The drug trade, the black economy, and society in western Amazonia

This article describes some of the main social and political consequences o f the emergence of the cocaine trade in Brazilian Amazonia, taking as an ex ample the state of Acre. Drug trafficking, which concerns all sections of s ociety, has, like other illegal networks, become an alternative to the rubb er industry, which has been in crisis since the 1980s. Its implications dif fer, however, in the northern and southern parts of the state. In the latte r, especially in the capital, Acre, the development of a local market of ur ban consumers is closely connected to police corruption and the illegal use of violence by law enforcement agencies. In the former, where machinery fo r the social redistribution of illegal income seems to be more effective, t he cocaine trade is contributing to a degree of prosperity, thanks in parti cular to recent growth in the service sector. While violence is, comparativ ely speaking, less necessary as a guarantee of social control in that regio n, the control exercised by drug barons and business people over the execut ive branches of the state means that political life as a whole is criss-cro ssed by relationships forged in the criminal world.