Just as I was contemplating drugs in the Andes, the UN released their annual World Drug Report. With the information therein, Carwil makes many of the points I was trying to illustrate in my last post. I’ll highlight a few key points here, but he writes about the topic from a more clear and better informed position, so I’d recommend reading his whole post. And now fot the key points:

1. Carwil writes “rewarding loyal allies while punishing governments that question US foreign policy, than with actual results.” And as I tried to demonstrate, this is not only something that happens within USG, but extends to perceptions of citizens as well. Colombia and Peru generally abide by the US status quo. And thus, we think of those nations as “safe, friendly, and inviting” for tourism and developing if not fully developed. Bolvia on the other hand is still seen as dangerous backwater. Their rogue indigenous president can’t be trusted and you can’t even buy tampons in supermarkets! Perhaps that’s a grander extrapolation than I should make purely on DEA relations with GOB, but it definitely does have a reputation, at least among travelers, for being a drug haven. And even Paceños constantly talk about all the corruption in their government having to do with drug smuggling. So, strained diplomatic relations are just the beginning. Perceptions can go a long way, tourism deficits being the least of the repercussions.

2. “Overall, Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia now have a 40-40-20 split of coca production, but only Bolivia is decertified by the United States.” My comment: ahem, politics.

3. “US authorities trace 90% of the US [cocaine] supply to Colombia.” So why is Bolivia decertified? Certainly, cocaine consumption in South America may be a larger market for Bolivan coca, and hectares of coca cultivation have surpassed the GOB allowances. However, it still certainly seems that as a “world producer” Bolivia is not that much of a threat. 

But in the end, what this all makes clear (at least to me) is the way the “War on Drugs” serves to further cultural imperialism. The US blames a consumption problem on producing states, ignoring (and attempting to erase) traditional Andean practices of coca chewing. Their “needs” are put above those of other governments’, devaluing non-North Atlantic cultural priorities in the process.

Junot Díaz, author of The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (who incidentally I have taken to following in my constructions of "he was brian smith before brian smith was brian smith") has written an amazing piece on the social nature of "natural" disasters for the Boston Review, titled Apocalypse: What Disasters Reveal. My intention with these fieldnotes is not to create a blog that simply links to good things I've found on the web, but I think Díaz does an excellent job of explaining what I briefly alluded to in my post that mentions the Bolivian landslides (but was really more about the global reach of Justin Bieber). So, I'm offering it up here, I suppose as a nod, not only to the theorists whose works I benefit from, but also to amazing writers who are brilliant with words, accessible, and poignant all at once.