COCAINE: FROM MIRACLE DRUG TO GLOBAL MENACE

Book Review: This collection of essays, written by academics and
journalists, takes the reader from Asia to London and Latin America in what
is a balanced, in-depth account of the transformation of cocaine from
miracle drug to global menace.

In 1885 an urgent cable reached US consular posts across the South
American Andes, requesting full information "to assure quality
Peruvian coca for growing demands in the United States." By the turn
of the century, Peru - the home of the coca leaf - was the world's
leading exporter of the drug, supplying a million kilos a year to
world markets. Dutch producers built the Nederlandsche Cocainefabriek
(NCF) in Amsterdam in 1900, soon producing 1,500 kilos of refined
cocaine each year, while German rivals E. Merck purchased their own
plantations in Java to meet growing demand. Japan got off to a slow
start but eventually purchased 3,000 square kms around Tingo Maria, in
the Peruvian jungle (currently used as a US anti-narcotics base),
linking Peru to an Asian cocaine network.

The drug was sold in lozenge form or bottled as medicinal wine. One
such product, Ryno's Hay Fever Remedy, contained nothing but cocaine,
its packages recommending use at "two to ten times a day, or oftener
if really necessary". Its presence was never identified on the
package. Cocaine was one of the first scientific alkaloids developed
on a commercial scale, an apparent cure-all for anxiety-ridden
industrial societies undergoing rapid transformation. Like every other
proclaimed cure, it reached the consumer from a pharmaceutical
industry which operated with few restrictions. Nor were there limits
on what the companies claimed about the drug, described as "valuable
as a calmative in those nervous conditions peculiar to females."

Its regulation and eventual prohibition was led by the medical
profession, anxious to control a drug which threatened to displace
"professional" pharmacists with unlicensed street outlets. The reforms
began with obligatory labelling of cocaine products, which practically
eliminated the drug overnight as manufacturers were required to stamp
the word "poison" on all cocaine-related products.

In England the drug was viewed as a threat to the individual rather
than to society as a whole. The mass media dutifully generated the
required moral panic needed to insure prohibition, associating the
drug with actresses, nightclub dancers and "flappers", (women involved
in prostitution), supplied by "men of colour".

It was formally banned under emergency legislation during the First
World War, legislation which was then made permanent after the war
ended. The coca leaf originated in Peru, where it was used for
ceremonial purposes and peasant farmers chewed its leaves to stave off
hunger. The Peruvian coca industry, through municipal taxes, was the
engine for minimal rural development, including road-building and schools.

Cocaine ceased to play a significant role in the public mindset until
the 1970s, when a return to mass consumption heralded the emergence of
powerful cartels in Colombia and Mexico, two countries singled out for
analysis in the final chapters of this book. The industry encountered
feeble and corrupt state institutions in Colombia and Mexico,
permitting traffickers to buy politicians, football teams, private
armies and anti-narcotics investigators.

Paul Gootenburg, a professor of Latin American Studies, and the prime
mover behind this book, wisely steers clear of moralistic judgments,
yet the lessons of cocaine prohibition are implicit in the history
itself. The city of Medellin, Colombia, home of Pablo Escobar, the
world's most notorious trafficker, became addicted not to cocaine, but
to the side-effects generated by cocaine - wealth, style, scandal and
power. Escobar amassed such a fortune that he offered to pay off the
nation's external debt in return for an amnesty against criminal
prosecution. I have yet to meet a Colombian who disagreed with the
proposition, but US government opposition killed off the prospect.

Just weeks ago thousands of elite US-trained troops massed on the
border of Peru and Ecuador, as the Clinton administration considered
armed intervention to prevent drug financed guerrillas from seizing
power in Colombia. But more guns and bloodshed are the last thing this
troubled region needs. Alternative strategies suggested in this
informative book include crop substitution, even decriminalisation.
Let's hope that the sane voices of Paul Gootenburg and the other
contributors manage to reach the ears of the powerful.