Event Highlights: The Rise and Fall of Colombia’s First Drug Paradise | Latin American Studies

Event Highlights: The Rise and Fall of Colombia’s First Drug Paradise

This virtual talk by Lina Britto, Associate Professor of History at Northwestern University, took place on Thursday, March 25, 2021. The subject of discussion was Britto’s book Marijuana Boom: The Rise and Fall of Colombia’s First Drug Paradise (University of California Press, 2020). Combining deep archival research with oral history, the book deciphers a puzzle: Why did the Colombian coffee republic, a model of Latin American representative democracy and economic modernization, transform into a drug paradise, and at what cost?

In her talk, which was moderated by Ana Villarreal, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Boston University, Britto traced Colombia’s transformation from a model of democracy and modernization into a marijuana paradise. According to Britto, the “marijuana boom” in Colombia was a critical component of hemispheric relations to the extent that it served as a training ground for war on drugs in South America.

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