The Lure of a Criminal Cash Crop

A pesant farmer harvests coca leaves in a jungle plot in Peru's Upper Huallaga Valley. The valley is the world's single largest source of coca, the raw material of cocaine. Photo by AP/Wide World Photos.

An aerial view of part of Peru's Upper Huallaga Valley shows ravaged patches of jungle which have been cleared by peasants for the illegal cultivation of coca bushes. Use of the pesticide Spike over the area, which is at the experimental stage, could further damage the ecosystem, according to environmental advocates. Photo by AP/Wide World Photos.

Police troopers guard a captured cocaine traffiker after a raid on a coca processing laboratory in Peru's jungle-cloaked Upper Huallaga Valley. Photo by AP/Wide World Photos.

This highway in Peru's Upper Huallaga Valley has been blockaded with downed tree trunks by coca farmers protesting plans to use the herbicide known as Spike. A truck help up by the blockade has been painted "the armed struggle." Photo by AP/Wide World Photos.

An American narcotics agent, right, armed with an M-16 assault rifle, backs up a Peruvian anti-drug police trooper as their U.S. Bell helicopter lands in a jungle clearing in a raid against a cocaine base laboratory in Peru's Upper Huallaga river valley. Photo by AP/Wide World Photos.

An American narcotics agent, masked to hide his identity for security reasons, stands guard beside a U.S. helicopter while Peruvian police blow up a clandestine airstrip used by cocaine smugglers in Peru's Upper Huallaga Valley. Photo by AP/Wide World Photos.

Drug detectives lug bulging sacks of semi-processed cocaine up the stairs of an incinerator in Lima as armed police stand guard. Police burned some 4,500 pounds of the drug, in addition to 15 pounds of pure cocaine, all of which was captured during recent drug raids in the Peru jungle. Officials say the destroyed drugs had a value of $30 million of the international market. Photo by AP/Wide World Photos.

APF Fellow