Andean Cocaine

               As with previous books we’ve read this semester, Paul Gootenburg’s Andean Cocaine: The Making of a Global Drug delves into a world of a global narrative revolving around the commodity chains theory. Here we see a world interconnected with one another over a “miracle” medicine turned illicit transnational drug. Like last week’s Banana Culture, we see an expansion of coca farms in Peru in order to keep up with increased commercialization. However, with the increase in international regulation of the illicit drug, the cocaine industry in Peru vanished.

            Gootenburg does not end his commodity chain approach at Peruvians failed attempt to market a now illegal product. Readers see the emergence of the prohibited substance in South America that would slowly make its way globally. According to Gootenburg, “Smuggling of illicit cocaine from the Andes began in the immediate postwar years with the drying up of legitimate markets for Peruvian cocaine” (234). Although Gootenburg’s book did a great job illustrating the timeline from a miracle medicine to an illicit drug, I found the economics a bit lacking. I wish he explained the commodity chains theory a bit more thoroughly when it came to the cocaine industry.