Bolivia Now Makes More Coke From Fewer Plantations

When it comes to cocaine plantations, Bolivia is focusing less on quantity and more on quality these days. That's according to the US government, which says the country is producing more cocaine despite fewer coca plantations—because drug traffickers are now using the "Colombian method," a more efficient production process. Despite eradication efforts from 2009-2011, this process, coupled with the practice of resowing "eradicated" plantations, has meant the total amount of powder produced keeps rising. "That is the paradox in Bolivia. There are fewer coca plantations in the past three years, but there's more production of cocaine," says the outgoing chief of the US diplomatic mission in La Paz, charge d'affaires John Creamer. "They...can obtain more cocaine with lesser quantities of coca leaves." Creamer's figures show that only one percent of cocaine seized in the US comes from Bolivia (95% still comes from Colombia). But Bolivia supplies about 60% of the cocaine that enters Brazil, which is suffering a crack epidemic. Creamer will experience that end of the problem when he takes up his next post: US consul in Rio de Janeiro.