Drop in Bolivian Coca Culture Due to Evo Morales' Drug Policy

​While the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime has praised for a long time the steady decrease of coca growing in the Andean country, a report released Monday confirmed that this trend was mainly the result of the progressive policies implemented under Evo Morales' presidency.

“Economic development, cooperation with coca-growing communities, and respect for human rights have been the main drivers of these consistent reductions,” found the joint report issued by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) and the Andean Information Network (AIN).

Morales' policy contrasted with the militarized approach of eradication imposed by the United States – via aerial fumigations for instance. Instead, his government developed cooperation with coca-growing communities, recognizing the traditional use of the coca leaf in the Andean culture, and allowing farmers to grow a measured plot of land on the ancestral plant (1,600-2,500 square meters) while finding sustainable alternatives to cocoa cultivation. Local coca growers’ unions also have actively cooperated with government officials to ensure compliance with the ratio agreement.

As a result, coca cultivation in Bolivia has dropped 34 percent from 2010 to 2014 for the fourth consecutive year, recognized the UNODC in a recent report.

“This experience holds key lessons for Peru and Colombia, the two leading global coca producers, which continue to use forced eradication campaigns despite the harm they cause and their ineffectiveness at ensuring lasting coca reductions,” added the report.

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“Bolivia’s successes send a clear message: forced eradication of coca is neither effective nor just, and leads only to cycles of poverty and human rights violations—not sustained reductions in coca cultivation,” said Coletta A. Youngers, a Senior Fellow at WOLA and co-author of the report.

“By working to provide economic alternatives for coca growers and permitting small amounts of cultivation for traditional use, Bolivia has reduced the supply of coca deviated to the illicit market.”

On the same day, presenting the new UN report on illicit crop monitoring, Morales stated that drug-trafficking had significantly supported the Bolivian economy under the neoliberal regimes that preceded his, as its profits represented about 14 percent of the Gross Domestic Product – compared to the one percent it now represents.

The president highlighted the failure of militarized eradication, and recalled that coca crops started to decrease in 2010 after his administration removed the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration from the country.

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On Tuesday, experts from Insight Crime Analysis confirmed the importance of providing viable alternatives to coca growing to a successful drug policy, taking counterexamples from Peru and Colombia. Peru’s aggressive eradication program failed in the long term to reduce coca crops, argued the experts, basing their analysis on an investigative report by the Associated Press.

“One family interviewed by the Associated Press grew bananas after their coca crops were forcibly eradicated in 2013. The family earned just $1 for the entire bundle of bananas, a pittance compared to the nearly $1,000 they can make every four months by selling coca.”

Most of the 95,000 farmers affected by eradication last year “either rejected what they say is inadequate compensation or were offered nothing at all,” added the report.

In Colombia, coca production increased by almost 40 percent last year, and will likely rise by a similar rate this year, predict experts.