Chemical warfare in Colombia

The costs of coca fumigation

Hugh O’Shaughnessy and Sue Branford, Latin America Bureau, paperback, 168 pages, £8.99

There are a quarter of a million cocaine users in the UK, spending over £5,000 a year on their habit. Demand from richer countries such as Britain is driving the expansion of coca cultivation in places like Colombia.

And the process is self-reinforcing. Although for every £1,000 spent on cocaine, the average peasant cultivator gets £6 — this still represents a significantly larger income than from other crops.

The book charts the history of coca production and the “war on drugs” conducted by the US to eradicate it. The authors are critical of US attempts to “poison” the crop out of existence — but also pull no punches about the culpability of South American governments, drug cartels or the FARC guerrillas, all of whom have used drug money to fund political activity.