Er… was that a pianist joke?
meta-x, the name of this site notwithstanding, we are not a drug site.
And we do not condone instructions on how to break the law. You know this; you agreed to cooperate when you registered.
You are not to post instructions on how to break the law again.
I’m definitely not suggesting that anyone should do it, but I don’t think coca plants would stand out in the same way that cannabis does; cannabis is a very distinctive (and attractive, IMHO) plant; coca, on the other hand is a pretty nondescript evergreen bush - if the local conditions were right, I reckon it would never be noticed in a garden shrub border or even as a hedge.
The processing is probably the stumbling block I’d say; from what I have read, you’d have to be mad to muck about with the chemicals needed to process the stuff.
Who says it’s NOT being done? If anyone was growing that stuff in the US, they wouldn’t come out & say so. Frankly, I think that as they have said before, its too much work. As a landscaper, I don’t see why it cannot be grown in the US.
There is at least one pharmacuetical company in the U.S. that makes pure cocaine for surgical use. One use I know of is to shrink sinuses for surgeries involving sinuses. It’s use is highly restrictive. I think Cecil had a column on it once.
Hey javaman aren’t there (or at least used to be) coffee plantations in Hawaii? Also, I think that in some cases in Colombia they intermix the cocoa plants with coffee plants to throw off the Federales. So you might be able to grow it in Hawaii and probably places in California, but it’d probably be hard to keep it from being spotted rightaway, whereas in South America, there’s plenty of isolated locations one can grow the stuff and not have to worry too much about it being spotted before harvest time.
Well, I’m assuming that if it’s a drug offense to possess coca leaves, then it’s probably a drug offense to use them to make coca tea.
Is cocaine legal in Colombia?
Still typical as of about 3 years ago. How much did one cost back ‘in the day’?
No. The cultivation of the coca leaf was made illegal in Colombia in 1947. Cocaine (though not necessarily the leaf) was banned internationally by the 1988 United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psycotropic Substances. Coca, but not cocaine, is legal in Bolivia.
"Clean that mess up else we’ll all end up in jail.
The test tubes and the scale,
Just get it on out of here.
Get along, get along Kid Charlemagne."
Beggar,
Nothing brings a smile to my face quicker than someone who gets the name reference. 
Something you have to think about is the relative prices. If you can earn 2$ a day by growing coffee and 4$ for growing coca, you grow the coca. However, look at how little you’re earning! The reason they grow it is because it is the best-priced crop in that region. Growing makes tiny amounts of money. The big bucks go to the people who refine it.
Also, if you are planning on refining it, you might want to take out a life insurance policy. I can assure you that the chemicals you use will catch on fire, and are very explosive. Something to think about: 55-gallon drums filled with ether.
This is the longest-lived thread of this type that I’ve ever seen.
Coca is also legal in Peru. In fact it is a tradition to be given a cup of coca tea by your host (or hotel) upon arrival in Cuzco. You can also go to the market and buy a large bag of coca leaves for really, really cheap and it includes a lump of something to use with the leaves while chewing to get the maximum effect.
$250, give or take. ‘The day’ being mid 80’s.
I feel i should apologize to you guy… i went a little far with my little recipe. hopefully, manhattan was kind enough just to chop a part of my message instead of shutting this thread down … ouf.
To to go forward with this question 
Here’s a little tough of mine. Those who actually control the cocain cartel take a lot of risk getting the cocaine in other country. Obviously they must already be searching way to produce it where they sell it. I guess this would be less risky. Those guy are after profit, so i think that the reason is mainly cost effectiveness. Does anyone know how much can cost all the greenhouse material needed for such massive production. Then we could compare this with relative cost of delivering the substance to verify if its indeed a cost question.
It’s a question not only of cost-effectiveness, but of simple logistics.
According to the CIA, a typical coca farm in Bolivia will be 2 to 4 hectares (5 to 10 acres) but the individual fields will be much smaller, and the size of a typical family coca field is 1 hectare in size–a hectare is the area of a square measuring 100 meters on a side, or about 2.5 acres.
So let’s talk about 1 hectare of coca plants.
So, where are you going to put 25,000 coca plants? In a greenhouse? You’ll need a really big greenhouse. Quite a few greenhouses, in fact.
The biggest greenhouse these folks offer is 30 feet by 96 feet, or 2880 square feet, priced at between about $8,000 and $10,000 per greenhouse, although they do run specials sometimes.
http://www.growitgreenhouses.com/commercial/commpages/30x96_1.html
http://www.growitgreenhouses.com/commercial/commpages/30x96_2.html
If it won’t cause all the anal-retentive Dopers out there to shriek in unspeakable agony, I will seat-of-the-pants assume that a meter is about a yard, or 3 feet, and that a hectare is therefore a square measuring 300 feet by 300 feet, which is 90,000 square feet. To provide 90,000 square feet of greenhouse space, you’re going to need 31 maximum-size, professional-type 30’ x 96’ greenhouses. If you can get them on sale for $5,000, that’s going to run you $155,000, and that’s not including heating costs. Coca is not frost-tolerant at all, so if you’re growing your coca anywhere besides Central Florida or Southern California, you’re going to need a serious professional-type heating system.
You’re going to need potting soil, fertilizer, pesticide, etc. I’m not even going to try to price that out.
And here’s the biggest problem: where in the world, literally, are you going to hide something like 30 or 40 greenhouses full of coca plants? The neighbors will want to know what you’re growing in there, and I doubt whether you can persuade them that it’s “hybrid poinsettias”.
So assuming that you buy a remote estate somewhere in Idaho, and manage to set up your 30 or 40 greenhouses, and miraculously nobody notices, what do you have for your money? Once your bushes are mature enough that you can start harvesting, if you’re working alone, you’ll be basically spending all your waking hours picking leaves.
And finally, what do you have, for all your investment, not to mention the grunt labor of picking leaves?
Gee, five whole keys of coke. :rolleyes: I doubt if the Cartel would be terribly worried about the competition, but I know the DEA would be mighty interested.
And remember, if you go to jail, the Feds get to keep all your nice greenhouses, not to mention the estate in Idaho.
Not that much more expensive…up until 1999 or so I had seen it go for everything from $120 to $200 for an 8, usually somewhere between $140 and $160. At least one thing is cheaper now than in the 80s…
Duck Duck,
Im not sure about your numbers but im assuming that’s a pretty huge operation - like cartel size. Someone said you need 1000 lbs of coca leaves to make 2 lbs of cocaine. Id be curious to know how many coca plants you;d need to yield that. And what the growing time on a tree to produce x amount of leaves be.