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 ab solute misery; on the other, the technicians, aid workers and foreign ex perts who are attempting to persuade the peasants to drop drug produc tion. North-South relations in a nutshell.