Andean Drug War

The Peruvian government managed to defeat the bloody Shining Path insurgency in the early 1990s. Now, the profits from prohibition are helping to bring it back to life.

A new administration in Washington could mean better relations with Venezuela, including renewed cooperation with the DEA, Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez said Sunday. But cooperation is a two-way street...

Bolivia's President Evo Morales said yes to Obama, but no to the DEA at the UN this week

The US has spent $6 billion on Plan Colombia since 1999. The goal was to reduce coca and cocaine production by half. They didn't even come close, a new GAO report reveals.

Already chilly relations between Bolivia and the US grew even chillier this weekend, as Bolivia's President Morales told the DEA to take a hike.

Washington and Bogotá have both been talking up improvements in Colombia's human rights situation. But there is still plenty to be deeply concerned about, Amnesty International said in a report this week.

Relations between the US and Bolivia continue to worsen. Late last week, Bolivia barred DEA surveillance planes from overflying the country, and on Saturday, President Morales scorned US anti-drug policy.

Peruvian government efforts to crack down on coca growers in some parts of the country are causing them to expand into indigenous regions in the central Peruvian jungle. Local residents are not pleased.

In its annual act of diplomatic hubris, the US government this week released its list of "major" drug producing and trafficking countries. Only three of them -- all political foes of Washington -- were found wanting.

A recent article in Time made important points about the difference between the coca plant and its legal uses, vs. the international cocaine trade and efforts to fight it in Bolivia. Unfortunately, the article stopped there and didn't ask the next logical -- and desperately needed -- question.