system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why didn't Colombia just tell the US to fuck off and embrace the drug trade as a means to pay off their national debt?
gpt
There are very few countries that would import drugs as a legitimate "good". This means that all exports and imports of these drugs would have to be done in an illegal fashion, a very time consuming and costly venture. Once countries catch on (and they will, it would be exceedingly hard to keep such an operation under wraps). Once these countries know that shipments from Colombia are now possibly loaded with drugs they'll cut political and economical ties with them. That or be subject to incredible sanctions/searches to everything they import.

Once these sanctions are in place around the world, all of Columbia's other legitimate exports will suffer heavily and thus be a net loss for the country as a whole. Not worth in the big picture for the country.