There is nothing clandestine about Julian Rojas's coca plot, which is tucked deep within acres of banana groves. It has been mapped with satellite imagery, catalogued in a government database, cross-referenced with his personal information, and checked and rechecked by the local coca growers' union.

The same goes for the plots worked by Mr. Rojas's neighbors and thousands of other farmers in this torrid region east of the Andes who are licensed by the Bolivian government to grow coca, the plant used to make cocaine.

[continues 1312 words]

Colombia's Success in Curbing the Drug Trade Has Created More Opportunities for Countries Hostile to the United States. What Happens When Coca Farmers and Their Allies Are in Charge?.

In the dusty town of Villa Tunari in Bolivia's tropical coca-growing region, farmers used to barricade their roads against U.S.-backed drug police sent to prevent their leafy crop from becoming cocaine. These days, the police are gone, the coca is plentiful and locals close off roads for multiday block parties--not rumbles with law enforcement.

[continues 2327 words]

Bolivia's government has decided to renounce the United Nations' anti-drug convention because it classifies coca leaf as an illegal drug, the Foreign Ministry said.

The decision comes after a proposal by President Evo Morales to remove language obliging countries that have signed the convention to ban the chewing of coca leaves was rejected following US objections.

Bolivian officials contend that coca leaf in its natural form is not a narcotic and forms an age-old part of Andean culture. Morales is still a coca growers' union leader who has campaigned for the leaf's traditional uses.

[continues 100 words]

LA PAZ, Bolivia -- Thousands have taken to the streets in Bolivia to chew coca leaf in support of the country's bid to remove an international prohibition on the age-old practice.

The chief target of Wednesday's peaceful protest was the U.S. Embassy.

Coca is a mild stimulant of high religious and social value in the Andes. It fights hunger and alleviates altitude sickness. But it is also the raw material of cocaine.

Washington last week formally objected to Bolivia's proposal to remove a prohibition on coca chewing from the international Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.

Bolivia's U.N. Ambassador Pablo Solon says that Bolivia does not seek to remove coca from a list of controlled substances.

[end]