We Sell Drugs: The Alchemy of US EmpireThis history of US-led international drug control provides new perspectives on the economic, ideological, and political foundations of a Cold War American empire. US officials assumed the helm of international drug control after World War II at a moment of unprecedented geopolitical influence embodied in the growing economic clout of its pharmaceutical industry. We Sell Drugs is a study grounded in the transnational geography and political economy of the coca-leaf and coca-derived commodities market stretching from Peru and Bolivia into the United States. More than a narrow biography of one famous plant and its equally famous derivative products—Coca-Cola and cocaine—this book situates these commodities within the larger landscape of drug production and consumption. Examining efforts to control the circuits through which coca traveled, Suzanna Reiss provides a geographic and legal basis for considering the historical construction of designations of legality and illegality. The book also argues that the legal status of any given drug is largely premised on who grew, manufactured, distributed, and consumed it and not on the qualities of the drug itself. Drug control is a powerful tool for ordering international trade, national economies, and society’s habits and daily lives. In a historical landscape animated by struggles over political economy, national autonomy, hegemony, and racial equality, We Sell Drugs insists on the socio-historical underpinnings of designations of legality to explore how drug control became a major weapon in asserting control of domestic and international affairs. |
Contents
WWII | 15 |
American Drug Commodities | 53 |
Exporting Drug Control to the Andes | 97 |
Drugs and Development | 132 |
Drugs and Policing in the | 174 |
Acknowledgments | 229 |
| 281 | |
| 299 | |
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Common terms and phrases
addiction alkaloid American Andean Bolivia Bureau of Narcotics coca commodity coca leaf chewing Coca-Cola Company cocaine Cold Cold War collaboration colonial Commission of Enquiry Commissioner of Narcotics Committee on Appropriations Cong consumer consumption cotics countries Cuban cultivation cultural defense drug commodities drug control regime drug production drug trade economic warfare efforts Embassy export FBN's File flavoring extract foreign global H.J. Anslinger Harry Anslinger illicit import Indian indigenous influence international drug control January jazz Latin America leaves legitimate Lima Maywood medicinal ment Merck Merck & Co military NACP Narcotic Drugs Narcotics Control national security nomic officials opium Peru Peru and Bolivia Peruvian pharmaceutical industry policing Protocol public health racial Ralph Hayes raw materials regulatory Report Resources for Freedom scientific sess Single Convention social Soviet stockpiles supply tion traffic Treasury Department United Nations war on drugs World World War II York