A Panamanian National Aeronaval Service officer guards 12 tons of cocaine divided into hundreds of packages bound for the United States at the Aeronaval headquarters in Panama City on November 11, 2025. Photo by Martin Bernetti/AFP via Getty Images

Mattha Busby is a freelance journalist and author who has written widely on health policy, drugs, society and culture.

I was never that into cocaine — preferring the euphoria promised by MDMA or the relaxation offered by cannabis — but back in 2015, a cocaine-serving lounge bar, Route 36, in La Paz, Bolivia, was the talk of the backpacking circuit, and the scarcely-believable novelty of the place was alluring.

At Route 36, bags of cocaine are served on silver platters, and a friend and I got incredibly high that night. Too high, perhaps,

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