Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 1 2006 (IPS) – Bolivia s new president has come under attack from the United Nations narcotic watchdog agency for defending coca crop cultivation by his country s indigenous communities.
Since his landslide victory in the presidential polls held in December, Evo Morales has repeatedly said he is proud of being a coca grower and has opposed U.S.-funded programmes to eradicate coca crops.
Morales has voiced his support for coca cultivation not only because the crop has a commercial value for poor farmers, but also because it is widely used for ceremonial and medical use.
But officials at the United Nations-funded International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) suggest that they may be on a head-on collision course with the Morales government.
We are watching this closely. We don t have his track record on what he (Morales) is going to do about it, INCB member Melvyn Levitsky told reporters.
The treaty is very, very clear on coca leaf. It s a narcotic and its traditional use is illegal, he said before releasing the Board s annual report on the worldwide production, trafficking and use of narcotics.
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Since 1961, the U.N. has established three treaties on drug control and Bolivia has signed on to all of them.
Despite his advocacy for the rights of Bolivian farmers to grow coca, Morales, the first-ever indigenous president in Latin America, has also pledged to end drug-trafficking.
Coca is used to make cocaine, but many people in Bolivia s mountainous areas use the leaves in tea, or chew them to minimise hunger and treat altitude sickness.
Levitsky says law enforcement efforts by the Colombian government have led to a decrease in coca cultivation, but adds with concern that illicit growth in neighbouring Bolivia and Peru is on the rise.
However, he and other Board members are of the unanimous view that law enforcement alone cannot guarantee sustainable results, nor can measures such as crop substitution.
The problems of international drug controls are among the most complex facing the world, and they are not amenable to superficial measures, said Hamid Ghodse, president of the Narcotic Board.
Last year, the Board released a report which looked into the demand and supply side of the problem of drug abuse in the world. But this year it decided to study whether crop substitution proved effective in reducing illicit drug production.
Ghodse believes that alternative development models are an effective way to counter this problem, but warns that such an approach could prove futile if used in narrow terms.
To him, implementing alternative development not only demands crop substitution but also transport and infrastructure development, education, health care, security stability and good governance.
Such programmes can only be successful if the people who grow these crops have an economically viable alternative to illicit cultivation, said Ghodse, and this must be combined with law enforcement and drug prevention activities.
In its 112-page report, the Board urges countries to shape their domestic and international trade policies so that farmers who turn to alternative crops have easy access to markets for their products.
Narcotics experts say they are convinced that the problem of international drug trafficking cannot be solved by individual countries alone.
Levitsky refers to Afghanistan as an example, where the government of President Hamid Karzai seems completely helpless in reducing poppy production and shutting down heroin manufacturing labs.
The global problem of drug trafficking warrants a global response, he said. Countries can no longer afford to pay attention only to drug abusers in their own territory. If demand influences supply, then drug production both, in the national and international arena, is affected.
The Board s annual report points out that throughout South America, traffickers who previously focused only on cocaine are now in the business of cannabis and heroin as well. For example, the availability and use of Ecstasy are increasing in Colombia and Venezuela. It is also becoming more readily available in Ecuador and Peru.
In North America, the report identifies the abuse of prescription drugs as a major problem, especially in the United States.
The Board s research shows that in Asia, poppy cultivation in Laos, Thailand and Vietnam has significantly declined. It describes the abuse of heroin in South Asia as both serious and multifaceted .
The report shows that currently around 30 million people in Europe are abusing cannabis and that the consumption of heroin smuggled from Afghanistan to Iran and Russia has gone down.
Worried about the increase in smuggling of illicit drugs by mail, the Board urged governments to strengthen national laws and screen all routes of incoming and outgoing international mail.
*Corrects copyediting errors.