Despite being the infamous raw material of the drug cocaine, very little is actually known about the coca plant and its wild relatives in the Andes mountains. Oscar Alejandro Perez-Escobar, a ...

On Sept. 5, 1989, President George H.W. Bush appeared on live television to discuss what he called the nation's "gravest domestic threat." Sitting at his desk in the oval office, Bush held up a bag of ...

Long criminalized as the raw material for cocaine, coca is woven into Bolivian life. The government is lobbying the U.N. to ease international restrictions. Marilin Catari, 57, who has worked her ...

Anywhere else in South America, a nondescript house with buckets of coca leaves soaking in liquid could be mistaken for a clandestine cocaine lab. But this is La Paz, Bolivia, and the fruity aroma of ...

It’s been nearly 40 years since crack cocaine invaded neighborhoods across the country, and some communities are still feeling the effects. The Del Paso Heights neighborhood in Sacramento was one of ...

Guess you really can’t beat the real thing. Coca-Cola gets its iconic taste thanks in part to a chemical processing factory in a sleepy New Jersey neighborhood that has the country’s only license to ...

CONTAGEM, Brazil—It took 24 years for Adriano Martins to kick his addiction to crack cocaine. He slept on the street, dodged drug traffickers trying to kill him over unpaid debts and went to prison ...