Cocaine Nation: How the White Trade Took Over the World

Front Cover
Pegasus Books, Jun 14, 2011 - History - 356 pages
An in-depth look at the cocaine industry, from the streets of Colombia to the clubs of New York and London, in a Fast Food Nation-style expose of the impact of “the white trade” in our society 
From farmers and traffickers in South America, to narcotics officers, gang-members, and end-users across the globe, Tom Feiling, an award-winning documentary film-maker, travels across the world to hear these people tell the story of cocaine as never before. He tells the story of the development of coca and cocaine, from ancestral indigenous use, to Freud and Jung, through the present day. He looks at the supply of the drug from the Andes, through the Caribbean and Mexico, the havoc it has wreaked on those societies, how demand has changed, what it does to one’s body, and what people on all ends of the spectrum hope to gain from it. Feiling also addresses the “War on Drugs” that began in the 1990s and how its draconian methods and out-of-touch rhetoric are almost completely ineffective, and how specific legislation can help alleviate the negative impact of drug-trade world-wide.

About the author (2011)

Tom Feiling is an award-winning documentary filmmaker. He spent a year working in South America, where he made Resistencia: Hip-Hop in Colombia, which won numerous awards around the world. He now lives in London, where he is a director for “Justice for Colombia,” which defends human rights in Colombia. 

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