Ecuador

Ecuador was a South American country affected by the cocaine paste smoking epidemic that spread from Peru and Bolivia in the 1970s, part of the broader Andean drug production zone. The epidemic that began in Lima's fashionable neighborhoods in 1974 spread to other major Peruvian cities and then to Ecuador and Bolivia, demonstrating the addictive potential of smokable cocaine forms before crack appeared in the United States.¹

The Andean Production Zone

Ecuador, situated between the major cocaine-producing countries of Peru and Colombia, was part of the geographic corridor through which cocaine and coca products moved. The spread of coca paste smoking to Ecuador illustrated how the drug's effects radiated outward from production areas, a pattern that would later be replicated in the United States when Contra-connected networks dumped cheap cocaine into South Central L.A. and other inner-city neighborhoods.²