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 Evo Morales’ first year in office. Indeed, the State Department’s latest International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), released on March 1, 2007, asserted that initial U.S. estimates had shown cultivation “increases in most parts of the country,” and that [c]ocalero activism and the [Bolivian] government’s desire to avoid violent confrontation have contributed to the rise in coca cultivation.”

Coming in the wake of numerous U.S. references to rising coca cultivation in Bolivia, it is noteworthy that ONDCP reported that coca cultivation in 2006 was “statistically unchanged as compared to the 2005 estimate” and that “[c]ocaine potential production remained unchanged …from 2005 to 2006.”¹