The Political Economy of Cocaine Production

Abstract

The rapid increase in cocaine production in recent years has been well publicized, as have the problems and attempted solutions that this increase poses for both drug-exporting countries and consuming societies. The three cocaine source countries-Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia-produce at least 250,000 hectares of coca leaf annually.' Evolution of the underground cocaine entrepreneurship in the countryside puts pressure on traditional local economies. Impoverished peasants and Indians and well-off middle-class persons participate in an internationally controlled narcotics industry. The penetration of illegal narcotic organizations into a Third World nation is ultimately a phenomenon which has its origin in the demand for drugs by advanced industrial nations. The cocaine supply-demand framework creates new channels of economic dependency on coca-dollars and political pressure from the United States. Coca has long been part of the Andean economy, and the Peruvian Indian has historically been tied to the production of the coca plant and the consumption of the leaves. As early as 1800 B.C., the inhabitants of the Peruvian Pacific coast were chewing coca produced in the rain forests of the Andes (Lanning, 1967: 77). Traditional agricultural exchange was based on patterns of reciprocity that developed between populations dependent upon subsistence agriculture (Burchard, 1974). The remarkable importance of coca was emphasized and exploited during the Spanish colonial period. The Spanish colonists promoted the cultural use (chewing) and stimulant effects of coca leaves in Potosi and other mining regions in the Andes (Cieza de Leon, 1959: 259). In modem times, to satisfy and protect the needs of the coca-chewing Indian, the Peruvian government institutionalized the production of coca into