Cocaine: An unauthorized Biography - Streatfield, Dominic 0.45kg

Hardcover. English. Thomas Dunne. 2001. 510pp.

Good condition in hardcover with good dw.

On May 16th, 1499 Amerigo Vespucci set sail for the New World. Three months later, having navigated his way along the coastline of Brazil, he washed up on an idyllic desert island fifteen leagues from the mainland. There he was appalled to discover a tribe of hideous Indians, their mouths stuffed full of leaves "like beasts." The leaves were coca, source of the drug cocaine.
Five hundred years later, the effects of the discovery are still felt. In 1999 South America produced 613,4000 tons of coca, with a potential yield of 765 tons of cocaine. Last year a United Nations report estimated that the global cocaine trade generated $92 billion per year - $20 billion more than the combined revenues of Microsoft, Kellogg's and McDonald's.