encounter with the same unaffected monotone.
My gripes with his voice aside, Panorama did have some remarkable interviews with people and showed the vicious cycle of the drugs trade in Colombia. It included the desperate –farmers whose only real option to make money so they can eat is to grow the coke plants, and the downright stupid – ‘Steve’, an American drugs mule in prison in Colombia who showed little remorse and little understanding of his role in the gross trade. For the dealers and hitmen in the middle, they seemed resigned to the fact they were doing their job.
The programme didn’t pose any solutions nor much expansion on the original idea: people who consume drugs here directly fuel a bloody trade elsewhere. Unfortunately as the Colombian dealer shown on the programme said: “Clients go look for it [cocaine], I don’t offer it.” Whilst James’ trip may try to show those who use coke the greater global impact that makes – I can’t help but feel that those who would listen to the programme are those who are already aware of the horrors in Colombia. I’m afraid it may not have had the shock value it needed to penetrate further.
*Alex James’ connection with cocaine can be read here.
