Why Cocaine Is Worth £110,000 a Kilo

In The War On Drugs Show, we examine the social implications of drug prohibition – how it plays into user harms, arrest and incarceration rates, drug seizures and the destruction of criminal networks.

Whether, basically, prohibition works or not.

In this episode, we look at the global cocaine trade. From the coca leaves illicitly grown in the jungles of South America, to the lines snorted in nightclub toilets around the world, the industry is worth $100 billion a year.

But how does the trade actually work? Here, we explore why it functions the way it does, and why the brutal tactics of the War on Drugs – which is designed only to suppress the business – were doomed from the start, and continue to needlessly target the most vulnerable across the world.