Cocaine comes from a natural plant grown deep in the jungles of South America. To bear fruit, farmers plant the plant that make cocaine; then the plant is picked and processed for distribution. The shimmering white colored powder cross over transnational borders and eventually find its way around the world where hordes of users sniffed it up into someone's sniffing nose or shot into a user's veins. Cocaine can either make you poor and weak, make you do the unimaginable, make you wealthy--or it can even take your mind on weird trips. As Rock Star singer Rick James once said, "Cocaine is one helluva drug."
But it is no secret that selling cocaine on a grand scale can bring filthy riches to a player in the dope game. Cocaine prices vary but profits are enormous for a heavy hitter depending where the dope is sold. Narcotic analysts explains that illegal drugs like and cocaine and heroin cost much less where it is produced. Worldwide, prices can range from $2 a gram in Panama to over $300 per gram in New Zealand.
According to U.S. law enforcement, Colombian national police, and Foreign narcotic experts, a wholesaler can buy a kilo of cocaine straight from the jungle in Colombia for approximately $2200.00. At Colombian ports, wholesale prices for a kilo of cocaine average between $5,500.oo, and $7,000.00. DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) officials has reported over the years that cocaine prices increased exponentially once it leaves production and transferred to markets in the United States and foreign markets. Actually, as the report points out, the farther away, and the more isolated the drugs are from different countries the higher the cost for dealers and users.
For example, Central America cocaine cost $10,000.00 per kilogram, and in Southern Mexico that same kilo sells for $12,000,00, unless a broker make an agreement to reduce the price based on multiple kilos of cocaine. Notice the much higher price between Central America and Mexico. After cocaine is transported into Mexico City area, a kilo is worth approximately $16,000.00 near the border town of Northern Mexico. Depending on the location in the U.S., wholesale on the streets average between $24,000.00, and $27,000.00.
Coca (a substance made from leaves that actually make cocaine) is one of the oldest, potent, most dangerous stimulants of natural origins. Australian world renowned psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud who once used cocaine himself became the first to publicly promote cocaine as a tonic to cure depression and sexual impotence.
Around 1886, the popularity of the drug got a higher boost when maverick John Pemberton mixed coca leaves as an ingredient in his new soft drink now known today as "Coca Cola". Effects from consumers sipping coke only skyrocketed Coca-Cola popularity during the 1900s.
Back during the 1600s, people chewed coca like tobacco. In the 1800s, cocaine earned the distinction as a popular mind altering substance to get high on among the upper-class people in Europe. If history correct, Pope Leo XIII gave papal endorsement to a coca-treated Bordeaux wine. During 1850s' an Italian neurologist named Paolo Manteganza, became so addicted to gnawing on coca leaves until he wrote excitedly about the effects.
