THE “DOPE” TRAFFIC

Otago Witness, Issue 3590, 2 January 1923, Page 28

THE “DOPE” TRAFFIC

A NEW JAPANESE “ENTERPRISE.” PLANTATIONS IN PERU. Cocaine and other alkaloids which are obtainable from the coca leaf are being manufactured on a huge scale by a Japanese syndicate which has acquired large estates for this purpose in the interior of Peru despite the vigorous protest of some of the mma newspapers (states the Lima correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor). The project is so large that it is enabling the Japanese to gain an ever-in-creasing control of the local market for coco leaves the chewing of which is a vioe among some of vtlie South American Indians that has reduced what was once a strong race to an almost unbelievable depth of degradation. Although this exploitation of the . coca tree by the Japanese has been going on for two years, it has been attended by such secrecy that the correspondent was surprised to find that well-informed business men and Government officials in Lima, who are supposed to be in close touch with commercial developments, do riot even know tuat such an enterprise exist® in Peru to-daty. It was only after careful investigation that a few details were uncovered, and, once the Japanese methods of working were unearthed, there was less cause to be surprised at the general lack of knowledge. ROUNDABOUT ROUTES!. To begin with, the Japanese have gone far into the interior .of Peru to carry on their drug making and even then they are using roundabout shipping routes so that their products will not pass through any large port. The estates are situated in the province of Huanueo, several hundred miles from Lima, and are further separated from the coast by the high steep Andes range. Communication between Huanueo and the capital is slow and difficult, and the people who live in Lima know little of what goes on beyond the mountains. The" Japanese estates are in that rich agricultural section of Peru along the upperhead waters of the Amazon, which has only very recently been cleared of the tropical jungles which have covered it for centuries. In addition to the natural secrecy that is afforded by the absence of easy means of communication between this region and the capital, the Japanese ship their products through a small port where the Cushouse returns are not as accessible to the public as those at. Callao, which is the natural port of exit for the region in which the Japanese are located. The cocaine and other alkaloids manufactured bv the Japanese are exported from Eteri, a little port in the north of Peru, which is farther from the Japanese estates than is Cidlao. Instead of sending the products to the railhead of the Central* of Peru Railway, the Japanese send them overland and down the Maranon River to a place near Eten, and then cross the mountains on pack animals. It is a long and difficult journey, but once arrived in Eten there is little possibility of the outside world learning what was shipped. One shipment of unrefined cocaine, was exported quite recently, but it has proved impossible to learn in Lima what the value of the annual export is, although ft is said here that the shipments are largo and regular. A great part of the drugs exported by the Japanese are sent to Germany for refining. and there are also large shipments to japan. The shipment already mentioned went to Germany.” LAND BOUGHT OUTRIGHT. The Japanese are not working a Government concession, but are on land which they bought outright from a wealthy property owner in Lima. It is understood that an effort was made to get Government land, but the effort was not successful, so the Japanese bought the property outright at a good price. The purchase was made in the name of a. large drug firm of Tokio. and the negotiations in Peru were in the hands of S. G. Kitsutani and Company, a big Japanese import and export house of Lima. The Japanese attempted to keep the negotiations secret, but the newspapers of Lima learned that a huge drug-making scheme was on foot, and some of them, specially El Tiempo, very bitterly attacked the idea, both on the ground that it meant the exploitation of a deadly drug and that it would increase the immigration of low-class Japanese coolie labour. It is said in Lima that, this newspaper criticism was largely responsible for the fact that the Government did not grant the concession which the Japanese were after. However, when they offered to buy land outright from a private owner no amount of protesting from those who knew what was being planned could prevent the sale. The Japanese moved into the country through the small ports of the north, where their entry would not be commented upon in Lima, and for the last two years little has been learned of their activities except that they are cultivating the coca tree on

a big and shipping cocaine in quantities that indicate that the enterprise is a big one. EXTRACTED FROM COCA LEAF. Cocaine is extracted irom the coca leaf, which, in a raw state, has done for the In dians of South America what opium has done for the Chinese. More than 8,000,000 Indians in Peru, Columbia, Ecuador, and liolivia chew the coca leaf as a stimulant to such an extent that the race has become degraded to a plane very slightly above that of animals. In Chile, where the coca leaf is unknown, the Araucano Indian is a strong virile race that has never been conquered, even by white armies. But the protests that have been made against this Japanese enterprise do not arise so much for an altruistic interest in Europeans or Asiatics who may become drug victims, as they do from a close interest in the effect of coca on the South American Indians. “Almost all the labour ia Peru, Bolivia, Columbia, and Ecuador is furnished by Indians, and the efficiency of these Indians, even as burden bearers, is reduced almost to zero by their continual chewing of coca leaves. Every Indian oar ries a small pouch of coca leaves tied to i San d chews the leaves continually while at work. Every one of these Indians chew frosa 2oz to 3oz of coca leaves every day, and ti.*e importance of the Japanese project becomes apparent when it is realised that the chewing of 2oz of leaves a day by 8,000,000 Indians means a consumption of 16,vww,v«Ai ounces, or 1,000,0001 bof coca leaves every day in the countries of the central part of South America. 'lhis consumption reaches the huge total of 365,000,0001 b, or 182,500 tons a year. As one - travels through the interior of South America it soon becomes apparent that the coca leaf is one of the most common articles of trade through out the land, in the large cities, as well as the tiny settlements. After being dried in the sun, the leaves are \° market in gunny sacks, and halftilled sacks with their tops rolled down are seen in front of every small store in everv settlement in Bolivia. Peru, and the neighbouring countries. In La Paz, the cauital of Bolivia, where the population is 75 per cent, pure Indian, coca leaves are displayed m large number on the sidewalks in the heart of the city, and appear to be a much better article of trade than potatoes or any i°°dstuff. In the big central market of Lima, the capital of Pern, a sack of coca leaves forms part of the stock of trade of every stall, and, as in La Paz, the leaves are displayed on the sidewalks, where they tempt every passing Indian./ cheapness of Japanese labour has enabled the Japanese to push aside even the cheap Indian labour in several lines of endeavour in Peru, and as the Japanese coolie is more efficient than the coca-chewing In dian, it is very probable that the Japanese will be able to gain complete control of the coca leaf market in the near future. This is not a market that oan be enlarged, as the Indians already use the leaf to their full consuming capacity, but if the Japanese can undersell their competitors and control the business of supplying dried leaves to the Indians, this will give them the strong foothold and financial resources that wall enable them to compete to better advantage in supplying cocaine and other alkaloids to the foreign drug markets.