Andean Group - June 2013 (ISSN 1741-4466)

Timothy Torlot, the head of the European Union (EU) delegation in Bolivia, is the latest EU official to call on the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) government led by President Evo Morales to make public the results of an EU-funded study on the legal uses of coca. The study is key to Morales’ efforts to shore up international support for his ‘Coca sí, Cocaína no’ drugs policy, which distinguishes between cocaine and the raw coca leaf – an important symbol of indigenous culture. Pressure on the MAS government to make public the study’s findings comes amid signs that another key component of the ‘Coca sí, Cocaína no’ strategy – which is to de-stigmatise coca by promoting its non-narcotic uses – has flopped.

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