Thanks God for Drugs

If not …
We wouldn’t have any favela.
We wouldn’t have any cultural production from the favela.
[display_podcast]
It is an ironic shortfilm on cocaine and Rio’s urbanism. You know “she don’t lie, she don’t lie … cocaine” (J.J. Cale in 1975) On wikipedia you get more information on the song ‘cocaine’.

idea and production by dd.r and julakim.
postproduction and music by julakim.
The format is wmv because of 16:9, somehow this was difficult to achieve. So check for yourselfes while watching it. If you encounter problems you can download the media player for mac or flip4mac. Please tell me if this works fine for you, since I think the quality is better with .wmv than with .m4v and even smaller.

Remark from Bolivia:
Bolivia’s new president Evo Morales (a former coca farmer) plans to use government aid to promote the sale of coca products.
“Coca sí, Cocaína no” — yes to coca, no to cocaine — was one of Morales’ campaign slogans.
The coca plant is a basis for living. With his new program he aims to disassociate the plant that provides the substance used to make cocaine from the drug stigma. In the Andes, the coca plant is ‘only’ a medicine and this already for thousands of years (the use goes back to the Incas).
With community control the coca farmers are trying to avoid misuse of their holy plant. I think it is a good idea to make a clean self-control, but also I believe that cocaine makes some people very rich and they will always find their way around.
They even want Coca-Cola Company to change their name.

Some background information on the case, you can find here: Bolivia Coca Trade (BOLCOCA)

Related Posts on Drugs
Dreams and Results, I am interviewing VivaRio’s executive director about their program in a favela.
personal message, I am talking about the 2 districts Lapa and Santa Teresa in Rio de Janeiro.