Coca

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.

In a bid to regularize the situation of coca growers, one Peruvian department earlier this year moved to legalize the crop. This week, the country's highest constitutional court overturned that move, saying only the national government can set drug policy.

Last year, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, whose father had done time in US jails as a drug courier, vowed to release hundreds of low-level drug mules serving long sentences. Now, the country's legislative organ has turned that vow into reality.

Coca grower unions in Bolivia's Chapare region have told USAID to get lost. They'll seek assistance from Venezuela's Hugo Chávez instead, they said.

Coca production in the Andes was up last year, the UN reported this week. The biggest percentage increase was in Colombia, where years of US-funded herbicide spraying have failed to stop farmers.

For the first time, Brazilian authorities have found coca plantations and a cocaine lab on national territory, and they are worried there could be more.

The Bolivian government has responded to the International Narcotics Control Board's demand last week that coca chewing and growing be banned by publicizing plans to enlarge markets for coca products.

The International Narcotics Control Board wants the governments of Bolivia and Peru to ban coca chewing. Not happening.

As Colombian President Uribe attempts a massive manual eradication of coca plants, he is running into opposition from both angry peasants and armed rebels.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez' embrace of coca continued last weekend as he publicly chewed the leaf and thanked Bolivian President Evo Morales for bringing him some more. Coca isn't cocaine, Chávez pointed out.