What effect does western drug policy have on Latin American culture?
Several years ago, I was, for the first time, face to face with the origins of one of the greatest evils of contemporary society. I was in Latin America and staring at an evil responsible for the deaths of millions of people, the incarceration of millions more and the degradation of western society. Given its impressive record in destruction, it seemed rather strange that this evil was stewing in the bottom of my tea cup. The evil I am referring to is the coca leaf. While my leaves were providing a concoction that would aid my battle against altitude-sickness, elsewhere ton after ton was being put through a step-by-step process of chemical adjustment that would culminate in the crystallisation of a fine powder known to the world as cocaine. Forgotten societies Cocaine is one constituent in the wider dilemma of drug policy in society. The problems caused by both the drugs trade and the State’s response in countries such as the US and the UK are of the extent that it dominates contempora
