Coca War

A super brilliant lady from the Andean Information Network recently came in to talk to us about Bolivian-International relations and drug policy. The presentation was based so firmly in common sense and objective data that it was both shocking and fascinating and just... kind of exciting to listen to. It also made me want a job like hers.

The bottom line of her shpeal was basically that drug eradication policies have failed horribly across the board, and while they are being continued in Colombia and Peru, Bolivia is actually making headway in finding new, though imperfect, means of combating the issue. She pointed out that Bolivia is a relatively pure case study, meaning that you don´t have the FARC, the Shining Path, paramilitaries, and kingpins running around confusing the situation. You have coca growers in Las Yungas and in Chapare, where they have been growing some amount of coca since before the Incas came. You have Colombians and other international drug producers coming in to buy leaves or paste. And that´s pretty much it. To say that there is no confusion or chaos would be impossible, but at least the situation is relatively easy to understand.

Past policies were eradication based. Oh, and US demanded and directed, as they still are in most of the region. The US demands results and militarized fumigation and violent practices, withholding trade benefits and aid if you fail to comply. In the 1990s Alternative Development was the big policy- namely the encouragement of the production of other products, like pineapples and mangoes, instead of coca. The major problem with this is that coca is about 1000 times easier to grow and brings in more than 10 times the money. Aid programs refused to offer aid to non-coca growers, indirectly contributing to a rise in coca production as farmers made an effort to gain access to the money. Additionally, growers often eradicated fields and took the aid money, only to set up new ones in other areas. So that didn´t particularly work at all. Even ex militaries have come out against these old policies.


Though Evo is toted as the leader of the coca growers and their best political ally, coca production areas are still heavily militarized. A mini School of the Americas is still functioning right in the heart of the Chapare, despite the eviction of the DEA and USAID alternative development projects. Why? Well, it´s rough to maintain stability in the south if you go around upsetting the military... So the occasional violent attack persists in the jungle, prisons are still full of middle men, and the growing continues. Evo´s policy has been to legalize coca growing to the extent that country chews nationally, and each family is allotted land on that basis. But Bolivia has no idea how much coca its citizens consume traditionally on a yearly basis. Europeans have been in the process of conducting a study for years now that would give a concrete figure of how much coca is consumed traditionally-setting a bar for legal coca production. But the study has never been finished- no one wants to know the answer. The government is much happier with a grey area, and ultimately it doesn´t seem that the figure will ever materialize.

So what´s the current strategy? It´s not, as some hard core conservatives might scream, to encourage coca growth or cocaine production. It is to cap growth, forcing prices up, and allowing farmers to subsist growing less. This program has met with some success in areas where everyone participates. But illegal growth continues, spilling into national parks and steep slopes hidden in the mountains. If this continues, the system will fall apart. Of course the US likes to ignore the fact that studies demonstrate that demand side policies- ie, drug treatment in the United States- are many times more effective and much cheaper. While the demand exists, production will continue. Additionally, almost all the money from coca production ends up in the countries where its sold. Growers make a mere % of the total drug profits, compared to % of their first world counterparts.

The long history of drug policies and policy changes in Bolivia are filled will 100s of circles and ironies and mistakes. For instance, coca wasn´t even grown in Chapare until the government forcefully resettled fired miners there after the large scale mine closings of the 1950s. These miners had a long history of union activism, and rather than be dispersed, they set up an even stronger and more self sufficient union system in the jungle, neglected and rejected by central state authorities. These are the unions that continue to run production in Chapare today, the unions through which Evo Morales came to power. Other great policies? If you want a better idea of what the drug war has looked like in Bolivia, or, uh, just want to learn how to make your own cocaine, you can hop down here and visit the Cocaine Museum in Chapare any time.

The solution? Well... international and equitable partnerships (this is already beginning to happen as the US looses its influence in the region and European countries step in with less demanding funding), demand side policies, accurate information and honest statistics, intelligence sharing, and constantly assessing and improving policies. The US could actually play a beneficial role in Bolivia acting as a partner. Our speaker was quick to point out that Anti-Americanism is actually more often just the recasting of the rejection of failed programs. USAID´s alternative development projects may have been kicked out along with the DEA, but USAID´s more successful and considerate programs are all still running.

Though the talk was thoroughly engrossing as a topic on its own, it also made me realize something important about what I want to do with my own life: though health work has long seemed like the most practical and depoliticized sector of non-profit work, I will never be able to have the kind of on the ground active expertise in health that I could have in any other development area, by dint of my squeamishness and refusal to consider medical school. The idea of having a job where you get to deal with issues as entire complex processes and also act locally seems pretty brilliant to me. Losing that first component seems like a big loss in all ways. So perhaps policy regarding some specific but linked-to-the-whole-world-as-it-is job would be better for me... something to think about. Revolutions in Health might be more Revolutions in Thinking About Development and Change... which I suppose it always has been. Onwards!