Coca eradication

Short description: Drug regulation strategy

Eradication of coca production in Colombia

Coca eradication is a strategy promoted by local authorities in coca-producing countries, often with support from foreign partners such as the United States and the European Union, to eliminate the cultivation of coca—a plant whose leaves are used in the manufacture of cocaine. This approach, which gained momentum starting in 1961 as part of the U.S.-led "war on drugs," was adopted in place of running educational campaigns against drug usage.[1][2] The prohibitionist strategy is being pursued in the coca-growing regions of Colombia (Plan Colombia), Peru, and formerly Bolivia, where it is highly controversial because of its environmental, health and socioeconomic impact.[1] Indigenous cultures living in the Altiplano, such as the Aymaras, use the coca leaf (which they dub the "millenary leaf") in many of their cultural traditions, notably for its medicinal qualities in alleviating the feeling of hunger, fatigue and headaches symptomatic of altitude sicknesses. The growers of coca are named Cocaleros, and part of the coca production for traditional use is legal in Peru, Bolivia and Chile.{{Citation needed|date=July 2024}

## Contents

* 1 Environmental impact
* 2 Socioeconomic impact
* 3 Geopolitical issues
* 4 Results
* 5 Quotes
* 6 See also
* 7 References
* 8 External links

## Environmental impact

Aerial spraying of glyphosate herbicide, one of the most controversial methods of coca eradication, has taken place in Colombia exclusively because of that government's willingness to cooperate with the United States in the militarized eradication of coca after signing Plan Colombia in 2000. In many cases the spraying is carried out by American contractors, such as DynCorp, using planes and helicopters to spray glyphosate on coca plantations.{{Citation needed|date=July 2024} dly condemned by human rights and environmental activists because of its effect on human populations and local soil and water systems.[citation needed] In December 2000, Dutch journal t "because the chemical is sprayed in Colombia from planes on inhabited areas, there have been consistent health complaints [in humans]. Burning eyes, dizziness and respiratory problems being most frequently reported." In some areas, 80 percent of the children of the indigenous community fell sick with skin rashes, fever, diarrhoea and eye infections.[3] Because the glyphosate is sprayed from the air, there is a much higher chance of human error when spraying suspected illegal coca plantations. In many cases the wrong fields are sprayed, resulting in a loss of the farmer's crop as well as a loss of that field altogether as nothing will grow where the herbicide has been sprayed.[4] Though official documentation of the health effects of glyphosate spraying in Colombia are virtually non-existent, neighbouring Ecuador has conducted studies to determine the cause of mysterious illnesses amongst people living along the border of Colombia and has since demanded that no aerial sprayings occur within 10 km of the border because of the damage caused to the people, animals and environment in that area.[4] In 2015, Colombia announced a ban on using glyphosate in these programs due to concerns about human toxicity of the chemical.[5]

In April 2025, the Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced that the country would be resuming the use of manual glyphosate spraying to combat high levels of coca cultivation within the country, despite the prior ban. This reimplementation ran counter to the fact that Petro had been very vocal with his disdain for the use of glyphosate throughout his presidential campaign and term, due to the damage it causes to local communities. The change came about due to US pressure on Colombia to ramp up levels of coca plant removal- in early 2025, the Trump administration had warned Petro that if Colombia didn't increase removal levels, it would lose its anti-drug certification.[6]

In addition, the U.S. has been involved in the development of the fungus Fusarium oxysporum to wipe out coca.[7][8] In 2000, the Congress of the United States approved use of Fusarium as a biological control agent to kill coca crops in Colombia (and another fungus to kill opium poppies in Afghanistan), but these plans were canceled by President Bill Clinton, who was concerned that the unilateral use of a biological agent would be perceived by the rest of the world as biological warfare. The Andean nations have since banned its use throughout the region.{{Citation needed|date=July 2024} kill crops may be illegal under the Biological Weapons Convention of 1975.[citation needed])

Source: DEA Intelligence Division, December 2013

On June 25, 2003, the Superior Administrative Court of the Colombian department of Cundinamarca ordered a stop to the spraying of glyphosate herbicides until the government complies with the environmental management plan for the eradication program. It also mandated a series of studies to protect public health and the environment.[9] The Colombian State Council, the country's maximum administrative authority, later overruled the court's decision to stop fumigations.

## Socioeconomic impact

To counter this development, the U.S. government, through its foreign aid agency USAID, has promoted a policy of crop substitution, whereby coca cultivation is replaced by coffee, banana, pineapple, palm heart, and other crops suitable for a tropical climate. However; many remote coca-growing areas lack the infrastructure to get such perishable products to market on time. Coca on the other hand stores well and is easily transportable. The price of coca has remained high and in many cases remains a more attractive crop to farmers than these alternatives. Despite these obstacles, many farmers have embraced alternative crops. In 2006, Bolivia, as a result of alternative development programs, exported US$28 million of banana, US$1.9 million of pineapple, and US$7.0 million of palm heart.[10] These industries now employ more than 20,000 people in the Chapare region.{{Citation needed|date=July 2024}

## Geopolitical issues

Many critics of coca eradication believe the fundamental goal of the U.S. government is to constrict the flow of income to the Colombian Marxist rebel movement, FARC, which is heavily funded by the illegal drug trade, rather than combating drugs per se. Few if any such critics have anything favorable to say about the illicit drug trade, but they point out that under the current coca eradication policies, poor campesinos bear the brunt of efforts to combat it, while North American and European chemical companies (which supply chemicals needed in the manufacture of cocaine) and banks (which annually launder hundreds of billions of dollars in illegal revenues) continue to profit from the trade. (Although it is illegal in the United States for banks to hold funds from drug cartels—such as FARC—that have been designated as foreign terrorist organizations.{{Citation needed|date=July 2024} Article 26 of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, a treaty promulgated with U.S. backing in 1961, states "The Parties shall so far as possible enforce the uprooting of all coca bushes which grow wild. They shall destroy the coca bushes if illegally cultivated." The US-based Drug Enforcement Administration, along with local governments, has frequently clashed with cocaleros in attempts to eradicate coca across the Andes. Human rights NGOs such as Human Rights Watch have accused the US of human rights abuses in the "coca war".[11]

Meanwhile, the US-based Stepan Company is authorized by the Federal Government to import and process the coca plant[12] which it obtains from Peru and Bolivia. Besides producing the coca flavoring agent for Coca-Cola, Stepan Company extracts cocaine from the coca leaves, which it sells to Mallinckrodt, a pharmaceutical manufacturer that is the only company in the United States licensed to purify cocaine for medicinal use.[13]

## Results

The U.S. figures were very different from preliminary estimates in September 2003 by the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in Colombia, which indicated that output in Peru and Bolivia may have risen that year. The White House office said its estimate was based on sampling from high resolution satellite imagery. The United Nations used a different technique and had not yet put out any formal estimate for 2003.[14]

A March 2005 report by the ONDCP indicated that despite record aerial spraying of over 1,300 km2 of coca in Colombia in 2004, the total area under coca cultivation remained "statistically unchanged" at 1,140 km2. In response to the report, the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), an NGO that monitors the impact of US foreign policy in Latin America, observed that the aerial spraying strategy appeared to have hit its limits. According to WOLA, the new ONDCP data suggested a continued "balloon effect" as aggressive spraying in some areas has not deterred new cultivation elsewhere. The WOLA Senior Associate for Drug Policy commented, "The stable cultivation in 2004 throws into doubt US officials’ predictions of a major impact on US drug prices and purity." Regardless, Colombian President Álvaro Uribe vowed to press ahead with the U.S.-financed fumigation of coca crops.[15]

Official estimates of coca cultivation in Peru for 2005 have yet to be released, but the State Department's own reporting suggests that cultivation in Peru has increased. In Bolivia, there has been a decrease in clashes since 2004, when Evo Morales and former President Carlos Mesa struck a deal allowing the Chapare region to legally grow a limited amount of coca, in addition to the already legal Yungas region.{{Citation needed|date=July 2024} In 2006 the Colombian government destroyed around 730 square kilometres, reaching new records in coca plant destruction. The Colombian government planned to destroy around 500 km2 of coca plants in 2007, which would leave only around 200 km2 left. The Colombian government planned to destroy the remaining coca gradually over the following years.[16]

## Quotes

> The U.S. has supplied tens of thousands of gallons of Roundup to the Colombian government for use in aerial fumigation of coca crops. We have been using a fleet of crop dusters to dump unprecedented amounts of high-potency glyphosate over hundreds of thousands of acres in one of the most delicate and bio-diverse ecosystems in the world. This futile effort has done little to reduce the availability of cocaine on our streets, but now we are learning that a possible side-effect of this campaign could be the unleashing of a Fusarium epidemic in the Amazon basin. The drug war has tried in vain to keep cocaine out of people's noses, but could result instead in scorching the lungs of the earth.

> --Sanho Tree, the director of the Institute for Policy Studies Drug Policy Project.

## See also

* Agent Orange
* Evo Morales, Bolivian president and former cocalero activist

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Grisaffi, Thomas; Ledebur, Kathryn (31 March 2016). "Citizenship or Repression? Coca, Eradication and Development in the Andes". Stability: International Journal of Security and Development 5 (1). doi:10.5334/sta.440. ISSN 2165-2627.
2. ↑ Webb, Gary (1999). Dark Alliance. Seven Stories Press. pp. 35. ISBN 978-1-888363-93-7.
3. ↑ Driven Mad by Itch, NRC Handelsblad, December 28, 2000
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Hugh O’Shaughnessy and Sue Branford, Chemical Warfare in Colombia: The Costs of Coca Fumigation (London: Latin America Bureau, 2005.)
5. ↑ BBC. May 10, 2015. Colombia to ban coca spraying herbicide glyphosate
6. ↑ Dickinson, Elizabeth. "Under Threat, Colombia Restarts Coca Fumigation". https://www.crisisgroup.org/alr/latin-america-caribbean/colombia/under-threat-colombia-restarts-coca-fumigation.
7. ↑ Vicious Circle: The Chemical and Biological 'War on Drugs' report by the Transnational Institute (TNI), March 2001
8. ↑ The Re-emergence of the Biological War on Drugs, TNI Drug Policy Briefing 7, May 2004
9. ↑ Colombia Court Nixes Spray Program , Colombia Update
10. ↑ Bolivian Chamber of Exporters - CAMEX
11. ↑ Bolivia: Human Rights Violations and the War on Drugs, Human Rights Watch Vol. 7, No. 8 (B), July 1995]
12. ↑ May, Clifford D. "How Coca-Cola Obtains Its Coca", The New York Times, July 1, 1998. Accessed December 4, 2007
13. ↑ Benson, Drew. "Coca kick in drinks spurs export fears". http://www.mindfully.org/Food/2004/Kdrink-Coca-Drink19apr04.htm.
14. ↑ "ONDCP Releases Data on Coca Cultivation and Potential Cocaine Production in the Andean Region" (in en-US). 2021-07-16. https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/ondcp/briefing-room/2021/07/16/ondcp-releases-data-on-coca-cultivation-and-potential-cocaine-production-in-the-andean-region/.
15. ↑ Aerial Spraying Fails to Reduce Coca Cultivation in Colombia , WOLA, March 31, 2003
16. ↑ Script error: The function "in_lang" does not exist. Erradicán manualment 50 mil hectáreas de coca en 2007, Presidencia de Colombia press release, January 3, 2007

## External links

* Chemical and Biological War on Drugs Transnational Institute (TNI) website
* Vicious Circle: The Chemical and Biological 'War on Drugs' report by the Transnational Institute (TNI), March 2001
* Coca or Death? Cocalero Movements in Peru and Bolivia Transnational Institute (TNI), Drugs & Conflict Debate Papers 10, April 2004
* Colombia coca cultivation survey results: A question of methods, Transnational Institute (TNI), Drug Policy Briefing No 22, June 2007
* Crop spraying: a déjà vu debate: From the Andean strategy to the Afghan strategy, Transnational Institute (TNI), Drug Policy Briefing No 25, December 2007
* Coca cultivation in the Andean Region: A survey of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), June 2007
* U.S. Accused of Creating Coca Blight, from the San Francisco Chronicle, 1999

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