Alcohol and Drugs History Society

Chicha (fermented rye) at Tinku on Bolivian high plains

The New York Times, 13 Feb. 07, reports about the fighting and the drinking (chicha from fermented rye) at what is called Tinku on the Bolivian high plains. For more, see here.

Evo Morales opens coca factory

This story, unsigned and from Reuters, is on the wire right now.

LA PAZ, Bolivia (Reuters) - Bolivian President Evo Morales visited a coca-growing region on Saturday to open a Venezuelan-funded factory where coca leaves will be made into legal products such as tea and soft drinks.

Morales rose in politics as the leader of Bolivia's coca farmers and part of his anti-drug policy is to encourage licit uses for coca -- the plant used to make cocaine, which is also revered by Andean peoples for its medicinal properties.

Full story here.

the Venezuelan-Colombian border

Fabiola Sanchez reports on the AP on the growing military presence along the Venezuela-Colombia border, which has long been characterized by heavy drug trafficking. Link here.

Coca champion Evo Morales

Andrew Mueller, for the May 7 Independent, profiles Evo Morales and his popularity at home.

Morales continues, also, to champion the cause of the coca-growers. Coca - the plant from which cocaine is refined - plays a key role in many traditional practices. Previous governments, anxious to keep getting US aid, abetted America's quixotic coca eradication programmes, effectively deploying Bolivia's army to suppress its poorest people at the behest of a foreign power. Under a 1988 law, only 12,000 hectares were set aside for the legal production of coca. In 2004, Morales's agitation won another 3,200 hectares, but as president his ambitions go further.

Morales wants the United Nations to rescind a 1961 convention that declares coca an illegal narcotic, so that Bolivia might export coca-based soap, wine, shampoo and biscuits, among other products. In March 2006, in a gesture that demonstrated both coca's versatility and Morales's innate cheekiness, he presented the visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice with a ukulele decorated with lacquered coca leaves.

Coca as Symbol and Labor Enhancer in the Andes (article)

Vicki Cassman, Larry Cartmell, Eliana Belmonte, “Coca as Symbol and Labor Enhancer in the Andes: A Historical Overview.” Drugs, labor, and colonial expansion. Ed. William Jankowiak and Daniel Bradburd. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2003, pp. 149 - 158.

Latin America's "wrong left" and drug trafficking

Jorge G. Castañeda, in the May/June 2006 issue of Foreign Affairs, counsels Washington and the international community on what they should do about "Latin America's left turn." Castañeda characterizes his "wrong left" with many "moral" problems, including the tolerance of drug trafficking.

The international community should also clarify what it expects from the "wrong left," given that it exists and that attempts to displace it would be not only morally unacceptable but also pragmatically ineffective. The first point to emphasize is that Latin American governments of any persuasion must abide by their countries' commitments regarding human rights and democracy. The region has built up an incipient scaffolding on these matters over recent years, and any backsliding, for whatever reason or purpose, should be met by a rebuke from the international community. The second point to stress is that all governments must continue to comply with the multilateral effort to build a new international legal order, one that addresses, among other things, the environment, indigenous people's rights, international criminal jurisdiction (despite Washington's continued rejection of the International Criminal Court and its pressure on several Latin American governments to do the same), nuclear nonproliferation, World Trade Organization rules and norms, regional agreements, and the fight against corruption, drug trafficking, and terrorism, consensually defined. Europe and the United States have enormous leverage in many of these countries. They should use it.

Full text here.

Bolivian President takes 'coca is not cocaine' plea to UN

Bolivia stepped up a long-running battle with Washington this week by taking its campaign to legalise coca plants to the United Nations in a bid to persuade the international community that the leaf should no longer be banned because of its links to the illegal drugs trade.

The Independent reports.

Coca from Bolivia, Peru worries U.S.

A [U.S.] State Department report issued Wednesday voices concerns about heightened political influence by coca-growing associations in Bolivia and Peru, resulting in an increase in coca cultivation in those countries.

CNN reports.

Internet 'pharmacies'

Legal prescription drugs are being trafficked illegally over the internet, the UN's anti-drugs body has warned. The BBC reports.

Coca 'better than milk for kids'

COCA leaf has more nutritional value than milk and should replace it in school lunches, Bolivia's colourful new Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca has said. 

The Australian reports.

Former Coca Farmer Elected President of Bolivia

Evo Morales, a former coca farmer pledged to legalize the growing of coca, has been elected president of Bolivia.  An Aymara Indian, he is Bolivia's first indigenous president.

Running on the coca ticket

For the AP, Fiona Smith reports - here posted on November 23, 2005 at South Florida's Sun-Sentinel.com - that an Indian coca farmer is the frontrunner for the presidency of Bolivia.

Evo Morales promises that if elected Dec. 4, he will decriminalize all coca farming. That would mean an end to a decade-old crop eradication program that has led to clashes between farmers and soldiers in which dozens have died.

Those interested in following the story of Evo Morales and Bolivia's upcoming election can use this handy link I just made. The election will be December 18, not December 4, and as of today, Evo Morales remains the frontrunner.

Bolivian Chocolate (Article)

Robyn Eversole, "The Chocolates of Sucre: Stories of a Bolivian Industry," Enterprise & Society: The International Journal of Business History 3/2 (2002): 209-246.

Bolivian coca farmers less hostile to eradication

Reuters reports (20 Sept 2005) from Monte Sinai that for years, Indian peasants in this lush corner of the Bolivian Amazon have clashed with authorities seeking to crack down on the region's most abundant crop: coca. But tensions have subsided in recent months, Bolivian and U.S. officials say, thanks to an agreement allowing farmers to harvest small plots of the plant that is the key ingredient of cocaine.

Coca leaves are to Andean Indians what coffee, tea or chewing tobacco are to other societies -- a comforting means to fend off fatigue and hunger. Leaves stuffed into the cheek or steeped in a tea are a lifeline against altitude sickness in the highlands.

Much of it is grown here in the Chapare region, a key growing valley that has been the focus of a U.S.-funded coca eradication program. Bolivia is the world's third-biggest cocaine producer after Colombia and Peru. Read more here.

Paying the social cost of cocaine eradication

The Herald Tribune reports (16 June 2005) from Bolivia that cocaine production is increasing in this politically unstable country, the United Nations has said, warning that international assistance is immediately needed to wean poor farmers from drug crops. Eradication efforts financed by the United States had until recently wiped out much of the coca in Bolivia and Peru, the two countries that in the 1990s supplied much of the raw material used to produce cocaine. But in Bolivia, eradication has brought a high social cost, with displaced coca farmers joining protests that led two presidents to quit in the past 20 months, including Carlos Mesa last week. Read more here.

Turbulent Bolivia Is Producing More Cocaine, the U.N. Reports

The New York Times reports (13 June 2005) that the U.N. has warned that international assistance is immediately needed to wean poor farmers from growing drug crops in Bolivia. Find the full story here.

Crack in the Amazon

For the Narco News Bulletin (May 13, 2005), Natalia Viana reports on the emergence of "oxi," a new kind of crack cocaine, in the southeastern Brazil.

Possibly one of the most potent and dangerous drugs known, “oxi,” or “oxidado,” (“rust”) as known by its users, is a variant of crack. The difference is that, in its manufacture, instead of adding baking soda or ammonia to cocaine hydrochloride (the method for creating crack), kerosene and quicklime are added to produce oxi.

The drug's effects are terrifying.

“When [the user] had finished smoking the rock, swallowing the smoke in his mouth, he fell down vomiting and defecating, and had his high in the middle of his vomit and feces, until he got up to smoke another.”

Not surprisingly, a third of oxi users die within a year.

 

Coca, Drugs and Social Protest in Bolivia and Peru

A March 2005 report by the International Crisis Group, entitled "Coca, Drugs and Social Protest in Bolivia and Peru," can be found here.

Brief Summary

Bolivia and Peru are becoming a second, though compared to Colombia still relatively small-scale, pole of cocaine production in the Andes, feeding in particular a growing Latin American market in addition to the traditional U.S. and European markets. At least as significantly, the policies emphasised there in pursuit of the U.S.-led war on drugs are aggravating social tensions with potentially explosive results for the extremely fragile democratic institutions of both countries. If these trends are to be reversed, new and better funded policies are needed that put greater emphasis on alternative development and institution building, less on forced eradication, and that demonstrate more sensitivity to local culture. The proposed new U.S. budget, however, goes in the wrong direction.

Female tavern proprietors in Bolivia (Article)

An article by Gina Hames, entitled "Maize-beer, gossip, and slander: Female tavern proprietors and urban, ethnic cultural elaboration in Bolivia, 1870-1930," in the Journal of Social History (Winter 2003), can be found here.

Protests in Bolivia

Reuters reports (15 March 2005) from La Paz, Bolivia that protesters are facing down blockades that have crippled Bolivia's export industries. The road blocks are costing South America's poorest economy millions of dollars a day in lost business since exporters are unable to get their cargo to Pacific ports. Banana growers have been among the hardest hit. The protests began over President Carlos Mesa's plans to open the energy sector to more foreign investment, and nearly forced the president to quit last week. The list of grievances has ballooned to include anti-U.S. sentiment and grievances over government efforts to halt cultivation of coca, the raw material used to make cocaine. Find the full story here.

World coca production down, but opium soars

New Kerala reports (4 March 2005) that a decline in estimated coca leaf production was tempered by a near-double increase in opium cultivation in 2004. Find the full story here.