Coca economy

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Coca economy

• 23.02.2006

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Readings

• Allen (1995 1988) The Hold Life Has. (in
  Starn, Degregori, and Kirk)
• Kawell (1995) The Cocaine Economy. (in Starn,
  Degregori, and Kirk)

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Discussion topics

• General context
• Coca consumption and cultivation
• Presentations
• Video Cocaine (Bolivia)

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Coca

• Coca plant
• endemic to the Andes
• Erythroxylum coca
• more than 250 varieties of the coca plant
• only three widely used for cocaine trade
• Huanuco coca (Bolivia and Peru)
• Amazonian coca
• Colombian coca
• Cocaine alkaloid
• first isolated in the mid-1800's

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Coca in South America

• Coca (koka) chewing in South-America
• at least from the Nazca period (around AD 500)
• religious ceremonies
• combating effects of high altitudes
• Incas
• a sacred gift from the gods
• personified as Mama Coca
• venerated in religious ceremonies
• only for aristocracy

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Coca in the West

• First introduced by the returning conquistadors
• First coca boom II half of the 19 c
• Angelo Mariani - 'Vin Mariani'
• elixir of life
• substitute for food
• John S. Pemberton - a coca drink
• mixed with wine
• an 'intellectual beverage'.
• wine replaced with sugar syrup in 1886
• gt 'Coca-Cola the temperance drink'.
• After 1906 cocaine alkaloids removed

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Coca in the West

• Second coca boom 1970s -
• the emergence of the cocaine trade

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Coca cultivation in South America

• Colombia
• 86 000 hectares (2003)
• Biggest number of laboratories
• Produce most of worlds cocaine HCl
• Plan Colombia
• Peru
• until 1996 the world's largest coca leaf producer
  
• 44 200 hectares (2003)
• Bolivia
• 23 600 hectares (2003)
• Change of cultivation areas
• Eg. gt now tropical Chapare region near
  Cochabamba

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Bolivia

• Impact on US-Bolivia relations
• Various anti-drug-trafficking policies since late
  1980s
• US pressure (Drug Enforcement Administration)
• Eradication of coca fields (uprooting, spraying)
• coca production fell 90 in late 1990s
• Programs offering cash compensation to farmers
• Developing and promoting alternative crops  

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Bolivia

• Ley 1008
• 1988 under US pressure
• Establishment of special drug courts
• In contradiction with the Bolivian Constitution
• Presumption of guilt
• Imprisonment without bail
• the case to be heard in three courts (several
  years)
• gt overcrowding of Bolivian jails
• gt imprisonment of the innocent, or the poorest

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Bolivia

• In 1988-90
• the coca growers resistance movement
• strength grew in early 1990s
• Evo Morales
• Leader of
• coca growers' (cocaleros) trade union federation
• chief opposition party, MAS (Movement Toward
  Socialism)
• Second in presidential elections in June 2002
• First in presidential elections in December 2005
• Bush administration
• a drug-funded leftist who threatens the
  country's wobbly democracy

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Presentations

• Allen, C.J. 1988. The Hold Life Has Coca and
  Cultural Identity in an Andean Community.
  Washington Smithsonian Institution Press.
• Morales, E. 1989. Cocaine White Gold Rush in
  Peru. Tucson Univesrity of Arizona Press.