One drug dealer in Bolivia is reported to have offered to pay off the country’s entire debt of $3.8 billion if the authorities would refrain from trying to enforce the narcotics laws.

The cocaine and marijuana kingpins of the Western Hemisphere have even exceeded the influence of the more established opium lords of Asia. “Greasing palms and, when necessary, using the gun, the drug barons have spawned corruption from Bolivia to the Bahamas, and in more than one country are threatening to supplant elected government as the reigning power,” reports Time magazine.

Bolivia, for one, has seen a recent upsurge in drug addiction. While coca is legally grown there for leaf chewing and tea, increasing numbers of youths are becoming addicted to a poisonous, smokable form of cocaine called basuco.