Guayaquil (photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Ecuadorian authorities have seized 1.3 tonnes of cocaine in the port city of Guayaquil after three anti-drug operations between 25^th and 27^th April.

Guayaquil, in the Guayas province to the west of Ecuador, was targeted by police who arrested five people after finding 143 camouflaged packages of cocaine. The drugs were reportedly being prepared for distribution within Ecuador and abroad.

Interior Minister, José Serrano, explained that the first seizure of cocaine took place close on a coastal road close the city’s perimeter on the 25^th April. “An urban patrol intercepted a car in which four suitcases were found with blocks of cocaine weighing 215 kilograms,” he told press.

According to the country’s anti-drug director, Juan Carlos Barragán, the drugs were planned to be transported in containers from the port of Guayaquil, through a criminal system called “Gancho Ciego”, before being trafficked as far afield as Antwerp, Belgium. On board a cargo of pottery bound for Belgium, police found over a tonne of cocaine.

“The work of the Ecuadorian police in recent days has been important. We are not only making seizures, but we are bringing the members of these organisations to justice,” said Serrano.

The ministry noted that in the first four months of the year, seizures of drugs in Guayas reach almost 4 tonnes, compared to 10 tonnes nationally.

Ecuador, traditionally considered a transit country for drugs to the United States and Europe, confiscated 42 tonnes of drugs in 2012 compared to 26 tonnes the previous year, and 18 tonnes in 2010.

Cartagena Port, Colombia (photo by Pe-Sa on Wikipedia)

Colombian police confiscated 500kg of cocaine on Sunday, which they say was on route to the United States by way of Honduras.

In a press release, the Colombian Anti-Narcotic Police said they seized the drugs, disguised in bricks, at the port of Cartagena, 650km north of capital Bogota.

They say they achieved the seizure through “coordinated intelligence” which established that a drug gang had formed a construction company legally as a front. The police reported that they put a stop to the drug front before its first delivery could make it to Honduras. The police are not yet releasing the names of those involved, as the investigation is ongoing.

The large amount of cocaine would have been enough to divide into more than 500,000 doses, police said, and is valued at US$1.7m.

This comes on the heels of a US-funded anti-drug task force that was launched in Honduras on 18th March. The anti-drug effort is aimed at combating violence and money laundering.

According to the US State Department, about 40% of cocaine from South America is heading to the US and 87% of the smuggled drugs pass through Honduras.

A cocaine ‘factory’ on the Ciudad Perdida trek, Colombia. (Photo: Nick Leonard)

Venezuelan authorities discovered and subsequently dismantled 21 drug laboratories dedicated to the production of cocaine, at only 150m from the border with Colombia.

Located in the town of Jesús María Semprum in the North East province of Zulia, the factories contained more than four tones of the illicit drug. Specifically, the raid yielded a total of 4,190 kg of cocaine, cocaine hydrochloride, and cocaine base.

Minister for the Interior and Justice, Néstor Luis Reverol, revealed in an interview with state news channel VTV that the operation would not have been possible without the help of over 200 security personnel of the Bolivarian National Guard, and the support of the National Anti-Drug Office (ONA). He praised them for the “laudable” efforts whilst also commending the strength of the government in “keeping their promise as regards the war against drugs”.

Many of the details regarding the raid remain unknown, and it is not clear whether they encountered any armed resistance or if any arrests were made. Reverol did concede however that a second operation also took place, this time in the Eastern border state of Táchira, where 600 kgs of cocaine were discovered. He went on to reveal that the drugs were found travelling in a vehicle with a “false bottom” and that, in this case, two people were arrested and efforts to locate and dismantle the rest of the cartel are underway.

According to official statistics from the National Anti-Drugs Office, in 2012 Venezuelan authorities seized more that 45 tonnes of various drugs throughout the country: 27,000 kg of which were cocaine, and another 17,000 kg were marihuana.

Reverol went on to state, “we will continue to ratify our government’s battle against an international drugs industry” and that they would not allow the country to be used as a base from which to process and make these “illicit substances”. In September 2012 a top drug trafficker nicknamed “Crazy Barerra” was apprehended in Venezuela.

Coca leaves in a Bolivian market in Sucre (Photo: Julyinireland, on Flickr)

It is a simple-looking leaf: dark green with a light underside, small—barely larger than a digit of Bolivian president Evo Morales’ finger. Yet for what looks like a cousin of the common bay leaf, coca inspires strong sentiments. Coca has stitched Andean society and spirituality together for so many years that the reverence it commands is hard to compare. And in an international discourse ruled by rigid adherence to narcotic prohibition, the fight to carve space for coca ignites fierce resistance.

But earlier this month, Bolivia scored a breakthrough. The UN admitted Bolivia back into the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, exempting it from the clause that criminalises coca leaf. The decision not only has major implications for coca chewers, but for Bolivia’s cultural identity and for the future of Latin American drug control policy.

The ‘Wise’ Leaf

Coca is native to the Andean region, where people have cultivated the shrub for at least five millennia—at least as far back as the Incan Empire. Nowadays, coca leaf chewing, or acullico in the Aymara indigenous language, is still a major element of Bolivian diet. Roughly 90% of Bolivians in the high plains region are regular coca chewers, according to La Paz Coca Museum founder Jorge Hurtado. Dried leaves are arranged into a packet that is placed into the mouth, sometimes supplemented by lye, sugar baking soda, or the stevia plant. The juices released by saliva are said to alleviate altitude sickness, regulate digestion, stave off the cold, and suppress appetite. But more than anything, coca chewers use it as a mild stimulant, perhaps analogous to yerba mate or coffee. Federative Bolivian Association president Alfredo Oyola describes its “very strong energy” that “keeps you sharp and awake.” He mentions that long-haul truckers use it maintain focus during hours on the road. “No one drives without being able to chew.”

‘El Tío’ – ‘The Uncle’… give him some tobacco, alcohol, coca leaves and he will be happy. (Photo: ۞ n o m a d E s, on Flickr)

For those unacquainted with coca leaf and more familiar with its processed derivative cocaine, this might sound suspicious, but chewers insist that the leaf itself does not deserve this suspicion. Decades of studies have found no serious negative consequences associated with coca leaf chewing in Andean communities and some even reported that “nor did it seem difficult for even habitual users to abandon the practice… In no way does it unhinge your mind. In no way.” insists Oyola, who chews coca himself. “It does not make you loose your faculties of thought or anything like that. What does change you is the drug [cocaine]. I repeat: coca leaf in its natural state is not a drug.”

While coca leaf is a popular pick-me-up, the deep spiritual and social significance surrounding it gives the plant a uniquely prized role for Bolivians. “It is truly a sacred leaf,” Oyola explains. “It is something that Mother Earth has blessed us with, giving us a plant that has so many nutritive powers. Our grandparents held ceremonies before chewing, including asking permission from Mother Earth, or Pachamama, thanking her for giving us this sacred, unique coca.” Her gift wards off sleep for tired workers and also holds mystical powers. “There are many amautas [roughly 'wise master' in Quechua] who can chew coca to see someone’s future. It’s like reading cards, but with coca leaf.”

Rituals and respect pervade the social sphere as well. Oyola illustrates with an example: “If they invite me to chew coca, I could never take the coca from them with a single hand. I always have to extend both hands.” Hurtado even writes, “One could say that the coca leaf is the backbone of the cultural structure of the Andean region.”

From Plant to Powder

After the alkaloid compound cocaine was first extracted from the coca plant in 1859, coca gained a whole new set of powers. Coca leaves contain about 0.2%-1% cocaine. Yet when refined with chemicals (including ammonia, kerosene, acetone, and sulphuric acid mix), cocaine in its purer state becomes an addictive, powerful, and dangerous stimulant. Cocaine promotes euphoria, an elevated mood, high self confidence, and feelings of sexuality but it can also cause depression, heart inflammation or palpitations, bleeding in the lungs, heart attacks, strokes, seizures, brain function complications, and even death.

Making Cocaine from leaves in the jungle (Photo: Jungle_Boy, on Flickr)

In 1961, both the coca leaf and cocaine appeared on the newly convened UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs’ list of substances “susceptible to wrongful use”, alongside opium and marihuana. The Single Convention was created to unify the international anti-narcotic effort, streamlining individual treaties and codifying international anti-narcotic tactics. The Single Convention’s stipulations afforded Bolivia 25 years to eradicate its coca cultivation, but the plant never disappeared; the issue of eradication has been under dispute since the prohibition took effect in 1989.

Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia are currently the world’s three coca-producing countries, with Colombia as the most prolific and Bolivia the least at 18% in 2008, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. The United States is the world’s greatest consumer of cocaine, 90% of which travels from Colombia through Central America and Mexico. Most of Peruvian and Bolivian production bound for illicit trade moves to Europe, occasionally through West Africa en route; some winds up in Brazil or Argentina.

An Exception to Every Rule

In March 2009, President Morales held a pair of small green coca leaves before the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs, the primary body with the power to craft international drug policy. “This is the coca leaf and this is not a drug,” he declared before the powers that outlawed it as exactly that. From the podium, he placed them in his mouth, chewed, and shrugged innocently. He was on a mission to reconcile international law, which classified a treasured ancestral tradition of his people as dangerous and illegal, with the reality that coca was alive and well in his country.

His presence that day had a lot to do with the small booklet he read from: Bolivia’s newly remodelled constitution. Ratified in February 2009, it leans towards traditional indigenous sentimentalities, including the protection of acullico, to which it dedicates an entire article: “The State protects native and ancestral coca as cultural heritage, a renewable natural resource of Bolivia’s biodiversity, and a factor of social cohesion; in its natural state it is not a narcotic. The law will govern its revalorisation, production, commercialisation, and industrialisation.” The article could not have placed Bolivian law more directly in conflict with international law.

When Morales rose to power in 2006, he took the coca leaf with him. As an Aymara, Morales is his country’s first indigenous leader and as a former coca grower himself, as well as the cocalero union leader, he owed his start in the political arena to his pro-coca activism. The topic was bound to rise to the forefront.

Evo Morales (Photo: Alain Bachellier, on Flickr)

In June 2009, Morales brought a proposal before the Single Convention that would have legalised coca leaf internationally (cocaine would remain prohibited), with a year and a half for consideration. An opposition bloc made out of ‘friends of the convention’, comprised of Russia, Japan, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Denmark and rallied by the United States vetoed the proposal in January 2011.

Not dissuaded, Morales adopted a different tactic. The following June, Bolivia withdrew from the Single Convention, citing the prohibition of coca leaf as objectionable. In January 2012, it petitioned for re-entry upon the condition that the convention make an exception within the Bolivian territory for the practice. Although it forfeited the original proposal’s universality, this method, per UN bylaws, could only be defeated if an entire third of the 184 member states—62 in total—filed objections within one year.

The ‘friends of the convention’ rallied again, this time mustering 18 votes against, the majority of them cocaine-consuming nations, once again led by the US. Their reasoning was not directly pitted against Bolivia’s cultural heritage claim, but rather, in some ways, concern over the threat of cocaine. Graciela Touze, president of Intercambios, an organisation devoted to the study of drug-related issues, points out that US/Bolivian relations are rocky, especially since Morales expelled the US ambassador and the DEA in 2008, but even “if it had been a country politically closer to the US, I think it would have been difficult for the US to support it because it would be very contradictory to its position on the topic of drug policy.” Indeed, a senior US State department official told the Associated Press after the opposition submission deadline, “we oppose Bolivia’s reservation and continue to believe it will lead to a greater supply of cocaine.”

Yet while many official memorandums of opposition cite the cocaine trade specifically, they also mention concerns that making an exception could “weaken” reigning international anti-drug efforts. “What this really is about is the fear to acknowledge that the current treaty framework is inconsistent, out-of-date, and needs reform,” says Martin Jelsma, coordinator of the Transnational Institute’s Drugs and Democracy programme. “Fundamentally, it had to do with not touching the conventions,” explains Touze. “One has to think of many countries’ opposition in terms of not wanting to open any possible gap that implies a revision of the current drug policy.”

Allowing Coca, Allowing Debate

Yet the bloc fell far short of threatening Bolivia’s readmission. On 11th January, it was official: the international community would recognise acullico’s legitimacy within Bolivian borders.

Bolivian Coca Growers Celebrate the United Nations Accepting The Chewing of Coca Leaf (Photo: Matthew Straubmuller, on Flickr)

Upon hearing the news, Bolivians marched in the streets beneath Andean indigenous flags, wads of coca leaves in their mouths. Because UN enforcement of coca chewing would be unrealistic, the triumph is largely symbolic, but it is by no means insignificant. “I don’t think it will have any effect on illegal markets, on the production, distribution, trade, consumption of cocaine,” says Touze. “What could occur in the future is that what Bolivia has initiated becomes a precedent that allows us to stop looking at the conventions as sacred books that cannot be revised and open a debate regarding what to do about the drug problem.”

John Walsh, director of the Washington Office on Latin America drug policy program, echoes her thoughts: “Far from undermining the system, Bolivia has given the world a promising example that it is possible to correct historic errors and to adapt old drug control dogmas to today’s new realities.”

It also signals a possible power shift in the drug control arena away from prohibition philosophies and their proponents towards a more open discourse. “I can’t stress enough how big this is,” says Walsh. “Once again, the US snapped its fingers and told the rest of the world to get in line and oppose Bolivia’s move. But this time, while the UK joined them, most of the rest of the world just said, ‘no, thanks’.”

Touze thinks Bolivia’s coca victory is a signal that the dominant anti-drug discourse may be loosening.  “It seems to me that in this sense, Bolivia has inserted a wedge that can favour, sometimes in such closed fields as international organisations, a debate opening.” She mentions Colombia, Mexico, and Guatemala’s successful joint bid for a special drug policy session to be held in 2016 as an example that although “everything is very slow, everything is difficult”, within the realms of international organisations like the UN, “many other parts of the world are watching Latin America as a region that at least is starting to ask for a debate, to ask for reflection.”

The coca leaf has once again proved to hold extraordinary powers. It reenergises, induces highs, seduces to the point of addiction, and now it may have cracked a steadfast international anti-drug doctrine. At worst, Bolivia’s coca victory might erode drug trade limits, but as an example of more flexible policy-making, it may also make way for innovative advancements in international anti-narcotic efforts.

Click here to find out what Argentines and Latin Americans think about the UN’s recognition of coca leaf chewing in Bolivia.

On 11th January, Bolivia won readmission to the United Nations Convention on Narcotic Drugs when the organisation voted to recognise the chewing of coca leaves as a legal, cultural practice in the Andean country.

The UN’s decision, which came after much campaigning by Bolivian president Evo Morales, was seen by many as a victory for the Andean people who have been cultivating and using the leaf for years as a stimulant, remedy to altitude sickness, and component of religious ceremonies. Critics of the legal recognition of coca worry that the plant will find its way to neighbouring countries in the processed form of cocaine, or paco.

The Argentina Independent asked Latin Americans from Argentina and abroad to share their opinions. 

Photos by Tomas Guarna

Juan L. Castañeda, 35, Audio Technician, Venezuela 

   They [Bolivians] have been chewing coca for many years, as well as Peruvians, they’ve been doing it for a long time. It’s a cultural situation more so than just drug use. I believe it’s fine, and that UN recognition is a success for the country. Chewing coca, as much in Peru as in Bolivia, is necessary to survive at that altitude. It could be [that Bolivian coca is used to produce cocaine], but you’re talking to someone that approves of the legalisation of drugs. Legalisation could eliminate the business aspect that leads to illicit activities. I’m against it being an illegal business in the hands of just a few, when it could be something legal and regulated by the governments of each country, the same way they regulate and sell tobacco, alcohol, and medicines, which are all drugs.

Iliana Prieto, 41, Psychologist, Jujuy 

I believe the leaf is something cultural, they consume the coca leaf, they don’t consume cocaine because the leaf is used in its pure state. Cocaine undergoes a sophisticated process that’s done in the United States, it’s them who process cocaine, not the Bolivians. Unfortunately, drug trafficking happens all over the world, but the principal market is in the United States, and what they want is to maintain that market. For that reason they demonise personal consumption in order to maintain their own business. 

Elias Callisaya Alcon, 21, Produce Vendor, Bolivia

 Coca is like a medicine, and that’s how people use it. But if an excessive amount is produced, the majority of it will be converted into drugs. That’s what’s already happened in Bolivia. I’m from Bolivia, from Cochabamba, and that’s where most of it is produced and marketed. So whether or not it should be legal, I say no, that would just lead people to consume it more. 

Elsa Rodriguez, 71, Podiatrist, Almagro

The indigenous people of Bolivia have always chewed coca, they’ve been doing it for many years. I believe that in Bolivia, the chewing of the coca leaf doesn’t have any unnatural chemicals. But when it comes here and it’s sold to young people, it comes prepared as a drug, it has undergone a chemical process. And from here it goes to Europe, to wherever, because the government doesn’t have much control. There’s a lot of death in Argentina, murders, robberies that have to do with drugs, because addicts who depend on the drugs will resort to robbery or killing. 

Max Abella, 22, Administration Student, Caballito 

I’m not against this, it seems fine to me, because the coca leaf is really not that serious. It’s natural, and it’s a part of the culture there. I support the decision, but if you’re going to legalise the chewing of coca, you should also put in place a system that is in charge of overseeing the process and making sure it is not used to produce cocaine, there have to be people checking and controlling it so that a drug market doesn’t develop.

President Evo Morales gave a speech marking the launch of the coca eradication 2013 campaign, praising its focus on human rights.

“In Bolivia we have a different model to fight against drug trafficking,” he said, adding that he hopes the “Joint Task Force (FTC) will demonstrate once again, to Bolivians and the people of the world, that with dignity and sovereignty we contribute better to the fight against drugs”.

His speech was held in Chimoré, in the region of Chapare, known for its cultivation of coca plants, in front of an FTC contingent.

The FTC will count on more than 2,000 soldiers whose task will be to destroy “a minimum of 5,000 hectares of coca plantations” by the end of the year. However, in recent years these targets have been largely surpassed with over 10,000 hectares destroyed.

This increase in results has coincided with the “nationalisation” of the struggle against cocaine production with the refusal of United States’ participation and the expulsion of the DEA in 2009.

Man holding a Coca leaf, Bolivia (Marcello Casal Jr., Wikimedia)

“Before this eradication task, with coca zero policies, was handled by external agents, specifically the United States, and brought no results. If it did bring any results, it was the violation of human rights and of our sovereignty,” Morales said.

Larry Memmott, Charge d’Affaires of the Embassy of the United States in Bolivia, has praised Morales’ policies and called the results in recent years “impressive”.

“We estimate a net reduction of 13% [of illegal coca plantations in 2012],” Memmott said.

The new policy put in place by Morales’ government tolerates a certain type of coca cultivation, called acullico. Acullico is a small ball of coca leaves mashed together and placed in the mouth to chew on. It is a traditional part of Bolivian culture and is believed to help with altitude sickness and digestion.

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Bolivia has eradicated over 36,000 hectares of illegal cocaine plantations since 2009.

Morales’ campaign counts with the support of 168 UN countries and has led Bolivia to regain its place among the countries abiding by the Vienna Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs.

Four suspects were arrested this morning in two separate procedures by the Federal Administration of Public Revenue (AFIP) at Ezeiza International Airport. The detained were found with a combined total of about 30 kilos of cocaine, valued at EU$900,000, or about AR$5,546,000.

Three of the suspects are men of Nigerian nationality, while the fourth is a 22-year-old Argentine woman.

AFIP agents approached the woman, who was waiting to board a flight to Madrid, when they noticed what they described as strange behaviour. A drug-sniffing dog named ‘Coca’ revealed that she had about 10.26 kilos of cocaine in hermetically-sealed plastic bags hidden among her clothes.

In a second, as yet unrelated procedure, AFIP agents stopped a Nigeria-bound passenger whose suitcase exceeded the weight limit. The suitcase was filled with jackets and shampoo bottles, the latter of which contained liquid cocaine.

Two more Nigerian men with tickets for the same flight were detained as they checked in at separate times throughout the morning. They also had liquid cocaine hidden in shampoo bottles.

Combined, the three men were transporting a total of about 19.8 kilos of the drug.

The four suspects remain in custody at Ezeiza and will be subject to the jurisdiction of the Second Criminal and Economic Court. This arrest comes after a similar operation in which 13 drug ‘mules’ were caught with liquid cocaine in Ezeiza posing as Venezuelan Olympic weightlifters.

After 15 years, the DEA is reopening its office in Uruguay because of the growing transit of cocaine in the region.

“The DEA thinks that in Uruguay there is an increasing presence of international drug trafficking organisations. They never settle in a country for no reason,” said an official of the Ministry of the Interior.

The office closed in 1994 because the drug activity in the region was said to be under control. The DEA had to ask permission from US Congress three years ago to return to the area.

According to weekly Uruguayan publication Búsqueda, between 2005-2011, the Ministry of the Interior seized 2.8 million kilos of cocaine, 2.7 of which was intended to be sent abroad.

Today, Uruguay, along with the rest of the Southern Cone (Argentina, Chile, Brazil and Paraguay) is considered a transportation site for drugs like cocaine, paco, and heroin, that are then sent to Europe and the US.

Drug baron Daniel Barrera was captured yesterday in Venezuela in a joint operation between Colombian, Venezuelan, British and US intelligence services.

Barrera, nicknamed “Crazy Barrera” was captured in San Cristobal near the Colombian border in the southwest of Venezuela.

The operation kicked off on 6^th August when Colombian authorities warned their Venezuelan counterparts of Barrera’s presence on their territory and involved 69 wiretaps and 14 intelligence teams mobilised over 45 days.

“He was perhaps the most sought druglord in recent times, having dedicated 20 years of his life to hurting Colombia and the world and to all type of crimes and perverse alliances with the paramilitary and the FARC,” said Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos in a press conference organised to announce the capture.

Barrera was arrested under an Interpol warrant, with a US$5m reward attached,  and had been identified as a key target since 2007 by former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe. Barrera’s connections within the Colombian police forces are believed to have allowed him to evade authorities until yesterday.

The Venezuelan National Anti-Drug Office (ONA) in touch with the CIA, MI6 and Colombian police, carried out  “the most important arrest yet in Venezuela” in the words of Venezuelan Interior Minister Tareck El Aissami who also called Barrera “the most wanted drug trafficker in the world”.

The capture was celebrated as a victory by all countries involved in the operation and is seen as a positive parenthesis amidst tense diplomatic relations between Venezuela on the one side, and Colombia and the US on the other.

Colombia, with neighbours Peru and Bolivia, is one of the largest cocaine producers in the world and produced 345 tonnes of cocaine in 2011 according to the UN. The vast majority of drugs produced in Latin America find their way to the US where they are sold on the largest drug market in the world.

Gil Kerlikowske, U.S. Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), announced that Colombian cocaine production fell 25% last year and that Peru and Bolivia are now top cultivators and exporters of the drug.

At a conference at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, the ¨drug czar¨ called the new data “historic.”

Last year Peru produced about 325 tons of cocaine, and Bolivia produced about 265 tons. The ONDCP study also reports a 72% decrease in the amount of cocaine production in Colombia, from approximately 700 tons in 2001 to 195 tons in 2011.

Voz de América said that the news reflects the close alliance between Colombia and the U.S. to combat narco-trafficking. Through Plan Colombia, the US has invested about $US 6 bn since 2000 in order to improve the judicial system, strengthen Colombian democracy, help develop the country and improve the country’s security.

According to an article by EFE, Kerlikowske also said that cocaine use in America has fallen 39% since 2006 and cocaine overdose deaths are down 41%, from 6,726 cases in 2006 to 3,988 in 2009, as revealed by data from the Center for Disease Control (CDC).