Coca

The coca-cocaine issue has gained momentum by the ascending of a peasant leader to the presidency in Bolivia, who announced making a case for the de-scheduling of the coca leaf from it's current classification as a dangerous narcotic drug in the international drug control conventions. Time has come to clarify long standing confusion on the distinction between the coca leaf and its principal derivative cocaine.

The Sierra de la Macarena

September 2006

Drugs and Democracy

Re-establishing fumigation is not going to legitimise or win acceptance of the State's activities in the territory of the Park. It is not going to protect the Park from the environmental deterioration generated by the critical interventions of social and military actors in the war. It is also not going to really affect the FARC's "bankroll". What it will do is create well-fertilised territory for the prolonging of the armed conflict.

Coca Yes, Cocaine No? Legal Options for the Coca Leaf

May 2006

TNI

Political Challenges Posed by the Failure of Prohibition

May 2006

Ricardo Vargas

After a slight dip in coca production during 2003 and 2004, the Andean region has returned to the historical average of 200,000 hectares of coca crops.

Bolivia Drugs Overview

November 2005

TNI

Bolivia has lived through more than two decades of supply reduction policies, but still figures as the world's third cocaine-producing country.

Broken Promises and Coca Eradication in Peru

March 2005

The forced crop eradication policy implemented by the Peruvian government over the past 25 years has failed. The official strategy has exacerbated social conflicts; contributed to various types of subversive violence; jeopardized local economies, also affecting the national economy; and destroyed forests as crops have become more scattered. Worst of all, it has not resolved any of the underlying causes of drug trafficking, such as poverty, marginalisation and government neglect.

Super Coca?

September 2004

Reports of the discovery of a coca plant in Colombia's Sierra Nevada that have a high cocaine content and a higher level of purity, and also resistant to the effects of aerial spraying is based on evidence that is riddled with errors and distortions. It reflects badly on the INCB and the media that unquestioningly reported it.

Coca or Death?

April 2004

Hugo Cabieses

Allison Spedding Pallet

This issue of Drugs and Conflict analyses cocalero peasant organisations in Peru and Bolivia and their interaction with successive governments during the peasant mobilisations of recent years.

Conflict flares in the Bolivian tropics

January 2002

Drugs and Democracy

An impressive reduction of the coca-cultivated area has been achieved within the framework of Plan Dignidad, but this ‘success’ has exacted a heavy toll in terms of the impoverishment and criminalisation of the Bolivian coca leaf-growing peasantry, or cocaleros, as they are known.