TNI Drugs & Conflict Debate Papers series:

Coca Myths
TNI Drugs & Conflict Debate Papers 17, June 2009
History has been unjust to the coca leaf, denying it distribution on a global scale despite its proven value as an energy enhancer, while limiting its potential for widespread use as a healthy alternative to all sorts of chemical stimulants currently available on the world
market.
Go to the online summary

‘Paco’ Under Scrutiny
The cocaine base paste market in the Southern Cone
TNI Drugs and Conflict Debate paper 14, October 2006
Based on two studies carried out in the cities of Buenos Aires and Montevideo and additional research in Brazil, this report examines the origin, characteristics and impact of the explosive increase in consumption of cocaine base paste and crack in urban areas.

Coca Yes, Cocaine No?
Legal Options for the Coca Leaf
Drugs & Conflict Debate Paper 13, May 2006
A simple leaf of an ancient plant will feature prominently on the international agenda this year. As international relations and specialised mechanisms for managing the international drugs trade have evolved, a decade-old demand to remove the coca leaf from strict international drugs controls has come to the fore again in recent months. Time has come to repair an historical error responsible for including the leaf amongst the most hazardous classified substances. This issue explains the motives, context and range of this petition, as well as the procedures that need to be followed to reach this objective.

Coca or Death?
Cocalero Movements in Peru and Bolivia
TNI Drugs & Conflict Debate Paper 10, April 2004
This issue of Drugs and Conflict analyses cocalero peasant organisations in Peru and Bolivia and their interaction with successive governments during the peasant mobilisations of recent years. The achievements and failures of such negotiations expose the difficulty in finding peaceful and sustainable solutions to an issue as intricate as the cultivation of coca leaf.

TNI Drug Policy Briefing series:

Colombia coca cultivation survey results
A question of methods
Drug Policy Briefing No, 22, June 2007
Despite 2006 witnessing the most intensive use of fumigation in the country’s history, some 157,200 hectares of cultivation areas were detected, 13,200 hectares more than in 2005. Is the fumigation strategy failing?

Sending the wrong message
The INCB and the un-scheduling of the coca leaf
TNI Drug Policy Briefing No. 21, March 2007
The 2006 International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) report emitted a clear signal to the governments of Bolivia, Peru and Argentina that growing and using coca leaf is in conflict with international treaties, particularly the 1961 Single Convention. The INCB, rather than making harsh judgements based on a selective choice of outdated treaty articles, should use its mandate more constructively and help draw attention to the inherent contradictions in the current treaty system with regard to how plants, plant-based raw materials and traditional uses are treated.

The politicisation of fumigations
Glyphosate on the Colombian-Ecuadorian border
TNI Drug Policy Briefing No. 20,  February 2007
Plan Colombia has brought environmental, health and economic damage – and may even have stimulated the spread of coca plantations. This briefing looks at alternatives for the Andean region and addresses the glyphosate dispute on the Colombia-Ecuador border.

Political Challenges Posed by the Failure of Prohibition
Drugs in Colombia and the Andean-Amazonian Region
Ricardo Vargas Meza
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 16,  May 2006
After a slight dip in coca production during 2003 and 2004, the Andean region has returned to the historical average of 200,000 hectares of coca crops. Added to this is the sharp increase in the expansion of drug trafficking toward other countries in the region, such as Ecuador and Venezuela, as well as new areas of Central America and the Caribbean. The failure of Washington’s drug policy has enabled illegal globalisation to expand its foothold in the hemisphere, with a negative impact. With this in mind, TNI associate researcher Ricardo Vargas, describes the lack of true public debate on drugs, especially in a country as involved in this problem as Colombia. Given the failure of policy and the complexity of the situation, different schools of political thought once again raise the easy option of legalisation, a proposal that actually conceals the lack of alternative critical thinking focused on the development of a national and regional policy.

Aerial spraying knows no borders
Ecuador brings international case over aerial spraying
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 15,  September 2005
At the urging of various civil humanitarian organizations and government agencies such as the Ombudsman's Office, the Ecuadorans have requested a ban on spraying within 10 kilometres of the border. This is a reasonable request. In this briefing the Transnational Institute explains why the Colombian government has been unwilling to give ground on this minimal demand, which the Ecuadorians have been making since 2001, shortly after the aerial spraying began as part of Plan Colombia.

The Politics of Glyphosate
The CICAD Study on the Impacts of Glyphosate and the Crop Figures
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 14,  June 2005
The Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) recently joined the large number of existing scientific studies on the possible health and environmental effects of Round Up, the glyphosate formula being sprayed on illicit crops in Colombia. CICAD’s investigation, under the direction of an international scientific team, concluded that the chemicals used in the spraying do not affect human health or the environment, and that at most they could cause temporary skin and eye irritation, but serious doubts exist. The National University of Colombia’s Environmental Studies Institute published a critical analysis of the CICAD study, which considered technical aspects of the investigation, finding methodological shortcomings, as well as omissions and inconsistencies throughout the report. Those findings could point to a lack of impartiality in the CICAD study.

Broken Promises and Coca Eradication in Peru
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 11, March 2005
The forced crop eradication policy implemented by the Peruvian government over the past 25 years has failed. The official strategy has exacerbated social conflicts; contributed to various types of subversive violence; jeopardized local economies, also affecting the national economy; and destroyed forests as crops have become more scattered. Worst of all, it has not resolved any of the underlying causes of drug traf­fick­ing, such as poverty, marginalisation and government neglect.

Super Coca?
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 8, September 2004
Apparently a coca plant was found in Colombia's Sierra Nevada that had a high cocaine content and a higher level of purity, and which was also resistant to the effects of aerial spraying. The content of the report is so absurd that it appears to be a bad joke. Or is there something more behind it?

Coca, Cocaine and the International Conventions
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 5, April 2003
It is no understatement to claim that there are few plants subject to such tensions as the coca leaf, either in legal and political circuits, or in the medical and anthro­polo­gi­cal academic world. Before, during and after its inclusion in the number 1 list of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961, the controversy on whether the coca leaf is or is not to be considered a narcotic drug, worthy of control by the international institutions and mechanisms, reached apparent irreconcilable positions.

Other TNI reports

Vicious Circle
The Chemical and Biological "War on Drugs"
Martin Jelsma, Transnational Institute, March 2001
Aerial fumigations with herbicides of drug crops in Colomba set in motion a vicious circle of human, social and environmental destruction. In Vicious Circle - The Chemical and Biological 'War on Drugs', TNI-fellow Martin Jelsma describes how in the course of the cycle human rights are violated, the legitimacy of the state is eroded, alternative development is aborted, peasant support for the guerrilla increases, the war extends to new areas, and the War on Drugs is entangled with counterinsurgency objectives.

History

• Commission of Inquiry on the Coca Leaf

• The WHO cocaine project

• Interesting articles on the culture and tradition of coca