Mother Jones - Comments for "Video: The Coca Stompers of Bolivia"

I am doing some research and

I am doing some research and found this post. That was a very intriguing video. I might link to it from one of my blogs. Thanks.

I agree with VinLiz.

"I still say that completely closing the US/Mexico border for about a year would put an end to a good chunk of all of this."

In defense of Mexico....Bolivia doesn't come close to Mexico! It's in South America, plenty of countries come between Mexico and Bolivia.

Traditional use of coca leaves is beneficial to the health. Cocaine is an extremely addictive and destructive drug. Apart from using de-cocainized leaves as a flavoring agent, medical use of cocaine HCL is limited to packs for bleeding noses and for some types of surgery in ophthalmology. Topical local anesthetics like benzocaine and lidocaine are synthetics. So where exactly does the tons of cocaine removed from coca leaves to be used as a flavoring agent end up?

Your photo essay and commentary are amazing. At the same time, I don't know how you can live with the burden of knowing all of this. Learning of this trade and its forces weighs heavy on my conscience, and makes me feel powerless against such a simple injustice over money. I wish I could do something. As a consolation, I am going to value my American life as much as those in the Coca regions cannot. Thank you, and sorry.

when will destroying the envoirment be condemed? Why is doing drugs so bad, while filling lakes with lead and acid in the air, is ok? Whats wrong with a world where people using plants go to jail yet coporations killing people by the thousands with their products go unpuished?

Hi, I'm the author of this photo essay.
against my own interest, I decided to publish here a story that nobody in the US seems to be interested to talk about. Why? Read and you'll understand.

I apologize for my English, just remember that I'm Italian....

The First thing that must be clear: coca and cocaine are two different things. Cocaine doesn't have ANY medicinal value, while the coca leaf does.

Behind the coca leaf there's a big issue that nobody talks about: The billionaire interests of the pharmaceutical industry, in the US.

An international UN law bans the trade (import/export) of the coca leaves, as the plant is listed as a primary ingredient to make narcotis.

For this reason, the US Gov. provides a unique, special licence issued by the Drug Enforcement Administartion (DEA)to a US based chemical company, which name is Stepan. This licence is in total contrast with the international agreements.

An Illinois-based chemical company, the Stepan Company, is the only one in the planet allowed to import coca leaves from South America. Stepan Chemical Company have a special licence issued by the DEA that allows the exportation of tons of coca leaves every year, mostly form Perù and Bolivia.

Stepan sells the coca syroup to CocaCola, which use it to flavour the popular soft drink, after processing the leaves to extract the alkaloid of the cocaine. CocaCola make almost 500.000 bottles of beverage per day, turning the cheap leaf into gold. Moreover, Stepan makes more billions selling the cocaine alkaloid to the pharmaceutical industry, in the US and in Germany.

At this point, some big contraddictions need answers:

First, why should the US Administration fight to eradicate the coca crops, being the coca plant the essential base for a billionaire market that makes the USA rich, and fuel some of the strongest lobbies that endorse the Government?

Second, how the US Administration would explain the contraddiction of the same Federal Agency, the DEA, simultaneously trying to destroy every single leaf of the holy plant and then granting a chemical Company with a unique licence that allow to trade the same plant?

Beside the previous questions to be answered, the former coca-farmer and current President of Bolivia, thought it would make sense for his Country to enter this exclusive business, being Bolivia one of the three only Countries in the world where coca grows. How to blame him?

One of the answers to such questions has to be searched in the multibillionaire machine that feeds the lobby close to the US Gov. through a 660.000 million per year contract given to the DynCorp, a paramilitary private contractor that works in the Coca region (Bolivia – Colombia – Peru – Ecuador). As for Bolivia, DynCorp is officially training “police forces”.
Such police forces are actually some paramilitaries loyal to the extreme right-wing Bolivian party Nacion Camba led by Branko Marnovich who is preparing to destabilize Morales’ Gov.

Morales aims to enter this market, turning the coca crops into one of the Nation’s economical strengths. Before Morales was elected, Stepan Chemical used to buy huge quantities of leaves from Bolivia, and they also built a factory/storage in the Chapare region on this purpouse. But after the indigenous President came into office the Company moved on to Peru to buy most of the leaves, turning Bolivia into a marginal supplier.

In order to offer to the chemichal and pharmaceutical industry - and to CocaCola - the essential element which is at the base of their business, Morales’s Government - with the aid of Hugo Chavez - invested 400.000 USD to build the first factory ever to process the coca leaf in the Bolivian region of Chapare, and he’s working to change the UN law that bans its trade.

The UN response to his efforts, however, is discouraging. The UN released an official act in March 2008 asking the Bolivian and Peruan Gov’ts to ban even the traditional use of the coca leaf in their territories, transforming an already complicate political issue into a cultural issue. In the same time Internation Crisis Group released in late March 2008 an historiacal report about the failure of the War on Drug in South America.

If the Nation may rely on a legal and rewarding coca-based business, it would be logic to think that the indigenous people of Chapare would gradually move toward a legal business, leaving the cocaine production behind, not to mention the interest of the foreign pharmaceutical companies to invest in the Country.

Morales’ controversial friend Hugo Chavez and the revolutionary chages brought by the policy of nationalization of Bolivia’s natural resources – including the coca crops – led the US Gov’t. to study a special plan, in order to keep control over tha nation.
If Morales should achieve his goal on the legal coca market, the US would lose a billionaire market and the chemical and pahrmaceutical industry that lives on the cocaine alkaloid may choose to invest in Bolivia, dealing with better prices and a more flexible tax regime.
This would virtually cut the US out of the heart of Latin America: Perù may follow the example of Bolivia. Colombia would remain the only South American Nation where the US still have control, but surrounded by enemies in and out of its borders.

To avoid this scenario the Bush Gov’t. sent a special person in Bolivia: the current US Ambassador Philip Goldberg. Golberg was the Department’s Bosnia Desk Officer who studied and organized the fragmentation of the Balkans in the 90’s, known as Balkanization. He was previously based in Pristina - Kosovo - and he was suddenly displaced in Bolivia few months after Morales came into office.

He brought with him a lobby of investors from the Balkans, who are represented in Bolivia by Branko Marinovich (Bolivian leader of the Morales opposition) – ...but not a tipical Bolivian name.

The goal is to replicate the fragmentation scheme of the Bakans in Bolivia.

The indigenous President is facing now facing a political war in his own Country, against the right-wing opposition. Their strategy is to move the Capital City from La Paz to Sucre, creating a block of Eastern regions (called the Half Moon) that would isolate the left-wing, western regions that support Morales.
The Half Moon is the rich area of Bolivia, where oil and gas reserves supply Brazil, Argentina and Chile, and where a flourishing agriculture make the difference between the poor regions of the Altiplano and Tropic of Cochabamba.

The Half Moon is mostly inhabited and ruled by mestizos and european descendents who letterally hate the indigenous. The strategy to achive the separation of the Country is throwing fuel on the burning fire of racial hate. Just like it happened in the former Jugoslavia, in early the 90’s.

The opposition party, La Nacion Camba, is secretly training some paramilitaries with the suspected endorsement of the US Govt., and the on-site supervision Philip Golberg.

THAT'S ALL - hope it helps to have a more clear idea of the real situation.

Marco Vernaschi

Cocaine is a "problem" that won't go away, so we have to make its existence as little of a problem as possible. Do its users commit serious crimes that deserve jail sentences, or is that overpunishment? As far as the price coming down and the illegal industry -- which is making so much money -- crashing, seems to me that alcohol and tobacco haven't lost their money-making abilities since they became legalized.

I've never used cocaine, but it's supposed to have some medicinal value; and I've read it gives a peaceful edge to many users. More OBJECTIVE studies need to be done before I'm convinced one way or another.

Since so many poor people need to grow coca to survive -- just as Afghanistan people must grow poppies -- we'd need to offer them something to grow that would be of equal value. How about industrial hemp? Several crops a year, made into paper far more easily, less expensively, and far less destructive to the environment.

Oh, that's right -- our logging industry wouldn't want the competition for paper-making. So the stuff must remain illegal.

Close the Mexican border? Why do you think Blackwater (shudder!) is building a training base right outside of San Diego?

It allways starts were there is poverty !Isnt it better to do our best to get out of poverty and go to school?Get rid of poverty an we have gone a long way!

I don't think closing the border with Mexico would solve any problem at all.
The real issue here is not the traffick, is the demand.

I still say that completely closing the US/Mexico border for about a year would put an end to a good chunk of all of this.

It's not just the illegal money being made. What about all those Federal agents and military advisors and corrections officers? And that's not to mention what the states are raking in through asset forfeitures. Hey, war is good for the economy, if you work for the government or its contractors.

As long as there these conditions existing no way the war on drugs can be won. The demand (illegal) is to high and the profits for everybody involved are to tempting. Once the drugs (like alcohol) become legal the price and the profits will go south and there not anymore the huge profits. We only have to deal with the people addicted to drugs. Once the addiction is there it becomes a sickness but we should not forget it is a SELF INFLICTED sickness and attack it with HARSH methods (take Singapore as an example) to get those "sick" people clean. Seems to me that at the present time everybody is quite happy enjoying all the money can be made illegally (and once the money has been "laundered") legally. Just think about the billions of dollars which would be missing for manufacturing, construction and EXPORTING goods