Because of the lack of any in-depth research on the workings of the cocaine industry in the processing regions and on social changes of the drug trade, scholarly writings on the cocaine industry are full of assumptions and speculation. This article, on the contrary, tries to capture how the illegal cocaine industry and its related violence became integrated into the daily lives of the local residents of the Upper Huallaga, one of Peru’s largest cocaine enclaves. It is argued that for those drug smugglers lower on the economic scale, involvement in an illegal industry involves an ongoing sense of economic and physical vulnerability. Moreover, it is described that higher echelons involved lived under a constant threat of violence.
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