Bolivian marching powder

Bolivia and Peru were the leading producer countries through most of the 1980s and 1990s.^[1]

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Bolivian marching powder (uncountable)

1. (slang) Cocaine.

   Synonyms: Colombian marching powder, Peruvian marching powder; see also Thesaurus:cocaine

   • 1984, Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City, →ISBN, page 2:

     Your brain at this moment is composed of brigades of tiny Bolivian soldiers. They are tired and muddy from their long march through the night. There are holes in their boots and they are hungry. They need to be fed. They need the Bolivian Marching Powder.

   • 1986, Robert Emmet Long, Drugs and American Society:

     For those enamored of the glitzy life, coke—snow, blow, nose candy, Bolivian Marching Powder—became the drug.

   • 1991, Bret Easton Ellis, “Nell's”, in American Psycho, London: Picador, →ISBN, page 200:

     McDermott's got on this wool suit by Lubiam with a linen pocket square by Ashear Bros., a Ralph Lauren cotton shirt and a silk tie by Christian Dior and he's about to toss a coin to see which one of us is going downstairs to fetch the Bolivian Marching Powder since neither one of us wants to sit here in the booth with the girls […]

   • 2003, Mark St. Amant, “Sleepless in Florence”, in Sean O'Reilly, Larry Habegger, James O'Reilly, editors, Hyenas Laughed at Me and Now I Know Why, →ISBN, page 148:

     […] greedily inhale another ten lines of uncut Bolivian marching powder […]

   • 2021 May 7, Maureen Dowd, “Ewan McGregor: Dahling, He’s Halston!”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     Not quite as much fun as the real Halston, since Mr. McGregor was smoking green-tea cigarettes instead of Trues, snorting sugary, vitamin-like Inositol instead of Bolivian marching powder and, due to Covid restrictions, conjuring disco fever with just 48 extras in the Studio 54 scenes.

• “Bolivian marching powder”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green, 2016–present