HomeNewsAnalysisUN Ruling Solves Only One of Bolivia's Problems
ANALYSIS

UN Ruling Solves Only One of Bolivia's Problems

BOLIVIA / 17 JAN 2013 BY ELYSSA PACHICO EN

Bolivia won an important symbolic victory after the United Nations (UN) said it would no longer consider traditional uses of the coca leaf illegal within the Andean nation. However, this will arguably increase the pressure on Bolivia to limit illegal coca production via law enforcement efforts and other policies. 

The January 11 ruling formalized Bolivia's readmission to the UN's international anti-drug agreement and included a special caveat that recognizes traditional coca usage as legal. Hundreds of Bolivians publicly celebrated by tossing leaves in the streets in La Paz, while others hawked coca-derived products, including jelliesenergy drinks, and cakes.

Bolivia quit the international agreement in 2011, arguing that it would only rejoin if the UN recognized that the chewing of coca leaves -- along with other traditional practices, such as the brewing of medicine -- should be legal within the Andean country.

Speaking in coca-growing Chapare province, President Evo Morales said that Bolivia would continue its "alternative model" in the fight against the drug trade. That approach allows some 20,000 hectares of legal coca crops and encourages the powerful coca growers' unions to monitor one another in order to enforce these limits. Supporters of the strategy say it is paying off, pointing to findings by the UN and the White House anti-drug office, which state that Bolivia's coca cultivations dropped by about 12 to 13 percent between 2010 to 2011. 

InSight Crime Analysis

The UN's ruling may calm the international storm but not the domestic one. Bolivia's government is struggling to keep its legal coca cultivations within state-mandated limits, and critics have said that the international ruling may be read as a "green light" to produce more coca, which some of these critics say will lead to more cocaine production. The White House drug office maintains, for instance, that Bolivia's potential cocaine production is now greater than Colombia's and that drug trafficking groups are increasingly using Bolivia as a production and staging point for their international drug trafficking operations. 

In order to assuage some of these concerns, Bolivia will likely highlight its efforts to limit illegal coca and cocaine production via law enforcement efforts, including eradication campaigns and seizures. In a timely announcement that was most likely intended to counter-act any potential accusations that Bolivia is not doing enough against the illicit drug trade, the head of a special anti-drug task force recently announced that over 2,000 military and police had been deployed to 21 regions and would destroy any excess coca in Bolivia. The government has also cited increased cocaine seizures as evidence of progress. 

Nevertheless, Bolivia's apparent victory with the UN may only make the country more vulnerable to accusations that its legal coca policy is feeding the growth of organized crime networks. Colombian, Brazilian, and local trafficking groups are all producing cocaine inside Bolivia and shipping it abroad, mostly to Brazil for local consumption or for export to Europe. UN representative to Bolivia Cesar Guedes has said that more than half of Bolivia's legal coca farms produce crops that end up in the hands of drug traffickers. 

While law enforcement efforts will likely continue to focus on the short-term solution of eradication campaigns and seizures, there are arguably other strategies that Bolivia could take that might prove more effective in the long term. This could involve creating new legal uses for coca, in order to absorb the extra production, rather than trying to suppress it. The head of the coca growing federation known as Adepcoca has already hinted at this, describing plans to industrialize coca production in the Yungas region. Alongside encouraging a new legal market for coca, Bolivia could also expand the amount of coca that is legally grown, giving more farmers the chance to participate in the legal coca economy, rather than selling the crop to criminal groups. 

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

BOLIVIA / 9 AUG 2022

Politicians are pushing for the Chilean government to declare a state of emergency in the northern regions including Tarapacá…

COCAINE / 22 SEP 2022

Colombia's President Gustavo Petro has lambasted decades of US anti-drug policy at the United Nations General Assembly.

BOLIVIA / 25 JUL 2022

Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, has gradually become one of South America's main criminal threats, with Chile its latest target.

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

22 SEP 2023

This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…