Alcohol and Drugs History Society

Drug Czar Skips Policy Conference and Inspects Columbia WOD

U.S. Drug Czar Gene Kerlikowske skipped a drug policy conference hosted by University of El Paso last week and has been located in Columbia on a tour inspecting the fruits of U.S. spending on eradicating cocaine.

Beer sales go flat in so-called emerging economies

Beer sales have gone flat in many so-called emerging economies.  The decline has been especially sharp in Russia, Colombia, and South Africa.  There are exceptions, for instance, Peru.  For details, see here.

Cocaine and the Environment

A case study published in the Trade and Environment Database, at the American University in Washington, DC, reports that the production of cocaine in South America, especially the Andean region, has had a devastating impact on the environment. Find the full report here.

Colombia to open 500 more Juan Valdez coffee shops by 2010

At a time when Starbucks is reining back its expansion plans and closing some stores, the Colombian-based Juan Valdez coffee shop chain plans to grow. Founded in 2002, it currently has 101 shops in Colombia itself and a few in the USA and Spain. By 2010, 500 new coffee shops (named after a fictive pitchman) will be in the USA, Latin America, and Europe. The purpose of the Juan Valdez coffee shops is to advertise Colombian coffee and not to make a profit. The chain is mostly owned by a coffee federation, founded in 1927, with over 22,000 coffee-growing members. There are about four million small coffee farmers in Colombia. For details, see here.

Drug fighting drives Colombians from their homes

In the first six months of 2008, drug fighting has forced 270,000 Colombians to abandon their homes and three million since the 1980s. A major reason for their expulsion is to grow coca for cocaine. Colombia now has more internal refugees than any country other than the Sudan. For more, see here.

Cocaine sustains guerilla war in rural Colombia

Talk of the end of the guerilla war in Colombia seems premature in rural areas where cocaine sustains the guerilla struggle. For details, see here.

Coffee in Colombia, 1850-1970 (book)

Marcos Palacios, Coffee in Colombia, 1850-1970: An Economic, Social and Political History (new edition; Cambridge UP, 2002).

List of tables; List of figures; List of maps; Preface; Acknowledgements; 1. The Colombian export economy in the second half of the nineteenth century; 2. The making of an oligarchy; 3. Land and society in central Colombia in the second half of the nineteenth century; 4. The internal structure of the coffee haciendas, 1870-1930; 5. Living conditions and internal contradictions in the hacienda structure; 6. Inflation, devaluation, and export taxes, 1870-1904; 7. Crisis and transition towards the second cycle of expansion, 1903-10; 8. Private appropriation of public lands in the west; 9. Sociopolitical elements of antiogueno colonization; 10. Coffee expansion and the strengthening of the Liberal model of development, 1910-50; 11. The international cycle and coffee policies confronting the peasant, 1930-70; Appendices; Weights and measures; Glossary; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Colombian cocaine destroying Guinea-Bissau

Colombian cocaine is destroying Guinea-Bissau, a small West African country, with a tiny, ill-equipped police force and virtually no navy or air force. Drug dealers corrupt the government, while cheap cocaine assaults the population. Why Guinea-Bissau? It is a smuggling link between South America and Western Europe. For more, see here.

2.5 tons of cocaine seized off coast of Liberia

A French warship seized a ship carrying 2.5 tons of cocaine and towed it to a nearby port in Liberia. South American cocaine producers increasingly seek to stock the European market via West Africa where law enforcement is lax. For more, see here.

With the help of Calabrian crime families, do Europeans consume more cocaine than Americans?

Arguably, more cocaine now is consumed in Europe than in the United States, and the European cocaine trade is controlled by a loose Italian confederation of southern Calabrian crime families known as the Ndrangheta in alliance with the Colombian syndicate that produces the drug. For more, see here.