CAN COCA FLOURISH WITHOUT COCAINE?

U.S. Fears Decriminalizing Cultivation Will Cause Surge In Drug
Trafficking

VILLA TUNARI Just weeks ago, Bolivian army troops swooped down on
Seberino Marquina's farm and, one by one, ripped his coca bushes from
the ground.

"The commander said, 'Cut this,' and they did," Marquina, 54, said on
his small piece of the Chapare, a coca-growing region the size of New
Jersey in central Bolivia. But after President Evo Morales's
inauguration on Jan. 22, the troops assigned to eradicate coca leaves
as part of the U.S.-financed war on drugs instead spend their days
lolling at isolated roadside bases, trying to keep cool under the
blazing sun.

"We're waiting for orders from the president," said Capt. Cesar
Cautin, the commander of a group of 60 soldiers.

Marquina is also waiting, hoping that the new president will let him
add to the flourishing crop of coca plants the soldiers missed, on the
other side of the creek that runs through his 24-acre farm.

Just how likely that is remains surprisingly unclear.

Morales, 46, an Aymara Indian who grew up in poverty in the highlands
and became a coca grower in this verdant jungle region, has not
provided many details on his policy except to say that his government
will "depenalize" coca cultivation but show zero tolerance toward
trafficking: In other words, "yes to coca, no to cocaine."

He has long opposed American eradication efforts and championed the
coca leaf, which without significant processing has no mind-altering
effects and is chewed to mitigate hunger and increase stamina. He has
pledged to push foreign governments to open their markets to the many
legal products that can be made from coca, like soap, shampoo,
toothpaste and flour. He also wants to open markets to coca tea, which
is legal and popular in the Andes.

To maintain good international relations and attract investors,
Morales must find a way to reassure foreign governments and investors
that Bolivia will control trafficking -- particularly neighbors like
Brazil, which is, after the United States, the world's second-largest
consumer of cocaine, and the United States, which spends up to $1
billion a year to battle cocaine in the Andes. As a start, Morales
named Felipe Caceres, a former mayor in the Chapare and a small-time
coca farmer, to the new post of vice minister of coca, to, in essence,
oversee the fight against trafficking, an appointment that Washington
supported.

The American government, which for several administrations has
contended that only aggressive eradication and interdiction will
control trafficking, scoffs at Morales's "yes to coca, no to cocaine"
stance.

"This idea that he's going to go after traffickers but letting the
coca bloom is tough seeing as workable," said a senior congressional
aide in Washington who helps shape anti-drug policy, speaking on the
condition of anonymity. "It's a naive, pie-in-the-sky approach to let
the flower bloom but interdict the bouquet."

American policy makers fear that the progress made against coca in
Colombia -- where cultivation has been significantly reduced -- could
be offset by a burst of cultivation in Bolivia, and an accompanying
surge in smuggling.

At a recent coca fair in La Paz, two-dozen small Bolivian and Peruvian
companies displayed coca-based products they hope will one day be
accepted worldwide. Besides the soap, shampoo and toothpaste, there
were digestive potions pitched as calcium and iron supplements, or as
a cure for balding or as a diet aid. And there was a light green flour
for making bread.

In contrast to the Chapare, the epicenter of eradication efforts in
Bolivia, coca grows legally in the vast Yungas region, where farmers
sell their crop at the government-supervised market in nearby La Paz.

"Coca is our daily bread, what gives us work, what gives us our
livelihood," said Pasquale Quispe, 53, owner of a 7.4-acre farm. "In
other countries, they say coca is drugs, but we don't use drugs. It's
the gringos who use drugs."