Marching Powder by Rusty Young and Thomas McFadden
Sometimes you read a piece of non-fiction and think it’s too over the top, too extravagant or too complicated to be a true story. Well, at least I do. Luckily, this book was written so simplistically that it’s obvious there’s a lot of truth to what’s being said. But, I kind of think this book could have benefited from some extravagances or complications in the story. I’m not trying to be arrogant, but I kind of think this book was written for sixth graders. Of course the content wouldn’t suitable for them but the writing itself certainly could.
The story revolves around one of the authors, Thomas McFadden, and his time spent in San Pedro prison in Bolivia after being locked up for attempting to smuggle cocaine out of the country. Seeing as I’m not even stupid enough to attempt something like that, this guy’s IQ must be in the single digits. A part of me thinks that while reading this story the authors were attempting to illicit a feeling of sympathy from the readers for the jailed smuggler. Really? Come on. My theory on this is that he committed the crime (or more importantly got caught) and therefore should serve the time.
For me this story was less about Mr. McFadden than it was about San Pedro. I’m not going to go out of the way and say that this prison is equatable to one of our very own federal “country club” prisons like Butner Prison, with their manicured lawns and cable television (where Bernie Madoff is incarcerated), but in terms of Central/South American jails I think it’s about as close as you can get.
I’m guessing you didn’t know that Bolivia, along with Peru, is among the top producers of coca (just the leaf) in the world. Much of their product is then shipped to other countries such as Colombia where the actual cocaine is produced.
Well, inside San Pedro, the drug is produced in large laboratories just as it is in Colombia. In fact it is a huge source of income for the inmates. But wait, why would inmates need income? Aha, good question my friend. One of the other unique things about San Pedro is that your jail “cell” is not free.
As you learn quite quickly in the book, once Mr. McFadden finds himself in the jail, all inmates are on their own once inside the walls. They must fend for themselves, which includes finding shelter and food. If an inmate enters without any money, on the inside or outside, he quickly finds himself in the most dangerous portion of the jail and sleeping on the cold and probably damp concrete floor. But, if he does have funds, he could end up in a cell which has a private bathroom, a kitchen and cable television. Not too shabby. Hell, I know people who live New York that don’t have all those amenities.
I realize I haven’t said much about the book itself but that’s just because I don’t really know what to tell you. Like I said the jail is the real story.
I will tell you how it was that Thomas managed to survive in the prison though. I believe that even today if you were to visit La Paz you could still benefit from what Thomas did at San Pedro prison. His largest accomplishment while there was to make the jail accessible to tourists for a small fee. If you wanted to, you could go to the gates and take a tour of the facility given by Thomas or at times by other inmates. I’m thinking that by now it’s probably a bit overdone and a little commercial or something but, back when the tours began, it sounds like these tours were pretty nuts. It got to the point where tourists could actually spend the night in the jail (as in sleep there) partying, snorting cocaine and fraternizing with the inmates until they passed out on the floor of a “cell.”
These days, from what I understand, this book has made the jail tour the thing to do when in La Paz. Of course Mr. Mcfadden is no longer incarcerated there but the tours are still available. As far as I’m concerned I pretty much told you the coolest and most interesting things about this book. Sure you could read more about how McFadden got caught, the drinking and drug use in the prison and the inherent problems there if you read the book but I don’t know if I can fully endorse that. If the writing were a bit more… grown-up (ie. less like my own), that’s what I’ll say, I’d push you into it. Alas, it is not so and I am left feeling a little crummy about reading it and not just finding out about San Pedro prison by reading the article on wikipedia.
