Coca and Cocaine in the Andes

Contens

1. Introduction

2. The Coca Plant

3. History

4. Usage

5. Production of Cocaine

6. Cocaine Powder

7. Cultivation
7.1. Bolivia
7.2. Peru

8. A Global Problem

9. Issues

10. Solutions

11. Conclusion

Bibliography

Appendix

Figure and Table Content

Figure 1: The Andes Countries

Figure 2: Erythroxilum Coca

Figure 3: Coca Cultivation in Bolivia

Figure 4: Coca Cultivation in Peru

Table 1: The Cocaine Production

Table 2: The Effects

Table 3: Coca Fields in Chapare 1965-2001

Table 4: Population Development in Cocochamba, Bolivia

Table 5: The Countries in Figures

Table 6: The Fight Against Drugs

U.S . Business Culture & Economic Development

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Coca and Cocaine in the Andes Countries

" I thought cocaine was a fantastic drug. A wonder drug, like everybody else. It gave you [an] energy burst. You could stay awake for days on end, and it was just marvelous and I didn't think it was evil at all. I put it almost in the same category as marijuana, only hell of a lot better. It was a tremendous energy boost. But eventually everybody knew how evil it really was. It was the greatest feeling I ever had. Followed abruptly by the worst feeling I ever had."

George Jung is a lifetime convicted U.S. drug trafficker, portrayed by Johnny Depp in the movie "Blow" (2001). Drugs determined and destroyed his life.

1. INTRODUCTION

Andean farmers have good financial reasons for continuing to grow coca, and it is unlikely that the economic equation can be substantially altered. Cocaine is as cheap and plentiful as ever on U.S. streets, the biggest market for cocaine; the State Department estimates that 1999 coca production increased. The current U.S. retail cocaine market is somewhere between $30 billion and $150 billion¹.

Efforts at interdiction and crop substitution have failed, the former because the amounts of cocaine imported are so large that seizures have little overall impact, the latter both because alternative crops are intrinsically less lucrative and because there is no infrastructure to bring such crops to market. The U.S. General Accounting Office report to Congress argued that crop substitution was unlikely to succeed, and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has calculated the cost of raw coca as making up less than 1 percent of the retail cost of refined cocaine in the U.S. The latter statistic means that traffickers could easily afford to increase what they pay for raw coca if a shortage occurred, thereby stimulating production.

Fig. 1: The Andes Countries

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Source: www.worldatlas.com

In order to explain why the andean Countries prefer to grow coca, it is important to understand that the coca plant is a part of the culture, as history shows and there is a difference between the existence of coca and cocaine. The usage and the production of the coca plant changed in the last hundred years, and the monocultural development carry tremendous illegal capacities. But on the other hand, it is originally a cultural heritage. To explain this issue one must know where it is cultivated, why and what problems it causes for the Andean Countries, and not only for these countries, but on a global scale.

2. THE COCA PLANT

The Coca Plant is one of the oldest cultivation plants in Latin America. It is a shrubby tree 3 meter high when cultivated². There are proximately 250 varieties, 200 in Latin America. Only a few varieties are good for use; for chewing or for cocaine derivation. Trees start yielding in eighteen months and are often productive over fifty years. The leaves are gathered three times a year; the first crop in spring, second in June, and third in October; must always be collected in dry weather. There are two varieties in commerce, the Huanuco Coca ("boliviana"), South Ecuador, Andes, Peru to Bolivia, and has leaves of a brownish-green color, oval, entire and glabrous, with a rather bitter taste, and Peruvian Coca (yields on dry fields Peru coast, known also as "coca trujillo"), the leaves of which are much smaller and a pale green color. Coca leaves deteriorate very quickly in a damp atmosphere, and for this reason the alkaloid is extracted from the leaves in Latin America before exportation. The Coca plant was the holy plant of the Incas.

Fig. 2: Erythroxilum Coca

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Source: http://www.biotropic.com/coca.gif

3. HISTORY

Andean Indians have been chewing on coca leaves for over five thousand years and is consumed today by more than 8 Million people. The Name COCA comes from the Aymaran language and means "Three” or "Bush”³. Chewing coca leaves, a cultural heritage, has been associated historically with the religious ceremonies of the Incas and reserved specifically for nobility. The coca plant was considered to be a gift from the Gods and it was only used during religious rituals, burials, and other special purposes. It was very sparely used and there was a black market for it. So it is known that the curriers used it as an stimulant for their long runs. In the colonial times, it was either forbidden or cultivated. It was discovered that the leaves reduced mountain sickness symptoms and the indians could barely work without them. It also reduces hunger. The first "dealers" were basically the spaniards giving Coca to the indian workers of the silvermine POTOSI in 1545. Because of Coca the indian workers were not tired and it reduced the urge to eat. This made the exploitation easier. Returning Spanish conquistadors introduced it to Europe and it was considered an "elixir of life". In 1862, Albert Niemann extracted purified cocaine from the coca leaves and since then it was an ingredient in cigars, cigarettes, chewing gum, and several "tonics", most notably Coca Cola⁴ Coca-Cola advertised itself as "the drink that relieves exhaustion". It was first made illegal during World War I. By 1930 there was almost no 'cocaine scene'. In the seventies it came to the first big drug abuse period, in the USA, ten years later in Europe. In the 1990 it replaced heroin as the Drug No 1. This trend is not explained completely. Today, its food, medicine, cultural heritage. Children do not chew it, however, they get it in form of tea.

4. USAGE

The tradional way to consume Coca is take ashes or lime with spittle (or slobber) and chew it with a coca leaf. This procedure sets some substances free which gives the User usually a sense of wellbeing, of having more energy, and being more alert. By chewing You create a small ball, which is spitted out after some time. This procedure is supposed to be healthy⁵ The chewing of coca 100-200 gram per day covers the daily doses of calcium, iron, phosphor, Vitamin A, B3, B12, C, E. It eases breathing in the mountains, used with Calcium or Magnesium or it reduces your perception of coldness. It is common in Bolivia for tea or for relaxing.

5. THE PRODUCTION: COCAINE

Tab. 1: The Cocaine Production

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Source: Escobar Trading Company, Colombia, 1990.

The production concentrates on two stages of a product:

1) The PBC basispaste and

2) The Cocainechlorhydrat.

All this Substances are toxical; the producers let them flow in the rivers where it destroys the environment. In Peru 1990 400 Million Litre water was polluted. The main chemical supplier is Germany. The main Cocaine production, paste, is in Colombia. The main production is illegally exported, to the main consumers, the USA. Cocaine is known as coke, C, snow, flake, nose candy, blow, or crack⁶

6. THE USE OF COCAINE: POWDER

Tab. 2: The Effects

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Source: Warner, Christopher: Annals of Internal Medicine, New York, 1999, p. 226-235.

Cocaine appears as a white powder substance which is inhaled, injected, freebased (smoked), or applied directly to the nasal membrane or gums. Cocaine gives the user a tremendous "rush". These chemicals trick the brain into feeling it has experienced pleasure. The Prices are very high, it is an image factor, and it is not making physical addictive. But it makes you mental addictive. Because of the demand from the seventies, the coca fields expanded explosively. For example in Bolivia rose the production in 20 years from 40 - 50 times and more fields 20 - 30 times.

7. CULTIVATION

The first Coca plantations existed in North East of Latin America, Colombia and Venezuela. Traditionally ARHUACOS, RIO CAUCA, ORINOCO, RIO NEGRO. In Bolivia it grows in YUNGAS, CHAPARE. In Peru it is the upper part of the river HUALLAGA. The plant is able to grow on all sorts of ground, but it exhausts the ground so much that no other culture can be raised there. The production is theoretically to thousand years possible, without dunging. The only thing that helps its cultivate is a certain sort of mushroms.

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¹ Eg. U.S. State Department: Drug Abuse Statistics, Washington, 2001, p. 7.

Robert Mihelli - RWTH Aachen 5 Economic Development - Coca and Cocaine in the Andes

² The tree is 12 (3,7m) to 18 (5,5m) feet high in the wild state and kept down to about 6 feet when cultivated.

Robert Mihelli - RWTH Aachen 6 Economic Development - Coca and Cocaine in the Andes

³ Eg. Ruppert, Rasso: Drogenproblematik in Lateinamerika, Trier, 1992, p. 12.

⁴ Coca-cola was another famous source of cocaine. It was introduced by John Pemberton in 1886 and was made with cocaine laced syrup and caffeine. However, due to public pressure the cocaine content was dropped in 1903.

⁵ Eg. Buchwald, Robert: Die gesunde Pflanze, Stuttgart, 1990, p.22.

⁶ Crack is sold in small plastic vials and is in the form of small white, gray, or beige rough chunks that can be smoked in a glass pipe. Two doses of crack can be purchased for about five to ten dollars. Users prefer crack because of the lower cost. Users can spend fifty dollars to one hundred dollars for one gram of cocaine powder. When it is sold on the streets dealers usually avoid being arrested by carrying very small amounts in their mouths.