Publisher's Synopsis
After the Colombian government and the Bush administration declared all-out war on the Colombian drug barons, cocaine traffickers turned their attention to Bolivia, the rugged landlocked country to the south. Already the largest producer of the raw coca leaf, Bolivia tripled its production of refined cocaine between 1989 and 1991 and now ranks second in the world. Profits from the cocaine industry have proved to be as addictive as the drug itself -- indeed, the Bolivian economy has become dependent on it. The prospect of weaning Bolivia off cocaine looks bleak without a drastic drop in demand from the West. This seems unlikely when the U.S. War on Drugs focuses on intervention abroad rather than education at home and the dismantling of Europe's borders results in an expanded European market for drugs. Unlike previous books on the cocaine trade, which examine the problem through Western eyes, ""Snowfields"" looks at the drug business through the eyes of the main players in Bolivia, where the white powder is made. In this compelling account, Clare Hargreaves draws from scores of interviews with drug barons who rule over vast empires, dirt-poor coca farmers, addicts, traffickers, the military, politicians, and America's drug warriors from the Drug Enforcement Administration.
