Andean Information Network

Although the high-calcium, vitamin-rich coca has been chewed for centuries in Bolivia to relieve altitude sickness, toothaches and exhaustion, Ticona and his three brothers are commercializing the leaf in products they claim treat rheumatism, diabetes, muscular pains and asthma. After nearly 20 years in business, Ingacoca eked out only $4,000 in 2006. But if Bolivia [...]

Click here to read this joint AIN-WOLA memo in PDF format. On April 25, 2007, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) released U.S. estimates of coca cultivation and cocaine production in Bolivia for 2006. In the preceding months, U.S. officials had repeatedly warned of soaring coca cultivation in Bolivia in what was President [...]

Presidente da Bolívia quer aumentar o cultivo e a venda das folhas. G1 visitou o mercado da coca de La Paz. Click here for the whole article on G1. Ele não deu nenhum golpe de Estado. Tampouco pensa em revolução. E apesar de ostentar um ideário esquerdista, Evo Morales, o ex-líder sindical dos cocaleiros bolivianos [...]

A study released Wednesday by the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy found Bolivia's coca production "statistically unchanged" from 2005, the year before the leftist president, who rose to prominence as a coca growers' representative, was inaugurated. But U.S. officials say they still expect Bolivian cultivation of the plants used to make cocaine to [...]

US officials continue to cling to eradication figures and old yardsticks to evaluate Bolivia’s new approach to coca cultivation and drug control. The 2007 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR)1 criticizes the Morales administration for an increase in coca production and in drug trafficking in Bolivia.  Although official U.S. figures have not been released, it [...]

The United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs entered into force in 1964, making illegal the international trade the coca leaf. Since his inauguration, Bolivian President Evo Morales has fought the international stigma that surrounds the coca leaf, taking a simple message to the world: coca yes, cocaine no. Last year, during the UN General [...]

  Listen to a story by journalist Mary Stucky of Round Earth Productions and facilitated by AIN on the importance of the cato of coca on BBC's "The World." Listen online http://www.theworld.org/?q=node/8575

Originally published in the Drug War Chronicle , Issue #474, 4/23/07   On the long, arduous highway connecting Puno, the last major city in the Peruvian south, with the Bolivian capital of La Paz, travelers approaching Bolivia cross the border on the shores of Lake Titicaca near the small Bolivian town of Copacabana. There, the [...]

Click here to download The Drug War in the Andes Curriculum The Drug War in the Andes seeks to introduce highschool students to many of the key issues affecting US international drug policy. The immediacy of the “War on Drugs” in students’ lives makes it an excellent topic for educating about international policy issues. Learning [...]

Coca Leaf Policy under the Morales Administration President Evo Morales’s policies on the cultivation, sale, and manufacture of coca leaf are inspiring a variety of economic opportunities in Bolivia’s rural areas on the eastern slope of the Andes Mountains. Coca is an ancient crop valued in Bolivia for its medicinal and nutritional properties, as well [...]