Columbia? As in District of Columbia? Where is this Columbia place? If you mean the cocaine capital of the world, then you must mean the country of Colombia, methinks.

Used to be the power rested with the people. What the politicians perceived as popular consensus dictated their positions. But over the years the promotion of rugged individualism and 'doing your own thing' fractured our notions of connectivity and belongingness and it was left to the monied corporations to wield the forces of influence. Nowadays you can't get two individuals to agree that one plus one equals two. If a survey were taken and it was determined that the majority of voters thought drugs were okay, you'd see Dub-ya and Gore wallowing in mountains of cocaine in their political ads, and instead of kissing babies they'd be handing them vials of crack.