RETHINKING DRUGS POLICY IN LATIN AMERICA

THOMAS GRISAFFI
Latin America and the Caribbean together represent a critical charges).1 Abroad, the US approach has been to curb the supply
zone for the production and trafficking of illicit drugs. The of illicit narcotics reaching the USA, through the eradication of
Andean region, including Bolivia, Colombia and Peru, is the illicit crops (mostly coca leaf—which is used to produce cocaine,
world’s foremost producer of cocaine. Mexico is the main but also opium poppy and marijuana), law enforcement and the
producer of heroin in the Americas; Colombia, Mexico and interdiction of drugs shipments. The USA has ensured that its
Paraguay are all significant producers of cannabis; and syn- southern neighbours comply with its drugs policy goals
thetic drugs are increasingly manufactured in Central (and through what is termed ‘certification’. This is an annual
North) America. The main corridor for the transport of illegal process undertaken by the USA to evaluate country perfor-
drugs to the US market is through Central America, Mexico mance against US-imposed anti-drugs targets. Countries that
and the Caribbean (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, do not act in accordance with US strategy are punished by
UNODC, 2013). decertification: sanctions include the withholding of develop-
There is a voracious appetite for illicit drugs in the USA; it ment aid, credit and trade benefits. In other words, any country
represents the single largest market for cocaine in the world, that attempts to break with the US drugs war runs the risk of
and consumers spend some US $100,000m. per year on illegal being politically and economically isolated.
substances (Kilmer, Everingham, et al., 2014). As a result of its The USA has devoted vast sums to its ‘war on drugs’, with
excessive drugs consumption, the USA suffers from a heavy some estimates putting this as high as US $50,000m. annually
burden of crime and drugs-related health and social problems (totalling more than $1,000,000m. over four decades).2 Abroad
(Bourgois and Schonberg, 2009). Research has consistently these resources have been used to expand the role of both Latin
found that the most effective methods to reduce drugs con- American and US military forces in counter-drugs efforts, to
sumption are treatment of addicts and prevention (Rydell and provide local security forces with logistical support and equip-
Everingham, 1994; Nadelmann, 1998). However, politicians ment, and to train civilian police forces in military tactics.
have paid little attention to common sense drugs policy; Significant funding streams include the Andean Initiative
instead they have described illicit drugs as a threat to national (1989),3 Plan Colombia (2000)4 and the Merida Initiative
security and the battle has been taken to source regions. Over (2008).5 The Leahy Law, passed in 1997, explicitly prohibits
the past 30 years the USA has channelled thousands of millions US military counter-narcotics assistance to foreign military
of dollars to Latin American military and police forces to enable units facing credible allegations of abuses. However, this law is
them to undertake counter-narcotics operations, with the aim routinely circumvented by US officials who encourage their
of suppressing the production and trafficking of illegal drugs. allies in Latin America to form new units that do not have a
The logic underlying the entire operation is that by reducing past record and therefore are considered to be ‘clean’ (Tate,
supply, the cost of illicit drugs on the street will increase and in 2011). The USA is also looking to Colombia to provide counter-
turn dissuade people in consumer countries from buying them. drugs training to Central American forces—again this allows
Historically, the USA has dictated the terms of the ‘war on the USA to fund the training of military units with question-
drugs’, and has used its political and economic might to crush able human rights records. Historically, US funding and
any debate on alternatives. However, in the context of declin- weapons were restricted to anti-drugs operations; after
ing US influence in the region, Latin American governments 2001, however, they were also used to intervene against left-
have pushed back against prohibitionist drugs policies. A wing insurgencies in Peru and Colombia in the name of the
regional debate has emerged, focused on the failure of present ‘war on terror’ (Youngers, 2003). More worrying still, funds
policies to achieve their desired objectives and the high cost of paid through Plan Colombia appear to have put money into the
implementing supply reduction efforts (in terms of drugs- hands of paramilitaries and narco-traffickers (Ballvé, 2013).
fuelled violence, corruption and institutional instability). The objective of supply-side enforcement is to reduce the
Latin American leaders have argued for more effective and amount of drugs reaching the USA, but on this score the drugs
humane alternatives, including the creation of legal, regulated war has clearly failed; the supply of drugs remains as robust as
markets for narcotic substances and greater investment in ever. For example, Mexico’s opium production increased from
harm reduction practices. Concurrently, some Latin American 71 metric tons in 2005 to 425 tons in 2009 and cannabis
countries (and some states in the USA) have unilaterally made cultivation increased from 5,600 hectares (ha) to 17,500 ha
changes to domestic drugs policy, provoking an unprecedented over the same period (Mercille, 2011; 1638). In a similar
crisis for the international drugs-control regime. fashion, Daniel Mejia (2010), estimates that the amount of
This essay begins by examining some of the objectives, cocaine reaching US borders increased from 322 tons in 2000 to
methods and consequences of the US-designed and -funded 402 tons in 2006. The failure of the drugs war is also reflected
‘war on drugs’ in Latin America and the Caribbean. It then goes by the street price of illicit drugs (including cocaine, heroin and
on to outline the emerging regional debate in Latin America. methamphetamine) in the USA, which have consistently fallen
The final section provides a brief overview of Bolivia’s new since the 1980s (Walsh, 2007). The disappointing results are a
approach to coca control, which, according to a recent report by consequence of myopic policies that fail to address the under-
the Organization of American States (OAS), represents best lying causes of drugs production and -trafficking, such as
practice. Overall, the essay illustrates that the alternative poverty, social exclusion and weak institutions. Thus, drugs
approaches championed by Latin American governments, war victories are generally only ever short-lived: when coca
which aim to reduce the harmful impacts generated by drugs and poppy crops are eradicated, production moves to a different
and drugs-trafficking, may prove to be more effective in region (a phenomenon referred to as the ‘balloon effect’)6;
addressing the drugs problem in the long term than the current drugs-traffickers are arrested but they are soon replaced;
militarized response. and when trafficking routes are disrupted they simply shift
elsewhere. The enormous cost of the drugs war, coupled with
the fact that it is not actually achieving its stated goals, has
THE ‘WAR ON DRUGS’ prompted some observers to suggest that US foreign policy on
For over a century the prohibitionist approach has shaped drugs is not a stand-alone issue—rather; it is used as an
policies that deal with the production, trafficking, sale and instrument to push other political and economic agendas. It
consumption of psychoactive substances—including cannabis, has been argued that the USA’s motivation for escalating the
cocaine and heroin (Paoli, Greenfield, et al., 2012). Signifi- drugs war at the end of the 1980s was to justify the build-up of a
cantly these policies have been operationalized using hardline military presence in the region to protect US corporate inter-
criminal policy tools. Recent US Administrations’ approach to ests in a post-Cold War world (Walker, 2001; Grandin, 2006;
domestic drugs control includes rigid legislation, enhanced law Tokatlian, 2010). Julien Mercille argues that ‘the war on
enforcement and high levels of incarceration (in 2013 some drugs—just like the ‘war on terror’—has served as one pretext
2,220,300 US citizens were incarcerated in US prisons on drugs to deepen bilateral military relations with Latin American
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GENERAL SURVEY Rethinking Drugs Policy in Latin America

countries and has proved useful to contain popular opposition today the countries that lie on the main drugs-trafficking route
to neoliberal reforms’ (Mercille, 2011; 1644). In a similar between the Andes and the USA are some of the most deadly
fashion, it has been suggested (Grisaffi, 2009; 62–63) that places in the world (UNODC, 2011; Auyero, Bourgois, et al.,
the criminalization and repression of Bolivian coca growers in 2015). This extreme violence has raised the notion that Mexico
the 1990s had more to do with eradicating organized resistance has become a failed state wracked by terrorism (Campbell and
to the neo-liberal development model than tackling the per- Hansen, 2014).
ceived narco-terrorist threat. In coca-growing regions of Bolivia, Colombia and Peru
militarized crop eradication has pitted the security forces
against local farmers (who effectively have been criminalized),
HARMS ASSOCIATED WITH THE ‘WAR ON DRUGS’ and this has provoked violent conflicts and opened up space for
The drugs trade undoubtedly has had a harmful impact on the violation of human rights, including extrajudicial killings.
Latin America, but so too have US-designed and -funded Institutional damage has been further compounded by the
responses to it. The USA’s ‘war on drugs’ transfers a large impunity that US-backed military and police forces frequently
proportion of the costs to producer and transit countries, and enjoy. The aerial fumigation of coca crops in Colombia8 brings
this generates a range of negative consequences, including with it a specific set of problems. Since the inauguration of Plan
violence, environmental damage, violations of basic human Colombia in 2000, the Government has sprayed more than half
rights, and the undermining of civil liberties and democratic a million hectares with the herbicide Round Up.9 The spraying
practices. has made the lives of poor farmers even more precarious by
It has been argued that prohibitionist policies actually causing environmental damage (including water contamina-
strengthen criminal organizations by handing them control tion and land degradation) and serious health problems.
of a lucrative and growing trade.7 The massive profits derived Anthropologist Maria Clemencia Ramı́rez (2011) records
from illicit narcotics flow untaxed into criminal hands and have how residents in the zones where aerial spraying occurs suffer
been used to equip private militias (often outgunning state from a variety of ailments, including skin, respiratory and
enforcement) and to undermine state institutions through gastrointestinal problems. They also complain that spraying is
corruption (Collins, 2014). This has had a devastating impact indiscriminate and carried out without warning—as a result,
on the functioning of the state. According to one government food and cash crops are also often affected by herbicides, and
report, criminal organizations—in collusion with corrupt gov- this has undermined food security.10 The economic and huma-
ernment officials—control as much as 71% of Mexico’s national nitarian crisis provoked by aerial fumigation has forced people
territory (Campbell, 2014; 62). Moreover, the Mexican cartels off their land—to join the ranks of Colombia’s estimated 4.9m.
have expanded their repertoires to include all manner of to 5.5m. internally displaced people (Internal Displacement
criminal activity; they dominate the traffic in undocumented Monitoring Centre, 2013). Given that most farmers have no
immigrants, prostitutes, counterfeit goods and even iron ore other way to survive they often end up replanting coca deeper
and gasoline smuggling, as well as extortion, carjacking and in the jungle, thus all that spraying achieves is to displace coca
kidnapping. Given their size, complexity and diversity, the cultivation and with it spread the civil conflict to new areas11
cartels have generated a narco-counterculture, which includes (Dion and Russler, 2008; Walsh, Sánchez-Garzoli, et al.,
their own saints (including La Santa Muerte), rituals, and even 2008).12
media (Campbell, 2014). Similar patterns have been observed Eradicating crops is not only inefficient and dangerous but it
in Brazil’s favelas where the cartels have corrupted the state is also counterproductive. Forced coca eradication sows dis-
and become de facto political powers in their own right (Arias, trust among coca grower communities and thus undermines
2006). the functioning of alternative development programmes,
The ‘war on drugs’ has also had a profound impact on civil designed to encourage farmers to grow crops other than coca
rights. US-imposed anti-drugs legislation has led to a dramatic (Grisaffi, forthcoming). Moreover, the eradication of crops has
increase in sentences for drugs-related crimes all over Latin provoked political instability in the Andean countries. In Peru
America. For instance, under Bolivia’s notorious Law 1008 a and Colombia, illegal armed actors (Sendero Luminoso and the
small trafficker or dealer might end up with a sentence far Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia—FARC,
longer than someone convicted for murder. The heavy-handed respectively) have, on occasion, sided with coca growers to
response to drugs use and trafficking has led to a dramatic rise resist government eradication efforts (Felbab-Brown, 2005).
in incarceration rates and increased prison overcrowding all Meanwhile, in Bolivia, US-backed coca eradication was a
over Latin America (Metaal and Youngers, 2011). Moreover, catalyst for mass discontent and demonstrations that toppled
the punitive approach contributes to a climate of stigmatiza- two Presidents, in 2003 and again in 2005 (Grisaffi, 2010).
tion and discrimination against drugs users, which negatively
affects their ability to seek medical assistance (Youngers and
Pérez Correa, 2014). Finally, the penal state weighs most THE LATIN AMERICAN DEBATE
heavily on the poor and excluded—who are disproportionately Latin American leaders have grown weary of fighting what
locked up. This inevitably raises questions about civil liberties, they perceive to be an unwinnable war. Their resolve to look for
equality and social exclusion (Wacquant, 2008; Auyero, 2010). alternatives has been strengthened by the heavy burden of
The focus of the US approach—which prioritizes military fighting drugs in terms of lives lost, economic cost, and
and police assistance over aid for socioeconomic goals or institutional corruption. Thus they have called into question
institution-building—has produced what some policy analysts the legal and ethical framework underlying the international
refer to as militarization—that is, the ‘over-involvement of the drugs control system and are actively seeking alternatives to
armed forces in aspects of governance other than external the status quo.
defence’ (Isacson, 2005; 17). This has a range of damaging The stage was set in 2009 when the Latin American Com-
impacts. First, the USA demands that poor countries divert mission on Drugs and Democracy, led by former Presidents
funds to the military and police that might otherwise be spent Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, César Gaviria of Colom-
on schools, hospitals and roads (that are most often lacking in bia and Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico, published a report calling for
areas where the drugs trade is most ingrained—including a public debate on alternatives to prohibitionist policies. Their
shanty towns and poor rural areas). And second—using mili- proposals included treating drugs use as an issue of public
tary forces to fight internal enemies has generated significant health rather than as a matter of criminal law, decriminalizing
collateral damage. Mexico is a case in point: in 2006 President marijuana and focusing repression on organized crime—as
Felipe Calderón deployed the army against the drugs gangs. opposed to on the people who cultivate illicit crops. The report
This led to an escalation of violence, as cartels fought back received a positive response, and the Commission subse-
against government forces, but also fought each other for quently gained the support of former UN Secretary-General
control over the trade. The total homicide rate in Mexico Kofi Annan among dozens of other public figures.
increased three-fold within a period of just four years; it is The April 2012 OAS summit of the Americas held in Carta-
estimated that between 2006 and 2012 Mexico might have gena, Colombia, marked a watershed in the Latin American
suffered as many as 100,000 homicides (Mejia and Restrepo, drugs policy debate. For the first time, incumbent heads of
2014). To make matters worse, this violence has spread, so that state—including Guatemala’s Otto Pérez Molina, Colombia’s
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GENERAL SURVEY Rethinking Drugs Policy in Latin America

Juan Manuel Santos, Costa Rica’s Laura Chinchilla and country’s previous drugs laws and could result in the release
Mexico’s Felipe Calderón—questioned the efficacy of continu- from prison of as many as 2,000 people as more lenient
ing with full-scale prohibition, and they declared that all sentences are introduced and potentially applied retroactively.
possibilities must be considered. Given the previous taboo on Bolivia has led the battle for the decriminalization of coca
even discussing alternatives to the drugs war, the OAS summit leaf (a perennial shrub that has been consumed for millennia
marked a significant step towards change. Indeed, policy by people living in the Andean region). In 2013 the UN agreed
analysts have characterized the event as releasing the ‘genie to amend the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs13, the
from the bottle’ (Youngers, 2012). most important international legal framework for drugs con-
In the course of these discussions it has become evident that trol—to permit the traditional consumption of coca within
in spite of the violence associated with drugs, Latin American Bolivian territory. Bolivia has, furthermore, advanced a radi-
leaders do not view the drugs problem through the lens of cal method for controlling coca plantations, which allows
‘national security’. Rather, they have focused on harm reduc- voluntary crop eradication; this approach was commended in
tion and reducing demand. While there is no consensus as yet, the OAS report and will be discussed in more detail below.
leaders have proposed a range of initiatives, including: decri- Meanwhile, in May 2015 President Juan Manuel Santos
minalizing drugs for personal consumption; reducing penalties elected to suspend Colombia’s aerial spraying of coca crops.
for drugs offences; creating corridors for the transit of illicit This is a bold step that signals an important shift away from a
drugs, so that they can move unhindered to the market without focus on the coca farmers as the ‘enemy’ of the war on drugs.
destabilizing the entire region; increasing expenditure on Experiences from other Andean states, particularly Bolivia,
harm reduction programmes; and pursuing collaborative that have reduced coca production could also be instructive for
approaches to control illicit crops. Latin American leaders Colombia (Grisaffi and Ledebur, 2014).
have also called on the USA to stem the flow of money and It is not just Latin American countries where changes are
automatic weapons from the USA (Armenta, Metaal, et al., taking place, but in the USA also. Since 2012 legal, regulated
2012). cannabis markets have been approved in four states (Washing-
In September 2012 the Presidents of Colombia, Guatemala ton, Oregon, Colorado and Alasaka). The Administration of
and Mexico took the regional debate to the UN General President Barack Obama has placed greater priority on a
Assembly, where they issued a formal statement underscoring public health approach, and dramatically expanded access to
the need to critically review current drugs policies and called drugs treatment through the Affordable Care Act of 2010.
on the UN to analyse all available options, including regulatory Finally, in August 2013 US Attorney-General Eric Holder
market measures. Subsequently it was announced that the UN spoke out on the need to rethink harsh sentencing policies
General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on the ‘world for drugs offences.
drug problem’ would be bought forward to early 2016 (instead The debate in the Americas has clearly moved far beyond the
of 2019 as previously planned). The 2016 UNGASS was to be dogma of the ‘war on drugs’; nevertheless, progressive coun-
the highest level debate on the international drugs control tries are still outnumbered by those committed to present
system in recent history. It will serve to guide global drugs policy (it is interesting to note that the split does not occur down
policy co-operation and shape debate for the coming years. traditional left-right distinctions). At the 2013 OAS summit,
Thus, activists, civil society and government leaders have Venezuela, Nicaragua, Panama and El Salvador all spoke in
mobilized to ensure that elements of the Latin American favour of maintaining the status quo and neither Brazil nor
debate are on the agenda. Argentina articulated a reform agenda. Peru has also strongly
Since then the momentum has been maintained: in 2013 the resisted any move towards drugs policy reform. Furthermore,
OAS published a report that reflected Latin America’s growing while there are shifts in US domestic drugs policy in favour of
disenchantment with current drugs policy, and outlined ser- public health and civil and human rights, these changes are not
ious alternatives to prohibition—including the decriminaliza- reflected in US drugs policy towards Latin America. The UN’s
tion (meaning the removal of criminal penalties) or the International Narcotic’s Control Board (INCB)14 has also
legalization and regulation of certain drugs (starting with ignored the growing calls for policy reform. In the foreword
marijuana). In June of that year the OAS adopted a declaration to the INCB’s 2013 annual report the organization’s President
(known as the ‘declaration of Antigua’) that reiterated the labelled reform initiatives as ‘dangerous’ and ‘misguided’.
futility of the current war on drugs. Advocacy groups have
convened dozens of international conferences to focus on the
issue, with the participation of high profile civil society and
government leaders. Furthermore, in March 2014, for the first BOLIVIA’S NEW APPROACH TO COCA CONTROL
time in its history, the Inter-American Commission on Human According to UN estimates, Bolivia is the third largest produ-
Rights (an autonomous organ of the OAS) held a hearing to cer of coca leaf, after Colombia and Peru (UNODC, 2012). One
analyse the impact of drugs policy on human rights in the of Bolivia’s two main coca-growing regions is the Chapare, a
Americas. tropical agricultural zone located in the centre of the country.
The population comprises Quechua-speaking peasants, and
former miners and factory workers from the highlands—many
UNILATERAL CHANGES TO DRUGS POLICY of whom migrated to the region in the 1980s in search of
High-level debate has been accompanied by unilateral changes alternative livelihoods in the coca-cocaine economy. Coca
to drugs policy in some Latin American countries. Chief among growers often point out that the only reason they took up
these is Uruguay, which in 2014 became the first country in the coca cultivation in the first place was because it was one of the
world to legalize and regulate the production, marketing and few options available to them in the wake of the economic
consumption of cannabis. This development could encourage reforms implemented under the Movimiento Nacionalista
other reform-minded governments to explore similar initia- Revolucionario administration in the mid-1980s, which closed
tives. Certainly, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil (all of which are down state-owned mines and factories and put tens of thou-
experiencing rising domestic drugs consumption) are investi- sands of people out of work (Grisaffi, 2010).
gating the possibility of decriminalizing possession of small The 45,000 settler families established small, family-run
amounts of drugs for personal use, and increasing investment farms. They cultivate a range of crops, including rice, bananas
in harm reduction programmes. and citrus fruit, but it is the income generated by coca leaf that
Some Latin American countries are addressing the issue of provides many with their only source of cash that is essential
excessive sentences established in national drugs laws, which for survival. While the coca-cocaine industry represents a
in most cases fail to distinguish between traffickers and significant segment of the Bolivian economy (according to
consumers. In 2010 Brazil’s Supreme Federal Tribunal ruled UN estimates, it is worth US $500m.–$700m. annually), the
that the application of alternatives to incarceration should be Chapare farmers are not the major beneficiaries. The UN has
allowed for low-level drugs offenders, noting that judges calculated that less than 1% of the value of European or US
should have the right to discretion when sentencing. Mean- cocaine sales makes its way back to the Andean coca farmers.
while, in August 2014 a wide-ranging new penal code came into As a result, the basic quality of life in the Chapare has
effect in Ecuador, which includes significant revisions to the remained very low: beyond the main towns, people live in
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GENERAL SURVEY Rethinking Drugs Policy in Latin America

houses made from rough-cut planks and palm leaves, and they the US Agency for International Development, development
do not count on sanitation, running water or electricity. actors now work directly with the coca unions and the coca
In the early 1980s the US Administration launched a coca union-dominated municipal governments.
eradication programme in the Chapare, in an effort to tackle From the perspective of the Chapare coca growers, the new
escalating coca production and cocaine-processing15. The Boli- policy is a step in the right direction. The violence provoked by
vian military and police forces, working closely with the US forced coca eradication is regarded as a thing of the past, and
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Narcotics the coca growers have been able to re-establish themselves
Affairs Section of the US embassy in La Paz, targeted the after years of impoverishment. One cato of coca generates an
family-run farms and manually uprooted coca plantations. income of about US $200 per month for each grower; this
Forced eradication did dramatically reduce the amount of land provides poor farmers with an economic safety net, and has
under coca cultivation in the Chapare, but this came at a high allowed them to experiment with other legal crops without
price. Eradication outpaced the provision of alternative devel- running the risk of destitution. Since 2006 the local economy
opment assistance, and plunged the coca growers into severe has started to grow, this is clearly demonstrated by the
economic crisis. More importantly, the security forces tasked proliferation of village fiestas, motorcycle ownership, thriving
with carrying out coca eradication missions killed and ser- local businesses, home improvements and rising land prices in
iously wounded scores of peasant activists, raped women, the region. In addition, the new policy respects the coca leaf,
torched homesteads and incarcerated and tortured hundreds which the coca growers consider to be an important element of
of people16 (Ledebur, 2005). Under the terms of the draconian their culture. Notwithstanding these advances, however, there
Law 1008, which was pushed through the Bolivian parliament are challenges associated with implementing the new policy—
under intense pressure from the US embassy in 1988, thou- not least the refusal by a minority of farmers to comply with the
sands of people were arrested for drugs-related offences on new regime (Grisaffi, 2013).
little or no evidence, and held indefinitely without charge. The Bolivian policy has been remarkably effective. During
In spite of (or some might say because of) military repression, Morales’ first four years as President coca cultivation
the coca growers built a powerful agricultural union to contest increased, expanding from 27,500 ha in 2006 to 31,000 ha in
the Bolivian Government’s anti-coca policy. The coca union 2010. However, by 2013 coca cultivation had shrunk back to
vowed to defend the right to grow coca leaf, which it classified 23,000 ha, a 26% fall from the 2010 high—and the lowest level
as ‘sacred’ on the basis that it represented an important recorded since 2002 (UNODC, 2014). The UN attributes this
element of indigenous culture and religious practice (Grisaffi, ‘significant’ decrease to ‘effective control’ through co-operative
2010). In 2005 the coca union’s political party, the Movimiento coca reduction and eradication. Most importantly, Bolivia
al Socialismo (MAS), secured an overwhelming victory in the achieved these reductions without violating human rights
presidential election, with the leader of the Chapare coca (Ledebur and Youngers, 2013). The Bolivian Government
union, Evo Morales, becoming Bolivia’s first indigenous head has also made significant efforts to eradicate coca in areas
of state. Morales and the MAS subsequently won equally that are not controlled by registered coca unions. Moreover,
decisive majorities in the 2009 and 2014 presidential and despite having expelled the DEA in 2008, the Bolivian Govern-
legislative elections. ment has achieved several important victories against drugs-
On taking office at the beginning of 2006, President Morales traffickers. Today the country’s special anti-narcotics police
made a radical break with the US-financed policies that force (Fuerza Especial de Lucha Contra el Narcotráfico) con-
focused on military/police suppression and the eradication of fiscate and destroy more than double the amount of cocaine
illicit crops. His new policy, popularly known as ‘coca si, paste and cocaine than when the DEA worked in the country
cocaina no’ (coca yes, cocaine no), is a direct result of proposals (UNODC, 2012). One of the reasons for this increase is that the
put forward by Bolivia’s coca grower unions. It envisions coca growers now work with the authorities in the fight against
development with coca and treats the coca growers as partners drugs-traffickers (Grisaffi, 2014). Prominent research organi-
in the fight against drugs-trafficking. There are four pillars to zations, including the Washington Office on Latin America and
the new policy: the Andean Information Network, have judged Morales’ ‘social
1. Limited coca cultivation: under the new regime, each control’ approach in positive terms. They consider that the
member of the agricultural unions is permitted to grow a policy treats the coca growers as partners instead of criminals,
limited amount of coca, termed a cato (1,600 sq m). In addition, respects human rights, and offers poor farmers realistic eco-
Morales has increased the extent of coca that can be grown nomic alternatives. Furthermore, they contend that by tack-
nationally from 12,000 ha to 20,000 ha to supply the traditional ling the root causes of the cultivation of illicit crops, the co-
legal market. operative approach could be more effective in reducing coca
2. Decriminalization and industrialization of coca: the Boli- and cocaine production in the long term (Farthing and Kohl,
vian Government makes a sharp distinction between coca leaf 2012; Ledebur and Youngers, 2013).
and the illicit drug cocaine. It has proposed the industrializa- Notwithstanding these persuasive figures, the USA has been
tion of coca for legal uses, such as teas, shampoo, diet pills, wine very critical of this new approach. The White House’s Office of
and toothpaste. Bolivia has urged the UN to decriminalize coca National Drug Control Policy argues that, despite the decrease
leaf, so that the country can export these coca-based products in total coca acreage, potential annual cocaine production in
to other countries; this is not possible at present, as coca Bolivia increased dramatically in 2011, to 265 metric tons
remains on the UN’s list of controlled substances (Metaal, et (from 195 tons in 2010), as a result of better yields from existing
al., 2006)17. plantations and innovative methods for processing cocaine.
3. Community-led control: responsibility for coca control has However, some drugs policy analysts have suggested that
been transferred from the security forces to the country’s these figures are opaque and unrealistic (Ledebur and Young-
agricultural federations. This policy is referred to as ‘social ers, 2013). Even so, in September 2014 the US Administration
control’, and encourages the unions to exercise internal con- renewed the decertification of Bolivia for the sixth consecutive
trols to restrict cultivation to one cato per member. Any coca year, stating that the country had ‘demonstrably failed to
produced beyond this limit is to be voluntarily uprooted. The comply with its obligations to tackle drug traffic’ (Pearson
policy works because coca growers identify strongly with the and Grisaffi, 2014). In response, Bolivia has worked more
Morales administration, and take pride in self-governance. closely with its neighbours, signing bilateral agreements
Furthermore, farmers consider that it is in their own best with Argentina, Brazil and Colombia.
interest to respect the cato agreement—they understand that History has shown that eradicating illicit crops in source
if coca cultivation is restricted, then coca prices will increase. countries is counterproductive. It destroys local economies,
The agricultural unions are also tasked with ensuring that provokes violent confrontations, and criminalizes some of the
coca is sold directly to official coca markets and is not diverted poorest and most vulnerable members of society. Furthermore,
to drugs-traffickers. there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that eradicating coca
4. ‘Development First’: the Government has promoted eco- crops in the Andes has an impact on the supply of drugs
nomic development in coca-growing regions, but—unlike the reaching US streets. Conversely, Bolivia’s co-operative coca
previous strategy—this has not been conditional on the era- reduction policy is humane; it respects indigenous culture; and
dication of coca. Furthermore, in contrast to the approach of it creates a safe and secure environment in which alternative
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GENERAL SURVEY Rethinking Drugs Policy in Latin America

livelihood strategies can be tried out (Youngers and Walsh, REFERENCES

2010). Rather than remaining committed to a policy that has
proved to be harmful, ineffective and unsustainable, US policy- Arias, E. D. ‘The Dynamics of Criminal Governance: Networks
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Colombia is currently the only country in the Andean region that pology, 33(1), pp. 47–65, 2013.
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