Cocaine

(Paperback)

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Description

From South American coca in the fifth century BC, to Queen Victoria's endorsement of cocaine wine and Freud's use of cocaine in his discoveries, to the discovery of "crack" in 1983, cocaine has played a very important political, economic and social role. In the US, in one year alone, cocaine-related business costs the best part of $125 billion: cocaine as a commodity has an economic importance that far outweighs its intrinsic value. And now there's a new strand to this story - the possible discovery of a vaccine. Is this the end of the line for cocaine In "Cocaine", Dominic Streatfeild sets out to discover not the history of organized drug crime, but the story of the drug itself. His research takes him from the arcane reaches of the British Library to the isolation cells of America's most secure prisons; from the crack houses of New York to the jungles of Bolivia and Colombia.

Reviews

"The best volume on charlie for years...addictive" Observer "The most comprehensive and intelligent history of cocaine available today" The Times "Stick your hooter into this volume and you won't be able to stop until you've sniffed out all of its contents" Time Out

Author Bio

Dominic Streatfeild is a TV producer and researcher. Two of his books, Silk Route by Rail and Trans-Siberian Handbook, were nominated for the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award.