More Proof That We Are Losing The War On Drugs

A girl plays in a pile of coca leaves at the coca market in the Bolivian jungle town of Chimore as her mother gathers the leaves together into 50 pound bags. (Photos By Evan Abramson For The Washington Post)

Despite U.S. Aid, Coca Cultivation On Rise in Andes
-- Washington Post

COROICO, Bolivia -- Benito Cocarico admits that some of the coca leaves he grows to sell as tea and a traditional pick-me-up are channeled off into the broad stream of the global cocaine trade. But as he trudges on the muddy trails of his farm, located in a region where the raw material for the drug grows on narrow terraces, he explains how central the crop is to his family's well-being.

"The prices of oranges, mandarins, coffee and other products are too low, and they do not give you enough to survive," said Cocarico, 50, adding that he plans to double the size of his coca crop. "So we are obligated to plant coca."

Across the Andean region, the size of the coca crop has increased 18 percent in the past five years, a period during which the United States has spent $4 billion on anti-drug programs. With farmers turning to pesticides and modern irrigation to improve crop yields, the amount of cocaine produced in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia -- source countries for nearly all of the global supply -- hovers at 1,100 tons a year, according to a recent U.N. report.

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My Comment: Billions spent, thousands of lives ruined (if not more), narco war, narco terror, and narco gangs, .... and what do we have to show for it ..... nada .... nothing.