Paul Gootenberg's Andean Cocaine: The Making of a Global Drug (2008) presents the history of cocaine and its evolution from a simple drug used in more legal forms in its Andean origins, the use in popular drinks in Coca-Cola of the nineteenth century, to the more illicit drug of the latter portion of the twentieth century. This monograph presents cocaine not merely under the perspective of Pan-Americanism but under globalization--a theme already previously been explored with other monographs within this course. North America, South America, Europe, and even Japan have taken apart in both the possession, distribution/sale, and use of the 'illicit' commodity. The text states, "Yet 7 million, or half of the world's 14 million regular cocaine users, remain North Americans (compared to 3.5 million Europeans who indulge), white and black, rich and poor, who altogether snort some 250-300 tons of it yearly. Well over 25 million Americans have tried cocaine... They far surpass in numbers the surviving, or perhaps thriving, indigenous coqueros of the Andes, who now likely number around 6-8 million. In Peru, only 10 percent of coca is for legal or "traditional" usage, while the rest goes for cocaine" (314). This shows that the drug is deployed and consumed globally--it knows no racial or economic boundaries in consumption. Yet, primary consumption remains in the U.S. than other regions, with its numbers in users having tried the narcotic outnumbering certain populaces in the Andes. Coca, while somewhat legal in Peru, the majority of it still ends up within the cocaine market. Pre-World War II indicates that Japanese, German, and American persons in the Andes during the 1930s, utilizing portions of Peruvian rain forest, the Tingo maria area, for cocaine cultivation. Gootenberg writes, "This particular swath of rain forest has an uncanny centrality in the world history of cocaine as a meeting place of German (Kitz), Peruvian (Durand), Japanese (Hoshi), and now American interests in the drug, and later, those of nascent 1970s narcotraficantes. Peruvian Nisei like the Saitos, Oshis, and Sawadas had worked its many fundos, foremost among them Pampayacu, delivering coca leaf, cocaine, cinchona bark, and knowledge of coca culture back to Japan during the 1920s and 1930s" (292). Areas of the Peruvian jungle was ripe for coca cultivation in addition to harvesting the knowledge in production for coca and cocaine--knowledge that was wanted by a multitude of nationalities, from German to Japanese. Yet, the knowledge most beneficial would be indeed to those narcotraficantes or drug traffickers of post-WWII and into the late 1970s. These smugglers, particularly the Colombians of the 1970s, however, received its raw supply, the pasta basica de cocaina, from those peasant classes, assisting Columbian business middlemen and distributors. These smugglers then go on to ship product to North America primarily. However, the point here is that the cultivation and deployment of the drug is an endeavor that was not and indeed is not a Pan-American venture throughout its history, especially the history Gootenberg crafts. It is a globalized commodity. By extension, the agency does merely fall on the Andean region peasant class, the South American smugglers, the Andean or foreign consumer. Globalization through market forces (global and Andean capitalism) hold primary agency in Gootenberg's narrative.
The second point I wish to consider is criminality and deployment of law enforcement. This point I have witnessed came up briefly in the Cochineal text but it definitely comes up again with Gootenberg. He brings up the Nixon Administration's drug policy or 'war on drugs' to counteract the ills of the commodity. The monograph argues, "Nixon's drug policy, sometimes applauded for its social realism, embraced a wholesale utilization of methadone clinics to stem the politicized urban crime wave associated with the African American heroin problem, which had multiplied some ten times during the 1960s, and to calm fears of soaring drug abuse by disgruntled returning Vietnam veterans" (308). The main problem for Nixon was curbing the heroin problem of minority communities as well as curtailing drug problems from rising concerns of those veterans returning from Vietnam in the 1970s. The criminality was in social ills. With cocaine, the policies of Nixon did not work out so well--especially in comparing the drug with the already in-place marijuana. Additionally, Gootenberg states, "Edgy addicts sought out cocaine to alleviate the numbing effect of their therapy, or they simply switched their pleasures" (308). Addicts, trying to alleviate their symptoms from getting off other narcotics, sought cocaine as a reliever, which needless to say, did not help in deterring the drug. U.S. drug agencies, to include the DEA, saw the drug as a low-risk drug. Gootenberg argues, "In April 1974, the newly formed DEA appointed an eight-man Federal Cocaine Policy Task Force to look in the drug's "potential hazard to society." The resulting report reviewed the scant data on users, cocaine's "colorful past," and the "divergent opinions" of the enforcement and "treatment community," which had yet to see a demand to cure cocaine addiction" (309-10). The point here is that law enforcement agencies, to include the DEA, saw that cocaine was not an adverse danger to the American populace and did not have data to support any intent of enacting cures to cocaine usage. Criminality via the Nixon administration tried to push cocaine away as a social and criminally 'immoral' drug that impacted society negatively, only to find it being used by drug addicts to aid in alleviating withdrawals from other drugs. Further, law enforcement agencies did not see pressing matters that cocaine needed direct attention, although data was not significant yet during the 1970s to indicate otherwise. With the progression into the latter decades and into the 2000s, it is curious to see whether the author would have or could have utilized newer research that would possibly alter his analysis on the sale/distribution, usage, and view of criminal enterprises of cocaine in the U.S. Would cocaine still seem relatively harmless to U.S. citizens and those persons abroad?
Additionally, looking over the criminal code (18.2) of the Commonwealth of Virginia as it relates to cocaine may help facilitate for a healthy discussion on the legality and criminal penalties of cocaine. At least on the State level. Below, you can find links to the criminal codes.
18.2-248 - https://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+18.2-248
18.2-255 (Sale to minors) - https://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+18.2-255
18.2-255.2 (Narcotics next to public buildings i.e schools) - https://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+18.2-255.2
DEA's scheduling of cocaine - http://www.justice.gov/dea/druginfo/ds.shtml
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