So…ever fancy yourself as a budding Pablo Escobar (incidentally, you can visit his grave in Medallin in Colombia)? Think that there’s loads of cash to be made in heading up a local “microfactory”, if you will, to manufacture and distribute your own cocaine? It’s true – if you’re prepared to take on the risk of getting caught, there’s a lot of money to be made in the stuff. And if you can get hold of the really tricky ingredient, coca leaves, then you’ll be interested to know that cocaine is not the most difficult substance in the world to cook up.

Before you make any decisions regarding a career change – or indeed before you decide to stick any (more) marching powder up your schnozz – consider the following recipe (for 100g of cocaine paste), as shown to us by a bona fide Colombian cocaine farmer:

* Harvest 100kg of coca leaves and stomp into mush with feet (wearing wellies) on the dirty floor of the forest.
* Mix mush with 20kg of salt and 10kg of whitewash powder (the stuff for, well, whitewashing houses).
* Add leaves, salt and powder to 120 litres of petrol and leave to soak.
* Drain liquid, leaving pulp behind.

* Add 10 litres of water to liquid.
* Add 50cm³ sulphuric acid.
* Mix in potassium permanganate until liquid takes on pasty consistency.
* Drain liquid again through permeable membrane.

* Mix in caustic soda until remaining sulphuric acid is neutralised.
* Drain liquid again through permeable membrane.
* Scrape paste from membrane and dry – the resultant product is pure cocaine paste.

The cocaine paste (which cannot be injected or inhaled, only smoked) is then sold by the farmers to the real “bad guys”, who add acetone (hydrochloric acid can also be used) to the powder such that 900g of pure cocaine is produced from every 1kg of paste. This is then mixed with 400g of flour to pad the cocaine out to 1.3kg. It is then ready for distribution.

Read through the ingredient list again. Consider that cocaine is not produced in laboratories by men in white coats wearing latex gloves, but by dirty farmers in stinking conditions using toxic substances. Think about all the other rubbish that the coke you buy abroad is then cut with. Imagine sticking all that up your nose (in voice of boy from old TV Bar advert). If ever there was an effective anti-cocaine campaign, it’s a “factory” tour. Quite, quite disgusting. But very interesting.

After the visit, we spent a considerable amount of time analysing the farmer’s business model and probable finances. We quickly worked out that he was either (a) a liar or (b) an idiot when it comes to the dollars and cents of his business, seeing as he barely seems to turn a profit (from our estimations, based on assumed prices and the titbits of info he passed over to us) from each modest harvest (which brings in roughly 3 tonnes of coca leaves per quarter). Of course, if he is an idiot, that would explain why he’s still trapsing around the forest in wellies and torn overalls instead of cruising around in a 4X4 with bitches hanging off his arms. He could do with a team of consultants. And an audit. A good audit would set him right. We could probably pull in the dregs of Arthur Andersen to help him and his mates out a bit.

It’s all quite interesting. Naughty, but interesting.

PS. The production of coca leaves is internationally regulated by treaty (and, of course, by the strong arm of the US) and despite it being a major resource of countries like Bolivia, Peru and Colombia, where it is consumed predominantly in its natural form, production levels are required to be kept ridiculously low. Many countries, however, are permitted to produce certain prescribed quantities of coca leaves, most noticeably the US, which has the highest production quota of any country. Typical. The reason? Coca leaves are still used as a flavourant in the manufacture of Coca-Cola. And Americans are huge cockpumps. So now you know.