When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

You've reach your limit of free articles.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime.

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Ad-free experience NEW

Exclusive international news coverage

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Monthly Access

30-day free trial, then $2.90 per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch
EL ESPECTADOR

After Coca And Coffee, Legal Cannabis Can Take Colombia Higher

Local investors and entrepreneurs should learn from past mistakes to harvest the best results from the country's decision to authorize marijuana production.

A medical cannabis farm in Bogotá
A medical cannabis farm in Bogotá
Liliana Hernández

-OpEd-

BOGOTÁ — The era of legal cannabis cultivation has begun in Colombia, but there's nothing new about the production model.

Like with sugar cane, coffee or flowers, big, private investors are putting money into producing the raw material — without much processing — so that it can then be exported to countries that have been doing research on the product for decades.

In the case of cannabis, Colombian producers simply cultivate the plant, harvest its flowers and elaborate base extracts with them. It's only after they're shipped abroad that the extracts are transformed into lucrative, value-added products that we Colombians will then have to import at prohibitively high costs.

There's much talk here about the "new opportunities' legal cannabis will provide. But what kind of opportunity are we really talking about? The opportunity to keep using a cheap workforce, both qualified and untrained? Does that really live up to the developmental promise touted in all this opportunity talk?

cannabis_colombia_legalcannabis_value_economy_poverty

Colombia may benefit from higher aspiration in the cannabis business — Photo: Matteo Paganelli

The arguments used to boost the incipient cannabis business today are the same used for sugar cane in its day: namely that Colombia has no seasons, that producers can grow all year.

Seriously, is this the best defense that can be made of a productive project? May we never aspire to anything better than producing cheap raw material so that, as always, private capital in foreign countries can flourish and multiply in the best colonial style? Have we learned nothing from the lessons of the early 20th century with quinine, rubber, cocoa and, more recently, other farming products whose final days are now paving the way for a cannabis business?

Will this be our highest aspiration? Perpetuating poverty and backwardness because the people who make the important decisions in this country think we cannot do any better? And is that actually true? Or is it just what others have always wanted us to believe?

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Society

Sleep Divorce: The Benefits For Couples In Having Separate Beds

Sleeping separately is often thought to be the beginning of the end for a loving couple. But studies show that having permanently separate beds — if you have the space and means — can actually reinforce the bonds of a relationship.

Image of a woman sleeping in a bed.

A woman sleeping in her bed.

BUENOS AIRES — Couples, it is assumed, sleep together — and sleeping apart is easily taken as a sign of a relationship gone cold. But several recent studies are suggesting, people sleep better alone and "sleep divorce," as the habit is being termed, can benefit both a couple's health and intimacy.

That is, if you have the space for it...

While sleeping in separate beds is seen as unaffectionate and the end of sex, psychologist María Gabriela Simone told Clarín this "is not a fashion, but to do with being able to feel free, and to respect yourself and your partner."

She says the marriage bed originated "in the matrimonial duty of sharing a bed with the aim of having sex to procreate." That, she adds, gradually settled the idea that people "who love each other sleep together."

Is it an imposition then, or an overwhelming preference? Simone says intimacy is one thing, sleeping another.

Keep reading...Show less

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

You've reach your limit of free articles.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime.

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Ad-free experience NEW

Exclusive international news coverage

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Monthly Access

30-day free trial, then $2.90 per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch

The latest