ABSTRACT
This chapter shows the social and economic roots of illicit crop production in South America. It explores the differing contexts of governance in which coca leaf is grown in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. From the coca-leaf grower in the Upper Huallaga valley in Peru to the party-goer taking cocaine in New York or Madrid, the drugs trade is a global phenomenon. The chapter analyses the changing structure of drugs trafficking organisations. It discusses the role of domestic armed actors including paramilitaries and guerrillas in the drug-trafficking chain. The chapter also discusses the range of alternative policies being implemented in the region, including the consensus-based approach to controlling coca cultivation in Bolivia and the legalization of marijuana in Uruguay. It provides evidence that decades of policies focused on crop eradication and interdiction have failed to reduce significantly the supply of narcotics, but instead have displaced illicit crop cultivation and drugs production from one region to another within the Andean ridge countries, the so-called 'balloon effect'.
