LET'S TRY BEING TOUGH ON THE CAUSES OF COCA

The latest UN office on drugs and crime (UNODC) 2006 World Drugs
Report released
(http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/world-drug-report.html) earlier this
week highlights a main trend: cocaine use in Europe is on the
increase, with the highest prevalence in England, Wales and Spain.

The UNODC report also noted that Colombia, the world's leading
producer of the white powder, now produces more of it than it did a
decade ago. In 1996, 300 metric tonnes were produced in Colombia;
today the country produces 640, according to the report.

Combating drug production in the Andean region has for years been
dominated by US policy centred on the erroneous belief that by
destroying coca fields, cocaine production will in turn decrease.

However, cocaine production levels in Colombia risen have not only
risen but, in terms of the number of hectares of coca planted, also
increased. Last year the total area under coca cultivation in
Colombia increased by 6,000 hectares, to 86,000 - a rise of 8% on
2004. And all this is despite a record number of US-sponsored aerial
crop-spraying campaigns that continue to spew the toxic glyphosate
chemical spray over Colombia's jungle canopies and national parks in
one of the world's most biodiverse countries.

Apart from the well-documented detrimental effects of crop spraying
on the environment, the main consequence of aerial spraying has been
to force Colombian coca farmers to grow the illicit crop in more
remote areas, along the country's borders, and to increase coca
growing in neighbouring countries.

Coca cultivation in Peru is 74% higher today than it was in 2000, and
it is rumoured that a "super" coca plant exists that is able to grow
quickly, produce high yields and resist lashings of glyphosate.

Last year, the Colombian government launched the biggest manual coca
eradication campaign in the country's history. A record number of
workers and indigenous peoples have been employed to root out the
sturdy green plant. In addition, there has been a dramatic increase
in cocaine seizures in Colombia and a record number of cocaine
processing laboratories, known as kitchens, have been destroyed. In
recent years, more Colombian drug barons have been captured and
extradited to the US than even before.

Yet these measures have not curbed the number of hectares of coca
currently under cultivation in Colombia. The availability of cocaine,
its purity and its street price have not significantly fallen in the
main consuming cities of Europe and the US, and the hardy coca leaf
is still being processed into cocaine paste as never before in Colombia.

The only reasonable conclusion to be made from the 2006 UNODC report
is that the US anti-drugs policy in Colombia, and to a lesser extent
EU policy, is a failure and a waste of money.

If Europe wants to reduce the number of its cocaine users, currently
estimated at around 3.5 million, it will have to radically reappraise
its drugs policy and urge the US to do the same. In addition to
hard-hitting anti-drug educational campaigns, what is required of any
anti-drugs policy is that it addresses the needs of the coca farmer.

In 2005, a study conducted jointly by the Colombian government and
the UNODC revealed that 55% of coca farmers, when asked why they grew
coca, gave economic reasons, "either mentioning openly the
profitability of doing so or the fact that coca leaves and
derivatives are easily marketable". In addition, 28% stated that
"they had no other choice". Governments must attack the causes of why
farmers grow coca, including poverty and unequal land distribution,
rather than increase the number of crop-duster planes.

The international community needs to spend more money on sustainable
alternative development projects where coca farmers are weaned off
growing coca and are encouraged instead to grow legal crops with the
help of government subsidies that can ensure that those legal crops
are marketed and transported easily.

But in reality, it is impossible to completely obliterate consumer
demand for cocaine. For this reason, and because of the failure of
anti-drug policies in Colombia, the debate about legalisation must be
revived in earnest and seriously considered as an alternative
solution to the "war" on drugs.