Cocaine Nation: How the White Trade Took Over the World

Feiling, a documentary filmmaker who has done much work in Colombia, turns to the country’s main illegal export. (In the opening chapter, we learn about the original 19th-century coca use: “The modern-day [Coke] can’s red and white livery, taken from the colours of the Peruvian flag, is the only reminder of Coca-Cola’s Andean origins.” Studying the cultivation, distribution, and use of cocaine, he probes the drug’s meteoric rise in sales and traces traffic from Colombian coca fields to Miami, Kingston, Tijuana, London, and New York. He follows consumers, traders, producers, police officers, doctors, and custom officials. Part One analyzes the drug economy: “a lifeline for plenty of jobless Americans. Driving a car loaded with cocaine from El Paso to Chicago can earn the driver $10,000.” Crack cocaine, a cheaper form of the drug, became a booming market in the 1980s, even spreading to rural America. By 1989, Jamaican gangs supplied crack to 47 U.S. cities, while the Bloods and the Crips ran West Coast crack houses. Part Two studies suppliers, smugglers, and law enforcement. Concluding chapters debate drug education, treatment programs, and legalization issues. Packed with facts and figures, this is a well-researched survey of the subject. (July)