Is the world threatening a new cocaine flood? In Colombia the coca cultivation is exploding despite the end of the guerrilla war. And in...
Is the world threatening a new cocaine flood? In Colombia the coca cultivation is exploding despite the end of the guerrilla war. And in Bolivia, a new law allows for a doubling of cultivation. Pablo Escobar, a former confidante of Drogenboss, sees only one solution in the "drug war".
Sinforoso Ladesma is very enthusiastic about his coca leaves, just when there was a snake bite. "You have to chew them in the mouth and spit on the wound, already the pain goes away." The Kokabauer stands with a large sack at the Kokamarkt of Sacaba, the capital of the tropical Chapare region in Bolivia.
After years of decline, the cultivation area for the coca plant in South America has recently increased by 30 percent, just the new World Report of the United Nations (UN). Approximately 250 million people consume drugs worldwide - cocaine in Europe is sold for 5.7 billion euros a year. And if the signs do not deceive, a massive increase in cocaine production now threatens.
"The Kokablatt is not a drug"
What's the deal with Sinforoso Ladesma in Sacaba? He says he only builds on legal consumption - the chewing of cocaine leaves that has been practiced for centuries to prevent fatigue in the field work or in the mines. But where his leaves go, he does not know.
It is a secluded area, here the Dirección General de la Hoja de Coca e Industrialización (DIGCOIN) has the say. DIGCOIN is a police force to control coca production after President Evo Morales has thrown the US antidrogen unit DEA out of the country. Morales was a long cocaine in the Chapare.
Up to 2000 bags are weighed every day, the farmers are paid the money, currently about 1200 Bolivianos (150 euros) per bag with 50 libras (23 kilos). More than a tenfold of the farmers in the highlands who grow the "Quinoa", the "superfood" because of their nutrients and minerals. This shows why it is so lucrative to grow coca, a year three harvests are possible.
DIGCOIN policemen who want to remain anonymous claim that the Koka is distributed from here to the cocam markets of the region - for legal consumption. The motto of the Morales government is "La hoja de Coca no es droga"; "The Kokablatt is not a drug". Products such as Kokatee and Kokaschokolade want to make Morales an export warehouse.
Build-up area nearly doubled
The problem is that the coca from the chapare is so spicy, alkaloid that it burns in the mouth and is hardly suitable for chewing - unlike the coca from the Yungas, the traditional cultivation area, somewhat higher. Therefore, the Chapare-Koka helps even relieve wounds and bites, as Ladesma portrays.
In the Chapare, Koka was only planted since the 1980s, when thousands of mining workers became unemployed during the course of neoliberal reforms in the highlands and moved to the tropics. According to a UN estimate, 94 per cent of the chapare cocaine goes into cocaine production - precisely because of the very high alkaloid content.
Now, with a law signed by Morales, the legal cultivation area will be expanded from 12,000 to almost 22,000 hectares, of which 14,300 hectares will be allocated to the Yungas and 7,300 to the Chapare. In addition, there are thousands of hectares of illegal land. If, however, the Chapare-Koka is hardly suitable for consumption, this could significantly increase cocaine production - resulting from a mixture of chemicals and coca leaves.
For legal consumption?
Question to Kokabauer Ladesma, how to prevent the production of drugs increases. Answer: "I do not know." According to the analysis by the US authorities, cocaine production in Bolivia has already doubled to 255 tonnes in the past decade without the law. It often goes through Central America to the USA or to Europe. In the US, the street selling price is around 80 dollars per gram - these prices and the possibility of three harvests a year rain coca leaves not just for the cultivation of pineapples and oranges.
Morales argues strictly that there are links to drug trafficking, the extension of cultivation also in the Chapare is important, because the leaves are cheaper than the Yungas Kokablätter and thus also the poorest fellow citizens the chewing possible. A social measure, so to speak. Why is this questionable: for legal consumption, a cultivated area of a maximum of 14,000 hectares in the country is considered as completely sufficient.
Globally, three countries dominate coca cultivation: Colombia is the number one spot, followed by Peru and Bolivia. Even in the number 1 the cultivation increases steeply. The end of the guerrilla fight of the Farc seems to fuel a new cocaine boom in Colombia. There are reports of how other gangs in areas previously controlled by the Farc are trying to bring the crop under their control.
"You have to legalize it"
In addition, during the course of the multi-year peace process, the state's efforts to counter plantings were reduced. From 2014 to 2015 alone, cultivation exploded from 69,000 to 96,000 hectares, according to official data. The US Office of National Drug Control Policy (Ondcp) even assumes that today it is cultivated on up to 188,000 hectares of coca and the annual production could be 710 tons of cocaine. These are numbers almost as at times of drug baron Pablo Escobar - and the US raise serious accusations.
Venezuelan socialist government is under suspicion of using drug trafficking for state financing through alliances with criminal groups in Colombia. The US Treasury has recently placed Vice President Tareck El Aissami on a list of people whose assets are frozen - he denies any involvement.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the US tried to deal with the billiards of war against the drugs by spraying the fields ("Plan Colombia"), the EU promoted expensive programs for the alternative cultivation of bananas and citrus fruits. It has little helped, the cultivation is and remains lucrative - by the loss of the US influence in South America also the persecution sank.
One who knows all tricks and routes is Jhon Jairo Velásquez, aka "Popeye", who has killed around 250 people on behalf of Pablo Escobar and wants to run for the Senate in Colombia after 23 years of imprisonment in the coming year. His answer to the question of how to win the war against cocaine traders is narrow and interesting: "It has to be legalized."
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