Cocaine in Indonesia: Past or future?

Cocaine in Indonesia: Past or future?

By Chris W. Green

JAKARTA (JP): While we hear a lot about putaw (heroin) and
shabu-shabu (methamphetamine) as the hard drugs of choice in
Indonesia, the third member of this trio, cocaine, is less often
mentioned.

And when it is, it is usually as an expensive drug used only
by the rich, which is perhaps surprising, because only 70 years
ago, Indonesia was the world's foremost exporter of coca leaves.

When we talk of cocaine, we usually think of Central and South
America as being the source. And indeed, the coca bush is
indigenous to the Andean region of South America. For centuries
coca was grown there to satisfy the local demand from people who
chew the leaves as a stimulant.

Exports first of leaves and then of processed cocaine started
in the latter half of the 19th century. Of course in those days,
it was not illegal; the best known product to use cocaine was
Coca-Cola, which was strongly promoted as being alcohol-free!

Needless to say, Coca-Cola no longer contains even a hint of
cocaine.

The main producers of coca leaves in those days were Peru and
Bolivia. Exports from these countries rose steadily until the
early 1900s, but then they started to suffer a sharp decline due
to competition from a new source: Java.

There had been proposals to plant coca bushes in Java as early
as 1854, but these were rejected, partly out of fear that the
local population would start to use coca, as had happened in
Peru.

However, the rise in world demand in the 1870s overcame the
objections. Following experimentation, a Javanese plant was
developed with leaves that contained about 1.5 percent cocaine,
much higher than the South American product.

Exports of the leaves boomed, with over 1,000 tons of leaves
being exported to Amsterdam for processing in 1912. And although
this dropped off during World War I, by 1920 exports had again
risen to 1,600 tons, equivalent to 25 tons of processed cocaine.
By comparison, during its heyday in 1905, Peru only exported the
equivalent of 22 tons of cocaine, while Bolivia never even
reached 5 tons.

Global concern over drug use started to result in its
international regulation in 1911, with the Hague Opium
Conference. But it was not until the mid 1920s that drug laws
started to be enforced in Europe, coinciding with public concern
that caused a fall in demand. As a result, by 1935 exports from
Java had fallen to less than 2 tons, with the worldwide total
under 10 tons.

What happened after this is not so clearly documented, since
production was driven underground and statistics are more
difficult to come by. It seems unlikely that cultivation of coca
bushes ever stopped in Java.

Cocaine had been consumed in Japan since at least 1915, and
coca was cultivated in significant quantities in Formosa (Taiwan)
from the 1920s while that island was under Japanese occupation.
Japanese use of stimulants during World War II is well known, so
it is not unlikely that production continued in Indonesia during
the Japanese occupation.

Recently I was shown some fresh coca leaves, grown in the
Yogyakarta area.

While demands on land, and perhaps surveillance by law
enforcement authorities, may now preclude cultivation in such
large quantities as before in Java, such barriers to production
may not exist in other parts of the country.

Thus it would be foolhardy to assume that cocaine will always
remain a 'premium' drug here. Indeed, experience in other parts
of the world has often shown that action to restrict the supply
of one drug has only resulted in the increase in availability of
others, from other sources.

In the (indeed, unlikely!) event that smuggling of heroin
into Indonesia was halted, or if other action reduced the supply,
"commercial" pressures would result in an increase in locally-
produced drugs, such as shabu-shabu and cocaine, to meet the
demand. But other factors could also result in a change in
patterns of use -- drug use can be driven by trends just as any
other consumer product.

We should therefore be ready for such a change if and when it
occurs. Addiction to cocaine, and especially "crack" is in some
ways more difficult to treat than heroin addiction. And the
medical treatment is different, both for withdrawal and for
overdose.

Cocaine is no stranger to Indonesia. Let us not ignore the
threat that it could once again pose.

(Acknowledgment: Much of the historical data for this article
has been taken from the paper International traffic in coca
through the early 20th century by David F. Musto, in the journal
Drug and Alcohol Dependence 49, 1998).

-- The writer is an activist working with AIDS and drugs,
including publishing BeritaNAZA, a monthly newsletter in
Indonesian on drugs matters.