"Please, tell your friends who use cocaine that for each time they have fun, I risk my life. Tell them they’re exploiting our desperation." Pedro, 20 year old, cocaine producer in Chapare region, Bolivia.
photo by Marco Vernaschi - see here the entire reportage
Our culture generally considers drug abuse as a problematic issue that affects our own society, but there is no real concern or awareness on how the demand for cocaine generates exploitation, slavery and death in other countries.
In Latin America, entire regions pay the price of the increasing demand for cocaine in Europe and the US. Cocaine has never been so popular and cheap, but while most of the consumers are ironically considered victims and surrounded by specialists of many kinds, there is no concern for those who make drugs because they would otherwise starve or for the innocents who someway pay the price of drug trafficking. This documentary is about their story.
The project is a journalistic investigation in the field to report about the real environment behind the world of drug trafficking.
trailer, 6'30" - a current affairs documentary by Marco Vernaschi and Seba Vitale
A bitter leaf article by Patrick Symmes, photos by Marco Vernaschi, Mother Jones, july/august 2008
Marco Vernaschi: Cocaine, interviewed by KZSC radio (30')
