Direct violence as drug-related harm: Basuco and harm reduction in Bogotá, Colombia

In Bogotá, Colombia, the primary drug of social concern is basuco, a form of smokeable cocaine. Drug markets in Colombia are characterised by high levels of direct violence, a source of drug-related harm rarely addressed by harm reduction. Using data from eleven months of ethnographic fieldwork among people who use basuco and are experiencing homelessness in Santafé, Bogotá, this paper explores this direct violence, its association with basuco use, and how it could be incorporated into a harm reduction approach. It finds that people who use basuco face violence from: criminal actors through social control or during periods of drug-market contestation; law enforcement and civilian vigilantes; peers in the community of people who use basuco; and armed groups active in the Colombian conflict through experiences of displacement. People have strategies to reduce exposure to this direct violence, such as avoiding violent spaces or following the rules of the street, but the effectiveness of these strategies is compromised by the pervasiveness of direct violence and its interaction with structural and cultural violence. The paper concludes that direct violence is a major source of drug-related harm among people who use basuco and should be incorporated into harm reduction. In order to reduce the harm generated by direct violence, it is necessary not only to address the direct violence itself, but also the structural and cultural violence that reinforce it. Reconceptualising harm reduction in these terms aligns it with the pursuit of 'positive peace' for people who use drugs.