How Bolivia curbed coca production by moving away from violent crackdowns
How Bolivia curbed coca production by moving away from violent crackdowns
September 29, 2016 11.52am EDT
A new leaf. EPA/Jorge Abrego
The US government’s annual report on the drug trade has accused Bolivia once again of failing to do enough to tackle the production and trafficking of illicit narcotics. This has been the US mantra for the ten years since Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, made a radical break with the US-funded “war on drugs”.
The US’s stance flies in the face of ample evidence that Bolivia has markedly reduced coca leaf cultivation. And in spite of cuts to US counter-narcotics assistance, Bolivian security forces are seizing illegal drugs at much higher levels than when the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was in charge.
Bolivia is the world’s third largest producer of cocaine, a drug manufactured from coca leaf – which is central to Andean culture. Bolivia’s programme permits poor farmers to cultivate a small (up to 1,600 square metre) plot of coca, and encourages farmers to self-police to respect these limits.
This approach is known as “social control”. It’s a world apart from the old US-led policy, which demanded that local security forces forcibly eradicate coca crops. That approach resulted in two decades of violence, and neither reduced coca production nor restricted the flow of drugs reaching the US.
More:
http://theconversation.com/how-bolivia-curbed-coca-production-by-moving-away-from-violent-crackdowns-66251