The situation in Bolivia is a microcosm of the dramatic tensions caused by drug production and consumption. On one side, the traffickers and politicians of course, but also the peasants, ex-miners, unemployed for whom the drug economy is the only rampart against starvation and absolute misery, on the other, the technicians, aid workers and foreign experts who are attempting to persuade the peasants to drop drug production. North-South relations in a nutshell.