Snowfields: The war on cocaine in the Andes - Hardcover

Hargreaves, Clare

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0841913277 ISBN 13: 9780841913271

Publisher: Holmes & Meier Publishers Inc, 1744

Synopsis

After the Colombian government and the Bush administration declared all-out war on the Colombian drug barons, cocaine traffickers turned their attention to Bolivia, the rugged landlocked country to the south. Already the largest producer of the raw coca leaf, Bolivia tripled its production of refined cocaine between 1989 and 1991 and now ranks second in the world. Profits from the cocaine industry have proved to be as addictive as the drug itself -- indeed, the Bolivian economy has become dependent on it. The prospect of weaning Bolivia off cocaine looks bleak without a drastic drop in demand from the West. This seems unlikely when the U.S. War on Drugs focuses on intervention abroad rather than education at home and the dismantling of Europe's borders results in an expanded European market for drugs. Unlike previous books on the cocaine trade, which examine the problem through Western eyes, "Snowfields" looks at the drug business through the eyes of the main players in Bolivia, where the white powder is made. In this compelling account, Clare Hargreaves draws from scores of interviews with drug barons who rule over vast empires, dirt-poor coca farmers, addicts, traffickers, the military, politicians, and America's drug warriors from the Drug Enforcement Administration.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

Despite the admitted difficulties in getting hard information from criminals regarding their enterprises, veteran British journalist Hargreaves has managed to produce a remarkably complete picture of cocaine trafficking in Bolivia, a country in which drugs quietly became the most profitable industry while the world focused on Colombia's drug trade. Such is the power of the cocaine interests in Bolivia that they actually managed to install a government friendly to them via a military coup in 1980. Hargreaves follows how cocaine is moved from the fields of Bolivian coca farmers, who receive a pittance for their labor, to the high living and conspicuous traffickers to the consumers of processed crack and cocaine. Finally, the author examines the so-called U.S.-led ``war on drugs,'' which he reveals as largely a sham, and a media event with the foxes are often put in charge of the chicken house. The author has marshaled an impressive amount of material (including an interview with Roberto Suarez, the now-imprisoned head of one of the country's principal cartels), in this fascinating look at a very big business.

Copyright 1992 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Holmes & Meier Publishers Inc
• Publication date: 1744
• ISBN 10: 0841913277
• ISBN 13: 9780841913271
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English