Andean Cocaine

In last week’s election we witnessed two additional states legalizing Marijuana. Weather or not you are for or against legalization of drugs, we cannot deny the positive influences of drugs in modern science. The book Andean Cocaine by Paul Gootenberg examined the history of cocaine locally (where cocaine plants grow) and globally (where the product is to exported mainly North America/Europe).  The author does not demonize cocaine; to the contrary he argues cocaine’s impact in human body as treatment and pain suppressor.

In general the book is well written, the author is able to convince the reader with his argument.  However, viewing this book from the lens of commodity and commodity history I think the author falls behind in some aspects: production, conception, supply and demand are not parallel.  More focus is put on countries, which import or export cocaine, whereas supply and demand were restricted to medical use of the product.  I was expecting the emphasis to remain in the realm of the positive influence of the commodity instead of spending time in the negative aspect of cocaine. Since cocaine is not a normal commodity such as coffee, tea or sugar there is one of two ways to approach a commodity such as this, either to support or to be against it; the author covered both sides, which diverted his main argument. 

Reading about cocaine as commodity was fascinating because people usually avoid discussing such product.  This book not only is a good reference to my final project but also an excellent source for addressing controversial products such as cocaine.