Despite the United Nations confirming in 2013 that Peru has overtaken Colombia as the world's top coca and cocaine producer, the country's place atop the drug supply chain has — at least so far — not included the levels of violence seen in Colombia, Mexico, and other international narcotics hubs.
The frontlines of Peru's war on cocaine are restricted to remote coca-producing basins, where drug laboratories and illegal landing strips are abundant. But the government's campaign of crop eradication and efforts to destroy narco runways risk further igniting a larger social conflict, alienating the coca farmers whose livelihoods depend on growing the illicit crop.
VICE News traveled to the heart of Peru's coca-producing region to witness how the government is waging a war on drugs with the aim of putting an early end to its reign as the world's new king of cocaine.
Read "Sacred Cocaine: Inside the Peruvian Sect Accused of Growing Coca in the Amazon"