Bolivia Plants Coca, And Cocaine Follows

A Bolivian farmer weeding his coca plantation. Bolivian coca production has grown 20% in acreage since President Evo Morales took office in 2006. Agence France Presse/Getty Images

From The Wall Street Journal:

U.S. Says Drug Trade Is Booming as Morales's Plan to Encourage Legal Products From Leaves Backfires.

When Evo Morales, a former coca farmer, became president of Bolivia in 2006, he promised to restore the thumb-shaped green leaf to the place of respect it enjoyed in Inca times. Farmers could legally grow more of it, and his government would build factories to churn out coca shampoo and toothpaste. He would fight drugs under a policy of "zero cocaine, but not zero coca."

Now Bolivia's coca production is up, according to the United Nations -- but so is its cocaine trade. Cocaine production is potentially up as much as 65%, U.S. law-enforcement officials say, as Colombian and Mexican traffickers have set up shop in the country. Bolivia's neighbors complain they are being hammered by the cocaine flooding across its borders.

"Bolivia has become the point of least resistance to the drug trade," says Eduardo Gamarra, a political scientist at Florida International University.

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My Comment: Like Peru .... all the trends in the cocaine and drug trade are going down a wrong direction.