The economic slowdown experienced in Colombia since 1980 is explained by the structural stagnation of the national economy and the escalation of violence associated with the expansion of drug trafficking. The available data do not reject this hypothesis. The article sustains that de-industrialization and drug trafficking were forged in the same crucible: a development model that gradually integrates the national economy into world markets whilst abandoning the option of industrialization. Moreover, it argues that the explosion of drug trafficking is due to the deepening of the war on drugs in the context of a growing and inelastic global demand.