Bolivia Moves To Legalize Coca Production

Saturnino Mamani, with his son beside him, stands in his coca fields in Los Yungas. Photograph: Andrés Schipani/Guardian Weekly

Bolivian Leader Moves To Legalize Small Coca Plots -- ABC News

LA PAZ, Bolivia - President Evo Morales said Saturday that he plans to make it legal for Bolivia's farmers to grow small parcels of coca plants. Morales, who also heads a coca growers association, said he wants to permit individual farmers to cultivate coca plots of 40 meters by 40 meters (130 feet by 130 feet). Coca leaf is the key ingredient of cocaine.

The president predicted the measure will be enacted, noting he won re-election Dec. 6 with 64 percent of the vote and commands a strong majority in the national legislature.

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My Comment: The Bolivian Government is laying the groundwork to officially become a narco producing state. The outcome of such legislation will be a major increase in the production of coca leaves, with the hope (and intent) that small farmers can earn extra revenues from growing this crop. But if history is any indication, this policy will result in disaster for Bolivia within one generation.

Every country that has either turned a blind eye to narcotics and/or legalized the production of narcotics eventually ended up with a major narcotics problem. Colombia, Mexico, and Peru are South America's stellar examples of this policy, but countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan are also examples of what happens when the production of narcotics is permitted. In Afghanistan .... aside from the war .... opium addiction plagues a sizable percentage of the population, bringing with it all of the social and medical problems associated with this type of addiction. The poppy crops may bring a small income to the Afghan farmers who grow it, but the political, medical, social, and economic hardships that it brings makes the entire enterprise (and policy) a tragedy that approaches biblical proportions.

For Bolivia .... by decriminalizing the production of small coca crops .... we will not have to wait long for the eventual increase in the production of cocaine and the criminal enterprises that are dependent on it. And I predict .... that within one generation .... cocaine and the violence that it ALWAYS spawns will become Bolivia's #1 social, political, and health problem.