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COCA NEWS

As Bolivia President Evo Morales nicely sums up: "Coca - YES, Cocaine - NO!", a message that the non-addictive, non-destructive coca leaf extract can be the basis for a variety of socially useful products. News about finding legitimate uses of coca leaf.

• Another massacre causes mourning in Colombia: Five people are murdered in the Canoas indigenous reservation, Carbonero sector in Santander de Quilichao, Cauca. In two isolated events, a teacher and his family were murdered, and hours later two young people were gunned down. There are already 93 massacres in Colombia. Armed men entered the house of Jhon Freiman Ramos Ocaña, a community member and teacher at the Las Aves Educational Institution, and murdered him along with his wife, Yisel Menza, and his 15-year-old daughter.
  - El Colombiano, 22 December 2023

• Another massacre causes mourning in Colombia: Five people are murdered in the Canoas indigenous reservation, Carbonero sector in Santander de Quilichao, Cauca. In two isolated events, a teacher and his family were murdered, and hours later two young people were gunned down. There are already 93 massacres in Colombia. Armed men entered the house of Jhon Freiman Ramos Ocaña, a community member and teacher at the Las Aves Educational Institution, and murdered him along with his wife, Yisel Menza, and his 15-year-old daughter.
  - El Pais, 22 December 2023

• Álvaro Córdoba, the brother of Piedad Códoba (a senator from the Historical Pact political party), will plead guilty to drug trafficking charges on January 2 in federal court in New York.
  - El Pais, 22 December 2023

• How the drought affecting the Panama Canal will hurt the profits of drug traffickers, which ship a lot of cocaine on containers that pass through the ports and the Canal.
  - Insight Crime, 18 December 2023

• Cocaine crystallization laboratories in Chapare, Bolivia, doubled in three years. The drug trafficking map is concentrated in the tropics of Cochabamba, which is the political stronghold of Evo Morales.
  - El Deber, 18 December 2023

• President Petro: overturning the legalization of cannabis (which sought to regulate the consumption of cannabis for adult use) increases the profits of drug trafficking and its violence in Colombia.
  - El Tiempo, 13 December 2023

• "Those who kept cannabis use illegal, they receive birbes": the response of President Gustavo Petro to those who voted down a proposed law to allow adult use of cannabis.
  - El Pais, 13 December 2023

• Minister of the Interior of Colombia, Luis Fernando Velasco, regretted the fall of the recreational cannabis project and launched harsh comment. "Here we tear our clothes because we don't want a child to see someone smoking marijuana, but in December we are happy with the glass of whiskey telling our children: pour the soda and let's toast. The government does not believe that it is scientific and sensible to put people who have this health problem in jail."
  - El Pais, 12 December 2023

• The reform that sought to regulate the consumption of cannabis in Colombia for adult use collapsed at its fourth round of discussions, the project failing in the Senate, which approved a public hearing to discuss (again) the project with 46 votes for and 40 against further discussions. A classic delaying tactic, as there is no longer enough time for the hearing before December 16, when the regular sessions end. The legalizatio process will have to start from scratch next year.
  - El Pais, 12 December 2023

• The reform that sought to regulate the consumption of cannabis in Colombia for adult use collapsed at its fourth round of discussions, the project failing in the Senate, which approved a public hearing to discuss (again) the project with 46 votes for and 40 against further discussions. A classic delaying tactic, as there is no longer enough time for the hearing before December 16, when the regular sessions end. The legalizatio process will have to start from scratch next year.
  - El Colombiano, 12 December 2023

• The reform that sought to regulate the consumption of cannabis in Colombia for adult use collapsed at its fourth round of discussions, the project failing in the Senate, which approved a public hearing to discuss (again) the project with 46 votes for and 40 against further discussions. A classic delaying tactic, as there is no longer enough time for the hearing before December 16, when the regular sessions end. The legalizatio process will have to start from scratch next year.
  - El Tiempo, 12 December 2023

• The reform that sought to regulate the consumption of cannabis in Colombia for adult use collapsed at its fourth round of discussions, the project failing in the Senate, which approved a public hearing to discuss (again) the project with 46 votes for and 40 against further discussions. A classic delaying tactic, as there is no longer enough time for the hearing before December 16, when the regular sessions end. The legalizatio process will have to start from scratch next year.
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 12 December 2023

• Spain seizes 11 tons of cocaine in shipping containers. Most of the drugs were hidden between pieces of frozen tuna.
  - El Pais, 11 December 2023

• The controversy over Decree 2114 of 2023 continues. The new chapter of the countless criticisms that President Petro has received was stated by Francisco Santos, Colombian ambassador to the United States between 2018 and 2021 and former vice president of Colombia during the eight years of government of former President Ávaro Uribe Vélez. Santos stated "Incredible, this is what the 'first misinformer' in Colombia says. This is you, President Petro, in case you don't feel addressed."
  - El Pais, 11 December 2023

• President Gustavo Petro continues to clarify what Decree 2114 of 2023 is about, which he approved this December 7, with the support of the Ministry of the Interior and Defense, through which it is intended not to criminalize the carrying and consumption of the personal dose of narcotics in the country. "All the criminalization rules for drug marketing and drug trafficking remain in force," he explained. Former presidents Álvaro Uribe and Iván Duque, consider that this will strengthen microtrafficking will increase and the consumption of these psychoactive substances in young people.
  - El Colombiano, 11 December 2023

• After learning of the decree that limits some functions of the Colombian Police to combat micro-trafficking, President Gustavo Petro pointed out that "all the rules for penalizing drug marketing and drug trafficking remain in force."
  - El Colombiano, 10 December 2023

• The National Government of Colombia issued decree 2114 of 2023, by which it is determined not to criminalize the possession and consumption of the personal dose of narcotics in Colombia. In legal terms, what the new order does is render invalid Chapter 9 of the title of part 2 of book 2 of Decree 1070 of 2015, that is, the Sole Regulatory of the Administrative Sector of Defense, added by Decree 1844 of 2018, which was in force. Decree 1844, specifically regulated partially the National Police and Coexistence Code, regarding the prohibition of possessing, having, delivering, distributing or marketing prohibited drugs or substances. The measure seeks, according to decree 2114 of 2023, to guide the institutional effort to attack and counteract organized crime organizations dedicated to micro-trafficking and drug trafficking.
  - El Colombiano, 09 December 2023

• By sowing life, we eradicate drug trafficking: ambassador to the US. Luis Gilberto Murillo maintained that the bilateral relationship is in one of its best moments, and regarding the problem of illicit crops, he said that the Biden government supports the substitution program (which has been a complete failure).
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 10 December 2023

• "If the cannabis bill is not discussed next week, it will sink." The legislative act that seeks to modify Article 49 of the Constitution of Colombia and regularize cannabis for adult use. The initiative must be on the agenda this week in the plenary session or otherwise, it would have to be filed again and its discussion begin from scratch.
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 09 December 2023

• Costa Rica finds itself divided over the latest request of President Chaves to legalize recreational marijuana. "For many years, Costa Rica was a net exporter of marijuana, but now we are importing very large quantities. ... As long as marijuana remains illegal, these ships that bring marijuana into the country will continue to be sponsored."
  - Tico Times, 09 December 2023

• The curse of gold that leaves deaths, massacres and displacements in Antioquia, Colombia. The decline in the sale of cocaine and the profitability of gold made this mineral become fuel for war.
  - El Colombiano, 07 December 2023

• Dairy farmers in Colombia close the year with difficulties in selling their production. In addition to the drop in the price paid to the producer and the lower consumption of milk, there were announcements of lower acquisition of milk by buyers.
  - El Colombiano, 07 December 2023

• The latest murder: Pedro Pablo Salas, a renowned peasant leader, is murdered in the rural area of Putyumayo. 157 leaders have been assassinated in Colombia in 2023.
  - El Pais, 04 December 2023

• Moskitia, the Honduran jungle that is drowning in cocaine. Drug traffickers take over vast areas and the indigenous people who live there are increasingly poorer.
  - El Pais, 04 December 2023

• The indigenous leader, Rogelio Chate Peña, is murdered in the rural area of Santander de Quilichao, Cauca, Colombia. He was former governor of the Pueblo Nuevo Indigenous Reservation.
  - El Pais, 03 December 2023

• Grassroots coffee growers in Colombia claim that there is a crisis in the union, while the National Federation denies it. A movement of coffee growers claims that the sector is in crisis because they are losing 500,000 pesos (about $1250) for each load.
  - El Colombiano, 30 November 2023

• Adding to the strong clash that the Attorney General of Cplombia, Francisco Barbosa, and the President of the Republic, Gustavo Petro have had in recent hours, is a new statement from the head of the investigative entity in which he describes as "tendentious and false" the accusations that the President made in the last few hours through his social networks, alleging links between the Director of the CTI of Buenaventura and drug trafficking.
  - El Pais, 28 November 2023

• President Gustavo Petro is arguing that Colombia's deputy Attorney General, Martha Mancera, has been trying to cover up the alleged drug trafficking activities of the director of the Technical Investigations Unit of the Attorney General's office in the port city of Buenaventura. Instead of investigating Martinez, the Attorney General's office filed drug trafficking charges against two undercover agents who informed her about the regional CTI director. Mancera wants to be the next Attorney General.
  - Colombia Reports, 28 November 2023

• The president of the Republic of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, once again attacked Martha Mancera, the vice-Attorney General of the Nation, and accused her of of "exporting cocaine." "They said that there is no evidence against 'Pacho' (Francisco Santos, Colombian ambassador to the United States between 2018 and 2021 and former vice president of Colombia during the eight years of government of former president Álvaro Uribe) but here they even present recordings. "How is it possible that they have used the prosecutor's office to export cocaine in Buenaventura and have protected the alleged criminal?" Petro wrote. An investigation by Semana magazine revealed: the secret story of two undercover agents of the CTI of the Prosecutor's Office, who denounced alleged illegal acts committed by the director of the CTI in Buenaventura, Francisco Javier Martínez.
  - El Pais, 27 November 2023

• A new 'clash' of trains involves the Attorney General of the Nation, Francisco Barbosa, and the President of the Republic, Gustavo Petro, after the scandal over the alleged links of the director of the CTI of Buenaventura with drug trafficking. Petro: "If there have been friendly conversations for months between the head of the Buenaventura CTI and a drug trafficker, why is he still in office? Why did they protect him? "How much cocaine has been exported using that position in the prosecutor's office?" Barbosa returned the threat: "He reminded the President that he is not in power for 20 years, he has two more to go, he will continue to be President until August 7, 2026 and then he will be a citizen like everyone else when we stop holding these public positions."
  - El Pais, 27 November 2023

• ÁUribe took the "little rags in the sun" to Juan Manuel Santos: "The best president, according to him, and he still left 220,000 hectares of coca." Uribe accused the Nobel Peace Prize winner of producing more people in arms than demobilized during his mandate.
  - El Pais, 25 November 2023

• Salvatore Mancuso, the former commander of the now-defunct paramilitary organization AUC, has told the war crimes tribunal (JEP) of Colombia that former President Alvaro Uribe was involved in a 1997 massacre. Mancuso accused Uribe of being involved in the planning of the 1997 El Aro massacre in the north of the Antioquia province in an unclassified testimony before the JEP. Uribe was governor of Antioquia when a group of more than 100 AUC fighters executed at least 12 locals, stole all of the cattle in El Aro, and burned down most of the homes in the town.
  - Colombia Reports, 20 November 2023

• The Monsanto subsidiary of Bayer is ordered by a state court in Missouri to pay more than $1.5 billion over claims that its RoundUp weed-killer caused cancer. The most active ingredient in RoundUp is glyphosate, which has been used to eradicate coca leaves in Colombia, at great harm to coca growers and the environment in Colombia.
  - The Messenger, 18 November 2023

• The container terminal at the port of Moín in Costa Rica is the largest transhipment point for cocaine in Costa Rica, and is one of the largest in Central America for transporting cocaine from Colombia to North America.
  - Tico Times, 17 November 2023

• Would the increase in cocaine consumption in the US change anti-drug policy in Colombia? The current Government aims at the voluntary eradication of illicit crops, however, this program has not begun because details of the PNIS (Comprehensive National Program for the Substitution of Illicit Crops) are being refined and collective agreements are being negotiated with farmers.
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 15 November 2023

• The military of Colombia allegedly agreed to leave control of a major drug trafficking route in the Micay Valley (province of Cauca) to guerillas. The agreement that was reportedly signed by government and guerrilla representatives would be against the law.
  - Colombia Reports, 15 November 2023

• Police officials and customs agents in Hong Kong find $50 million of cocaine hidden in a marshmallow shipment from South America
  - South China Morning Post, 09 November 2023

• In candy shades and eggy shapes, many of today's most popular vaping devices look like toys. Experts worry they will addict a new generation of users to nicotine.
  - New York Times, 09 November 2023

• A federal jury convicted two longtime Drug Enforcement Administration supervisors of leaking confidential information to defense attorneys as part of a bribery conspiracy that prosecutors say imperiled high-profile cases and the lives of overseas drug informants. Recio and Costanzo join a growing list of more than a dozen DEA agents convicted of federal charges in recent years.
  - Associated Press, 08 November 2023

• Farmers in Afghanistan lose income of more than $1 billion after the Taliban banned poppy cultivation
  - Associated Press, 05 November 2023

• Local elections in the Caribbean region of Colombia have consolidated the power of clans with ties to organized crime and political corruption. These clans include the Chars and Gneccos, and powerful individuals with criminal connections.
  - Colombia Reports, 30 October 2023

• The military intelligence agencies of Mexico have linked the Sinaloa drug cartel to a bank, Serfinanza, that is controlled by the Char family that controls the Caribbean coast of Colombia around Barranquilla
  - Colombia Reports, 25 October 2023

• War for cocaine and gold strangles south of Bolívar, Colombia. The Ministry of Defense ordered offensive actions against the Gulf Clan, which is expanding in areas where there are guerrillas.
  - El Colombian, 20 October 2023

• Police in Costa Rica seize over 2 tons of cocaine in Limon. The drugs were shipped from Colombia and were heading toward Belgium.
  - Tico Times, 22 October 2023

• The United States renews emergency declaration due to the threat of Colombian drug trafficking. President Joe Biden announced the decision was made in a letter sent to Congress. "The actions of major drug traffickers based in Colombia continue to represent an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States and cause an extreme level of violence, corruption and damage in the United States and abroad."
  - El Tiempo, 18 October 2023

• A massacre in the Cauca province of Colombia: 4 people are assassinated in a rural zone of Caloto, a town about 90 minues south of Cali
  - El Pais, 13 October 2023

• You can't import Elf Bar, an e-cigarette from China? Change the name to EBCreate. The product/company name change reflects the inability of the FDA to stop the flow of unauthorized e-cigarettes into the USA, being outsmarted by these illegal nicotine drug traffickers who compete with legal nicotine drug traffickers in the USA.
  - Associated Press, 13 October 2023

• New York seeks to limit addictive social media from capturing too much attention of children. Legislation would require parental consent for anyone under 18 to access the algorithm-based feeds on TikTok, Instagram and other addictive social media platforms.
  - New York Times, 13 October 2023

• President Gustavo Petro of Colombia accused the illicit crop substitution program of former President Juan Manual Santos' government of being a "den of corruption".
  - El Colombiano, 12 October 2023

• The use of glyphosate is connected to epidemic levels of chronic kidney disease
  - Phys.org, 11 October 2023

• A record amount of the production of cocaine in Colombia is negatively impacting the oil industry of Colombia. Major oil-producing regions, like Putumayo, overlap with high-density coca cultivation zones, fueling conflicts and disrupting oil operations. The rampant theft of oil from key pipelines, driven by the demand of the cocaine industry for gasoline, harms the environment.
  - OilPrice.com, 11 October 2023

• The former head of security for the vice president of Colombia, Francia Márquez, is in the sights of the authorities for his controversial fortune of $5 billion pesos (about $1.2 million). An anonymous source indicates that this fortune could be linked to bribes for allowing drug shipments to pass through Santa Marta.
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 11 October 2023

• President Gustavo Petro of Colombia accused the crop substitution program of former president Juan Manuel Santos of being corrupt. Without presenting evidence, the president called the Santos government's illicit crop substitution program a "den of corruption". His own policy, 14 months after he came to power, has not started. In this regard, Petro accused alleged intermediaries of stealing public resources that were intended for farmers who agreed to join the Comprehensive National Program for the Substitution of Illicit Crops.
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 11 October 2023

• President Gustavo Petro of Colombia accused the crop substitution program of former president Juan Manuel Santos of being corrupt. Without presenting evidence, the president called the Santos government's illicit crop substitution program a "den of corruption". His own policy, 14 months after he came to power, has not started. In this regard, Petro accused alleged intermediaries of stealing public resources that were intended for farmers who agreed to join the Comprehensive National Program for the Substitution of Illicit Crops.
  - El Colombiano, 11 October 2023

• President Gustavo Petro of Colombia accused the crop substitution program of former president Juan Manuel Santos of being corrupt. Without presenting evidence, the president called the Santos government's illicit crop substitution program a "den of corruption". His own policy, 14 months after he came to power, has not started. In this regard, Petro accused alleged intermediaries of stealing public resources that were intended for farmers who agreed to join the Comprehensive National Program for the Substitution of Illicit Crops.
  - El Colombiano, 11 October 2023

• "The crisis and the economic ruin of coffee-growing families are deepening": coffee producers reiterate their call to the Government. According to the Union of Coffee Growers of Colombia, after presenting their requests to the Government, no solutions have yet been given, which is why they warned of "justified protest actions".
  - El Colombiano, 11 October 2023

• Low production, imports and plummeting prices: the coffee crisis that is about to explode in Colombia. The aging of coffee plantations, low productivity, the collapse of prices and imports have the coffee sector in a critical state. Producers continue to make calls to the Government.
  - El Colombiano, 11 October 2023

• The criminal justice system of Colombia is targeting one of the notorious crime families in the Caribbean, the Gnecco crime family. The matriach, Cielo Gnecco, was arrested for allegedly ordered the kidnapping and assassination of two government contractors of the Cesar province in 2002. Monsalve, the son of Cielo, was called to trial over corruption with funds meant to provide school meals to poor children when he was governor of Cesar between 2012 and 2015. The Gnecco crime family rose to prominence in the 1960s when the father of Cielo, Lucas Gnecco, got involved in drug trafficking. The Gnecco family's involvement in the command of the now-defunct paramilitary organization AUC allowed the crime family to expand its power over politics in Cesar. The crime family gained major influence over public opinion through Gnecco's daughter-in-law, Vicky Davila, who was appointed director of Semana magazine in 2020.
  - Colombia Reports, 11 October 2023

• Mallinckrodt, an opioid drug trafficker and one of the largest manufacturers of opioids, receives approval of a court to eliminate/steal more than $1 billion of payments meant for the treatment of addicts, while handing control of the pharmaceutical company and drug trafficker to its lenders.
  - MWSJ, 11 October 2023

• Illegal e-cigarettes are being sold in greater quantities in stores as the FDA struggles to combat imports. Some vapes are appearing with increasing nicotine levels that approach those in a carton of cigarettes. U.S. regulators did not authorize them, but have failed to keep them off shelves. Trafficking nicotine is just too popular.
  - New York Times, 10 October 2023

• Coconut oil is considered "pure poison and one of the worst foods that exist". However, in Colombia it is legal to sell coconut oil, not coca tea.
  - El Pais, 10 October 2023

• Third debate on proposed law that seeks to regulate cannabis for adult use in Colombia. The project includes a transitional article so that municipalities and departments can generate resources on behalf of the use of cannabis.
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 09 October 2023

• With 85 Yes vote, the Chamber of Representatives approved in a second debate a proposed law to regulate the recreational use of marijuana in Colombia by adults.
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 09 October 2023

• Jaime Gilinski Bacal, a Colombian banking and real estate entrepreneur, has taken control of Metro Bank in the United Kingdom. The Spaldy Investments fund owned by Gilinski Bacal will contribute $124 million to the bank, increasing its stake to 53% from 9% currently.
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 09 October 2023

• FARC dissidents defend their new cocaine enclave with bombs. Behind the car bombs in Jamundí, Timba and Buenos Aires (Valle de Cauca, Colombia) there is a lucrative business.
  - El Colombiano, 08 October 2023

• How West Africa can reap more profit from the global chocolate market that is totally controlled by large authoritarian chocolate companies. Resource-rich countries like Ghana are often cut out of lucrative parts of the business like manufacturing. The "fairchain movement" wants to change that.
  - New York Times, 08 October 2023

• First Peru, now Ecuador - more profiting from the coca leaf by the USA military. The USA Southern Command escalates its 'war on drugs' in South America, a 'war' that is a lie. If Washington were serious about tackling the violence generated by the drug cartels, the first thing it could do is pass legislation to stop the southward flow of guns and other weapons produced in thge USA. But that would hurt the profits of arms manufacturers. And if it were remotely serious about tackling the major cause of the drug problem -- the rampant consumption of narcotics within its own borders -- it would never have let Big Pharma unleash the opium epidemic. And once it had, it would never have let the corporate drug traffickers walk free with the daintiest of financial penalties.
  - Naked Capitalism, 08 October 2023

• The online gaming industry is using the same tactics of Big Tobacco to get people addicted to online gambling and to obtain favorable public opinion.
  - Vice, 08 October 2023

• Measures adopted in Colombia so that coffee growers do not enter into crisis. Congressmen warn that the country could face the worst coffee crisis in its history.
  - El Tiempo, 04 October 2023

• In Valle del Micay in Colombia they will develop a pilot anti-drug policy plan. President Petro assured that there will be no repressions against coca growers.
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 04 October 2023

• The pilot plan of the national government's new anti-drug policy will be developed in the Micay Valley, a coca-growing complex located in southwestern Colombia.
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 29 September 2023

• The presence of illicit crops in some of Colombia's national natural parks is one of the great threats to these protected areas, where they have mainly affected the tropical humid forest ecosystem. Next in importance of damage are wetlands and tropical lake areas. "84% of the area with coca in 2022 is concentrated in five parks: Paramillo, La Paya, Nukak, Catatumbo-Barí and Sierra de La Macarena."
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 29 September 2023

• Perú has eradicated 16,000 hectares of coca leaf this year between January and September. The potential production from this quantity is 150 tons of cocaine.
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 25 September 2023

• Coffee growers who protested in front of Juan Valdez's offices postpone the union's national strike scheduled for this Monday
  - El Colombiano, 25 September 2023

• Coffee growers protest in front of Juan Valdez offices: "You sell a cup of coffee for 4,500 pesos (about $1.11), but pay us 4,000 pesos (about $1) for a pound of our coffee beans".
  - El Colombiano, 24 September 2023

• Luis Fernando Velasco, Minister of the Interior of Colombia: "Marijuana is today an illegal market. It must be legal and produce wealth."
  - El Tiempo, 24 September 2023

• Will the 'cocaine of poor men', captagon (fenethylline), fuel the next drug crisis in the USA. The cheap and highly addictive stimulant Captagon shows signs of following in the 'footsteps' of fentanyl (an opioid). Officials in Europe recently sounded the alarm about counterfeit Captagon, an amphetamine-like drug that produces many of the same physiological effects as cocaine. Captagon is cheap and easy to make, and is highly addictive while avoiding some of the bizarre side effects of other drugs.
  - Zero Hedge, 21 September 2023

• Former President Jorge 'Tuto' Quiroga of Bolivia argued yesterday that the general coca law was an implicit legalization of drug trafficking, because it endorsed 7,700 hectares of the Cochabamba tropics, which is not for pijcheo (traditional uses), but instead goes to drug trafficking.
  - El Deber, 18 September 2023

• For three months, the Peruvian Navy has been leading a joint military operation with the Police to eradicate coca crops, which, according to official data, exceed 12,000 hectares distributed along the border with Colombia, a line that extends for 1,626 kilometers. The destruction of 12,000 hectares of coca leaves, mixed with pancoger crops, threatens food security and fuels massive displacement in the area.
  - El Colombiano, 18 September 2023

• The Vice Minister of Social Defense and Controlled Substances of Bolivia, Jaime Mamani, stated this Monday that some figures in the country "use the fight against drug trafficking as a political flag", after former presidents Evo Morales and Carlos Mesa questioned this government fight after a new disqualification of the United States.
  - El Deber, 18 September 2023

• The 'arcista' faction of the Movement Al Socialism (MAS) in La Paz, Bolivia, promotes the modification of the General Coca Law enacted in 2017 by the government of Evo Morales. The objective is to end the "privileges" that the current law grants to the Cochabamba tropics and reduce the hectares and surplus crops that are diverted to drug trafficking. The initiative is well regarded by the current leadership of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) of La Paz. The conflicts in Yungas began precisely in rejection of Law 906 approved by the MAS in the last administration of Evo Morales.
  - El Deber, 15 September 2023

• Cocaine will surpass oil as the main export product of Colombia. "We estimate cocaine export revenues will rise to $18.2 billion in 2022, not far from oil exports of $19.1 billion last year."
  - El Colombiano, 15 September 2023

• Due to an interagency operation between the Colombian Air Force and the National Army, coordinated with the National Police and with the Attorney General's Office, this offensive was carried out that strongly hurt the finances of a criminal group, since they produced approximately 5 thousand kilograms of cocaine hydrochloride monthly. At the site, a ton of cocaine hydrochloride and 228 kilograms of solid inputs such as caustic soda, cement and potassium permanganate were found, as well as 285 gallons of liquid inputs and equipment such as ovens and grameras, materials used for the processing of this psychoactive substance.
  - El Nuevo Liberal, 13 September 2023

• A report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) on the expansion of coca plantations in Bolivia will be released in October.
  - Yahoo News, 13 September 2023

• The Government of Colombia's strategy to fight drug trafficking and illicit crops lacks a strategic vision. Therefore, and judging by the increase in violence and crime in some territories as a consequence of these activities, the Executive's plan to confront them is not working.
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 13 September 2023

• Thousands of people register to legally experience the use of magic mushrooms in the state of Oregon, as the state's novel experiment with psilocybin begins
  - Yahoo News, 13 September 2023

• Deaths due to overdoses of drugs, mostly opioids, quadrupled from 1999 to 2020. The origins of the current epidemic are due, at least in part, to a 1986 World Health Organization pronouncement that pain treatment is a universal right. As such, cancer pain treatment guidelines were developed, which included the provision of opioids. In 1995, OxyContin was approved for the management of pain, paving the way for the widespread and legal trafficking of opioids. Drug trafficking families such as the Sacklers, who earned billions from trafficking opioids (which they are allowed to keep - they are white) while killing hundreds of thousands of people, forced drug users to buy fentanyl from other drug traffickers, fentanyl being more more stronger and deadly than heroin.
  - Tech Xplore, 12 September 2023

• Fentanyl, drug cartels or a simple market glut: what is behind the collapse of the coca market in Colombia? As the price of coca has slumped, the rural families who depend on the shrub are wondering how they are survive economically
  - The Guardian, 13 September 2023

• The government of Gustavo Petro in Colombia will prioritize the voluntary eradication of coca crops and completely discards the use of glyphosate. The Government said goodbye to glyphosate and seeks to legalize cannabis and the legal uses of the coca leaf.
  - El Colombiano, 12 September 2023

• Coca crops grew 77 percent in Putumayo, Colombia: what factors influenced it? The increase in coca crops on the border of Ecuador, Perú and Venezuela.
  - El Tiempo, 12 September 2023

• The Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking (FELCN) in Bolivia describes Evo Morales' accusations as "false" and reminds him that cocaine laboratories found in Villa Tunari represent a threat. FELCN responded frontally to former President Evo Morales about the accusations he launched against said institution, in light of the latest operations carried out by the uniformed men in the tropics of Cochabamba.
  - El Deber, 11 September 2023

• Dissidents of FARC attack and rob a branch of Banco Agrario in the municipality of Jumbaló, Colombia, a community where coca is grown
  - El Pais, 10 September 2023

• Acreage of coca farms in Colombia reach a record 230,000 hectares in 2022. The statistic represents a 12.7% increase from 2021.
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 09 September 2023

• In Colombia, 13% of the annual deforestation is due to plantings of coca bushes.
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 09 September 2023

• Néstor Osuna, Minister of Justice of Colombia: "Prohibitionism and the punitive approach does not work in the fight against drugs."
  - La Silla Vacia, 08 September 2023

• Colombia seeks Latin America to declare failure of prohibition and the war on drugs. "We recognize the failure of the 'war on drugs', which has prioritized eminently punitive actions and indirect biases, being ineffective in solving the underlying problems and exploiting and exacerbating the vulnerability of our territories and societies."
  - La Silla Vacia, 08 September 2023

• Legislators in California have passed a new law to legalie the possession and personal farming of magic mushrooms
  - The Intercept, 08 September 2023

• There is tension in Bolivia due to operations in coca-growing redoubts and record numbers of drug flights. The government's anti-drug target is the Cochabamba tropics, the political stronghold of former President Evo Morales. In addition, the legislator considered that the operations carried out by the FELCN during all this time "do not have the purpose of fighting against drug trafficking, but rather of criminalizing the entire region of the Cochabamba tropics with a discriminatory and racist nature".
  - El Deber, 06 September 2023

• How Portugal has succeeded with the decriminalization of drugs, while the USA and Latin America have failed
  - New York Times, 04 September 2023

• "Let there be no impunity", says the USA on the proposal for reconciliation with drug traffickers in Colombia. This was said by Kevin Murakami, director of the Law Enforcement and Counternarcotics Affairs Section, a United States agency that works on drug trafficking and drug policy issues.
  - El Tiempo, 03 September 2023

• This month in Colombia, the government of President Gustavo Petro will present to the country the new drug policy for 2023-2033, whose text is based on the National Development Plan. The initiative was created with the participation of 2,700 social leaders and 274 organizations in Colombia.
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 03 September 2023

• The Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking (FELCN) in Bolivia destroyed on August 31 a mega-laboratory for cocaine crystallization on the banks of the Piraí River, in Ichilo (Santa Cruz), affecting drug trafficking worth $US 800,000. The laboratory had a production capacity of 400 to 500 kilos of cocaine per day.
  - La Razon, 03 September 2023

• The veiled and underhanded racism in the media in Colombia, for example, in the magazine Semana
  - La Silla Vacia, 01 September 2023

• There is little quality evidence on the benefits of marijuana, according to a new analysis of more than 100 clinical trials and meta-analyses. Much of the most convincing evidence in the study, in fact, pointed to the potential harms of using marijuana, especially for pregnant women, anyone with a mental health disorder and the adolescents and young adults who currently make up the majority of cannabis users.
  - CN, 30 August 2023

• In Bolivia, the cocalero leader Arnold Alanez affirmed yesterday that the political break between President Luis Arce and the ex-president and leader of the Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS), Evo Morales, has created consequences for him and his sector. Alanez denounced that President Luis Arce seeks to "subdue" the cocalero movement through pressure from the Minister of Government, Eduardo del Castillo, for electoral purposes.
  - La Razon, 30 August 2023

• Users of marijuana have statistically higher levels of lead and cadmium in their blood and urine than people who do not use marijuana. Marijuana users had 27% higher levels of iron in their blood, and 21% higher levels in their urine. Marijuana users also had 22% higher cadmium levels in their blood than non-users, and 18% higher levels in their urine.
  - CNN, 30 August 2023

• Coca legislators in Bolovia who support the return of Evo Morales to power rejected the "drug trafficking map" that the Minister of Government, Eduardo Del Castillo, presented on Monday. In addition, they questioned the authority for hurting the image of the country and "faliing" in the fight against drugs. Senator Leonardo Loza lamented that a drug trafficker like Marset has lost respect for the Minister of Government and defended Chapare coca.
  - El Deber, 30 August 2023

• The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has recommended in a letter that marijuana be reclassified as a lower-risk drug. Marijuana is currently a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act, meaning it is deemed to have no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. The letter called for marijuana to be reclassified as a Schedule III drugs, defined as drugs with a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence. Coca tea has even a lower potential than marijuana for physical and psychological dependence.
  - CNBC, 30 August 2023

• The Minister of Government of Bolivia, Eduardo del Castillo, assured this Monday that coca destined for drug trafficking was found in the parallel market, which is installed in Villa El Carmen in the city of La Paz and is directed by Arnold Alanes. The aforementioned Alanes responded that they treat him like this because he is "evista" and denounced that they want him imprisoned and "even dead".
  - El Deber, 29 August 2023

• The Bolivian Minister of Government, Eduardo Del Castillo, presented yesterday "the unprecedented" map of drug trafficking which shows that the largest number of cocaine factories, whether for base paste or refining, is in the Chapare region of the province of Cochabamba. The area identified by the minister was considered by many to be the political stronghold of the MAS (political party) because the social mobilizations against the "coca zero" policy promoted at the beginning of the century were created from that region.
  - El Deber, 29 August 2023

• TikTok, unlike cocaine, is a never ending drug, according to a Stanford University expert. "Today we have new versions of drugs and more variety, for example, from video games, from social networks."
  - El Tiempo, 27 August 2023

• "We have never negotiated nor will we ever negotiate with drug trafficking." Peace commissioner Danilo Rueda explains details of the reconciliation project proposed by President Petro. He says there won't be any. pardons or amnesties.
  - El Tiempo, 27 August 2023

• The governor of the province of Nariño, Colombia, requested a declaration of a state of emergency for the region, a request to the national government. The presence of drug crops has been another problem in the province.
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 27 August 2023

• Artisanal ketamine, the new risk for the consumers of drugs in Bogotá
  - New York Times, 27 August 2023

• The marijuana industry in Thailand is poised to grow fast. Thailand's legal marijuana business -- a rarity in Asia -- is struggling with oversupply, illegal imports and regulatory ambiguity. Investors are piling in anyway.
  - New York Times, 27 August 2023

• The Regional Instance of the Ceasefire Monitoring and Verification Mechanism (MMV) was established in Pasto, Nariño, in front of local and ethnic authorities, between the Government of Colombia and the ELN National Liberation Army (ELN).
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 26 August 2023

• ¿What future could the national reconciliation law proposed by President Petro have? The Colombian President sparked another controversy in the country, telling drug traffickers that "there is also a path" for them.
  - El Pais, 26 August 2023

• Claudia Ordoñez is murdered, a leader of the El Guabal township and candidate for the Council of Jamundí, Colombia. She was a woman who "was fierce in the defense of Human Rights and the protection of the territory."
  - Tico Times, 25 August 2023

• Coronel Elías Melgar Urbina, a top-ranking military official in Honduras and who works with the USA in joint drug war operations, has been linked to a convicted drug trafficker and a security company accused of assassinating activists
  - The Intercept, 25 August 2023

• The hypocrisy of complaining about President Petro's plan to negotiate a cease fire with drug traffickers. Colombia has always negotiated with drug traffickers. Colombia siempre ha negociado con los narcotraficantes. What happens is that it has done it in a perverse, utilitarian way and protecting the mafia power embedded in the elites.
  - La Silla Vacia, 25 August 2023

• A semi-submersible submarine intercepted this Wednesday in Golfito, Puntarenas, Costa Rica, was carrying more than two tons of cocaine. This handcrafted vessel, made of fiberglass, was stopped by the Coast Guard 200 kilometers offshore from the Osa Peninsula.
  - Tico Times, 25 August 2023

• The Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking (FELCN in SPanish) destroyed seven drug factories in the municipality of Villa Tunari, Chapare province of the department of Cochabamba, Bolivia
  - El Tiempo, 25 August 2023

• Doubts about the reconciliation with drug traffickers proposed by Petro. President Petro assured that he will present a proposed law, but the Ministries of Justice and Interior do not know the scope of this initiative. The Peace Commissioner says that there will be no amnesties nor pardons for drug trafficking.
  - El Tiempo, 25 August 2023

• "Drug traffickers have a path here." President Gustavo Petro talks about the national reconciliation law in Colombia. Petro has clarified that this rule would include drug traffickers, who have no political status and can only demobilize and take refuge in the law, without being able to participate in the current peace agreements.
  - El Tiempo, 23 August 2023

• "Drug traffickers have a path here." President Gustavo Petro talks about the national reconciliation law in Colombia. Petro has clarified that this rule would include drug traffickers, who have no political status and can only demobilize and take refuge in the law, without being able to participate in the current peace agreements.
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 23 August 2023

• Is the therapeutic potential of hallucinogens -- such as LSD, mdma, psilocybin -- risky and overhyped?
  - The Guardian, 19 August 2023

• How narco traffickers unleashed violence and chaos in Ecuador, using profits of sales from drugs to the Christian USA and Europe -- which refuse to solve the problems of the coca world
  - New York Times, 18 August 2023

• Binge drinking among adults ages 35 to 50 occurred at record prevalence in 2022, with nearly 30% of people in this age group reported binge drinking in 2022, up from 23% in 2012. Use of marijuana in this group also reached historical levels, with 28% reporting the behavior, up from 13% in 2012. No one binge drinks coca tea.
  - Boston.com, 18 August 2023

• Europe braces for a $3 per pill drug, captagon, the 'poor man's cocaine', to flood streets after crackdown in the Arab world. The Islamic government of Syria leads the captagon drug cartel, needing the profits in light of USA economic sanctions.
  - Zero Hedge, 18 August 2023

• How the FDA approved an antipsychotic drug, brexpiprazole, that failed to show a meaningful benefit but raised the risk of death. Yet the FDA won't approve coca tea with the coca alkaloid, which causes no deaths.
  - British Medical Journal, 17 August 2023

• As countries legalize the psychedelic drug MDMA/Ectasy (but not coca tea, which is not psychedelic), recreational use of Estasy is more common, with over 20 million users worldwide
  - New York Times, 18 August 2023

• In the third committee of the House of Representatives, a debate on political control was held, called by Representative Christian Garcés together with Representative Oscar Darío Pérez and Holmes Echeverría with the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Commerce and the Bank of the Republic, due to national concern about the impacts of drug trafficking on the Colombian economy
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 17 August 2023

• The European Union wants to cure the smartphone addiction of teenagers. Coca tea is not addictive.
  - Zero Hedge, 16 August 2023

• In an operation carried out by the Colombian National Army, an illegal laboratory used for the production of cocaine hydrochloride was located and destroyed in the village of El Paraíso, in the Mallama muncipality, province of Nariño, where more than 1,250 kilograms of cocaine were found, from which drug trafficking organizations could extract close to two million doses
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 16 August 2023

• In an operation carried out by the Colombian National Army, an illegal laboratory used for the production of cocaine hydrochloride was located and destroyed in the village of El Paraíso, in the Mallama muncipality, province of Nariño, where more than 1,250 kilograms of cocaine were found, from which drug trafficking organizations could extract close to two million doses
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 16 August 2023

• The controversial comparison of Presidente Petro in a coffee forum: "Cocaine, oil and coal work the same way in Colombia"
  - El Pais, 16 August 2023

• Child welfare advocates filed a federal lawsuit asking a judge to force the Biden administration to block imports of cocoa harvested by children in West Africa. The major chocolate companies pledged to end their reliance on child labor to harvest their cocoa by 2005. Now they say they will eliminate the worst forms of child labor in their supply chains by 2025.
  - Associated Press, 15 August 2023

• Who is Juan Carlos López Macías, the drug trafficker who could have supported Gustavo Petro's presidential campaign in Casanare? The President of the Republic affirmed that he did not receive contributions in said province of Colombia.
  - El Pais, 14 August 2023

• Did the cocaine market in the US collapse, as Gustavo Petro says? Some statements by the President of the Republic, in his analysis of the drug market, challenge the investigations of the UN and other experts.
  - El Colombiano, 14 August 2023

• The cocaine market in the US did not fall because of fentanyl. UN investigations and experts contradict Gustavo Petro's thesis that "the cocaine market collapsed in the United States."
  - El Colombiano, 13 August 2023

• This is how the transformation of Pasto, Nariño, progresses as a great capital. Pasto has 17 townships, most of its territory is rural, with a lot of coca nearby.
  - El Espectador, 13 August 2023

• The CIA would support Colombia in a shock plan against fentanyl
  - El Tiempo, 13 August 2023

• President Gustavo Petro says that: "The new area of greatest cocaine production in the world is located along the Colombian-Ecuadorian border, on the Colombian side." The president warns that this, perhaps, would be the reason for the death of the presidential candidate in Ecuador, Fernando Villavicencio.
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 12 August 2023

• The illicit crop substitution program has been prioritized by the Government of Colombia within its policy against drug trafficking, however, these efforts have not made any progress. This was asserted by Hernán Barío Cadavid, representative for Antioquia on behalf of the Democratic Center party. Additionally, the parliamentarian presented a bill to prevent tolerance of drug trafficking in the media and other fields.
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 11 August 2023

• The Colombian Navy, in the enforcement of different comprehensive maritime security and control operations, intercepted three vessels, in which 2,408 kilograms of narcotics were being transported across the Pacific Ocean towards Central America. The crew members and materials were transferred to the dock of the Tumaco Coast Guard Station.
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 11 August 2023

• US President Joe Biden released a memorandum this Friday in which he asks Secretary of State Antony Blinken to continue helping Colombia in the fight against drug trafficking.
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 11 August 2023

• César Apaza y Freddy Machicado, the two main coca grower leaders in Bolivia, prisoners in the San Pedro prison, will have to remain in that confinement for another three months. The prosecutor, Bladimir Bolívar, said hopefully that he hopes to conclude the investigation in that time.
  - El Deber, 11 August 2023

• How America's massive addiction to drugs, and refusal to have a rational drug policy, has caused the drug violence of Colombia to spread into once peaceful Ecuador, a once-tranquil country now awash in violence fueled by drug gangs exploiting Christian America's massive addiction to drugs.
  - New York Times, 11 August 2023

• A federal judge in the US sentences the head of a drug cartel in Colombia, Dairo Antonio Úsuga David, known as Otoniel, to 45 years in prison. He was the lead of the notorious Gulf Clan, which he ruled "violently and without mercy". He was responsible for an "uncountable" number of murders. He will also forfeit $216 million. Question? Who caused more deaths - Otoniel or the Sackler family? Who made more money trafficking drugs - Otoniel or the Sackler family? If the Sackler family, why are none of them in jail, and they get to keep billions of dollars? Reflection of a racist drug policy?
  - New York Times, 08 August 2023

• A presidential candidate in Ecuador is assassinated during an election rally. The candidate, Fernando Villavicencio, had been vocal about ties between the state and organized crime, in a country roiled by violence tied to drug trafficking of cocaine.
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 08 August 2023

• More children are being exposed to toxic nicotine from the liquids inside e-cigarettes
  - New York Times, 08 August 2023

• During the development of joint operations between the Colombian Navy and the National Army, with the support of the Colombian Aerospace Force, five laboratories used for the processing of coca base paste in the province of Chocó were located and destroyed
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 08 August 2023

• The United States will restart the monitoring of coca leaf farming in Colombia in 2024
  - El Colombiano, 07 August 2023

• 'The Economist': Some areas of Colombia are awash in cocaine. "The global demand for cocaine seems insatiable." Parts of Colombia, a nation that produces 60% of the global cocaine supply, are awash in coca paste, sending prices of this illegal product plummeting.
  - El Colombiano, 07 August 2023

• Churches that offer magic mushrooms are being established in San Francisco, giving residents the ability to buy illegal hallucinogenic drugs at storefront locations -- and for now, the politicians in the city do not appear how to respond. Two churches are relying on a Federal law that gives some religious groups the right to use illegal drugs for spiritual reasons.
  - SF Gate, 07 August 2023

• President Luis Arce, in his message to the country on the occasion of the celebrations for the 198th anniversary of the independence of Bolivia, admitted yesterday for the first time that three great scourges are present in his government: corruption, drug trafficking and crisis in the system judicial. However, he argued that these evils have been present in all governments throughout the country's history. "Drug trafficking has been immersed in the spheres of Bolivian politics, leaving disastrous balances for our country."
  - TCD, 06 August 2023

• Investigadores de la Universidad de Gotemburgo descubrieron que, además de ser una de las formas más omunes de basura, las colillas de cigarrillos (o filtros) también filtran miles de toxinas y fibras plásticas al entorno circundante, y son especifícamente tóxicas para las larvas acuáticas.
  - TCD, 06 August 2023

• The two police officers, anti-narcotics experts, trained by the DEA, are arrested for ties to the drug mafia
  - El Tiempo, 06 August 2023

• President Petro was unaware of drug money in his campaign, says Nicolás, his son. "The campaign did not receive any money of an illicit nature."
  - New York Times, 05 August 2023

• The Taliban's massively successful eradication of opium in Afghanistan raises questions about how the US failed to eradicate for 20 years, if that was truly a goal of the USA.
  - Mint Press, 04 August 2023

• The Government of Colombia probably will not meet its goal (20,000 hectares) of eradication of drug crops (coca, marijuana, poppy) in 2023. The manual eradication of coca leaf crops fell by 84% between January and June 2023, period in which only 6,310 hectares of these illicit crops were destroyed.
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 03 August 2023

• An estimated 8.7 million people are killed from tobacco each year, according to the World Health Organization
  - Statista, 31 July 2023

• As little as one alcoholic drink a day increased systolic blood pressure - the top number in a blood pressure reading - even in men and women with no existing hypertension. The negative impact of alcohol on systolic blood pressure continued to rise over the years, the study found, even in men and women who drank little each day. Small amounts of alcohol also raised the lower, or diastolic blood pressure reading, but only in men.
  - El Deber, 31 July 2023

• Cocaleros from Yungas, Bolivia, leave their plantations and go to the rivers to extract gold. There are at least 13 communities in the Nor Yungas province of La Paz that are now engaged in mining. This migration is due to three factors: decrease in the price of coca, smuggling of Peruvian coca and free sale of the coca leaf.
  - El Deber, 31 July 2023

• The evidence for $250,000 received from a former drug trafficker and a man related to paramilitaries ended up leading Nicolás Petro Burgos to become the first son of an active president to be captured in Colombia. He could pay up to 30 years in jail for money laundering and illicit enrichment.
  - El Colombiano, 29 July 2023

• On Saturday, July 29, the son of of President Gustavo Petro, Nicolás Petro, was arrested by Colombian Prosecutor's Office for money laundering and illicit enrichment. In an interview with the director of Semana, Petro's ex-wife, Day Vásquez, said that Nicolás Petro received about US $1.5 million from former drug trafficker Santander Lopesierra.
  - El Pais, 29 July 2023

• A new proposal regarding the use of the coca leaf was made by President Gustavo Petro from César, Colombia, which consists of taking the plant and turning it into a 'clean' fertilizer. As stated by President Petro, the proposal consists of setting up factories for the purchase of coca leaf and creating a lawful use.
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 28 July 2023

• Bolivia and México address the decriminalization of coca and a fund for economic culture. In March, the Vice President of Bolivia, David Choquehuanca, participated in a session of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs, in Vienna, Austria, and defended the traditional use of the coca leaf. The chancellor of México, Alicia Bárcena, is in agreement.
  - La Razon, 28 July 2023

• Who resolves the legal titles on the eradication of coca and cannabis crops in Colombia? The government issue a key decision. The decree that provided that titles should be processed before the Council of State is suspended.
  - El Tiempo, 27 July 2023

• Hedge funds seek to steal $1 billion meant for victims of opioid drug trafficking by large pharmaceutical companies. The drugmaker Mallinckrodt is talking to hedge funds about filing for bankruptcy and avoiding payments intended to help people addicted to opioids. Mallinckrodt was the largest drug trafficker of opioid pills in the USA from 2006 to 2014.
  - New York Times, 27 July 2023

• After several unsuccessful hearings, the defense for the cocalero leader, César Apaza, managed to win the case to free him from jail. There was a judicial victory this Wednesday after the First Criminal Chamber of the Departmental Court of Justice of La Paz, decided to ratify that the preventive detention of the defendant should end on August 3rd.
  - El Deber, 26 July 2023

• "The illicit crop substitution program did not reach Jamundí and that was a blunder": William Fernando Prieto, outgoing director of the Third Brigade in Valle de Cauca, Colombia.
  - El Pais, 26 July 2023

• Using cannabis may cause changes in the human body's epigenome. The epigenome functions like a set of switches, activating or deactivating genes to change how our bodies function. Multiple epigenetic changes associated with cannabis use had previously been linked to things like cellular proliferation, hormone signaling, infections, neurological disorders like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and substance use disorders. Drinking coca tea does not cause epigenetic changes.
  - Science Alert, 21 July 2023

• How gang warfare due to drug trafficking caused by America's huge addiction to drugs, gang warfare has jumped for the prisons of Ecuador to the streets, causing a huge crisis in public security
  - CNN, 26 July 2023

• Researchers determine that 89% of sports drinks are inaccurately labeled, and 12% included unlabeled banned drug substances. Yet the United States does not permit coca leaf extracts in sports drinks.
  - CNN, 26 July 2023

• Subsidy or coca: the Ministry of Justice of Colombia proposes an incentive to peasants who stop cultivating coca. According to Minister Néstor Osuna, in this way they seek to recover the Colombian jungles and "bring the legal economy" to the coca cultivation areas.
  - El Colombiano, 25 July 2023

• Due to the rigorous demands of the European Union with the entry into enforcement of the 'Green Pact', Colombia could lose US $1.9 billion of its agricultural exports to that continent if it does not transform the way it produces food such as coffee, bananas and oil palm, among others
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 25 July 2023

• Despite an agreement, tension between rice farmers and the Government of Colombia remains latent. The Ministry of Agriculture issued a resolution for an incentive to store rice for three more months. Producers say that this will not be enough.
  - El Colombiano, 25 July 2023

• The coca business collapses and suffocates rural Colombia. The fall in prices and high inflation have translated into forced displacement and food insecurity for thousands of peasants whose economic pillar has been the coca monoculture and the sale of coca base paste.
  - El Pais, 23 July 2023

• The marijuana farmers of Colombia want to thrive outside of the 'shadows'. Will their government ever legalize their harvests and businesses? More than 200,000 farmers of drug crops live in criminality in Colombia because their harvest is illegal (while drug traffickers such as the Sacklers earn billions and do not go to jail).
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 23 July 2023

• The Attorney General's Office of Colombia identified the alleged members of a criminal network that could be linked to the various links in the drug trafficking chain, from the production of cocaine hydrochloride in the network's own laboratories located in North Santander to the export of the drug through the coasts and ports of the Colombian Caribbean.
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 23 July 2023

• During offensive military operations by the Navy, Army and the Air Force of Colombia, in coordination with the National Police, the location of a laboratory for processing cocaine hydrochloride was discovered in the rural area of the municipality of Cumaribo - Vichada.
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 23 July 2023

• The brains that dominate the global business of drug trafficking. Although there is no "capo of capos", each person is essential in the production, export and distribution networks.
  - El Colombiano, 22 July 2023

• "Coffee prices have fallen 23% in recent months.", Germán Bahamón, manager of the National Federation of Coffee Growers. The leader of the coffee union requested government support in light of the changes in the market.
  - El Pais, 22 July 2023

• Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis issued an executive order instructing police officers in the city to, in essence, ignore the purchase and use of certain illegal psychedelic drugs, such as psychoactive mushrooms
  - New York Times, 21 July 2023

• Cocaleros from Chapare, Bolivia, threaten to expel more than 50 'illegal' gold mining cooperatives in the rivers of Villa Tunari. They ask the Government to carry out greater control and operations in the sector, otherwise they themselves will evict the illegals.
  - New York Times, 21 July 2023

• Coffee growers in Colombia announce protests in August over ganancias decrecientes. They assure that the fall of the dollar is affecting their profit margins. "Starting with a drop in the price, which today is below US $33, when taking production costs into account, the arroba of coffee is selling for almost US $13 below the price [of production]."
  - El Colombiano, 20 July 2023

• In India, fantasy gaming is causing addiction and financial ruin. Lack of regulation and massive advertising campaigns by fantasy gaming apps have raised addiction concerns. The government is treating online games similar to cigarettes and alcohol, hoping that the high taxes will make people not want to play them.
  - Al Jazeera, 20 July 2023

• The influence of Mexican drug gangs and increased cocaine output in Colombia, to feed the massive US addiction to drugs, have pushed murders toward record levels in Costa Rica, a top official said, casting a shadow over a country that has long been a beacon of stability in the region.
  - Reuters, 19 July 2023

• "It is highly irresponsible to suspend the monitoring of illicit crops in Colombia." Republican Mario Díaz-Balart, who chairs the committee that allocates resources for Colombia, said that there are no approved funds and that they will depend on the actions of President Petro.
  - El Tiempo, 19 July 2023

• "In this moment, there are no American funds for Colombia". Mario Díaz-Balart, one of the most influential legislators inside the Republican party, speaks with El Tiempo.
  - El Tiempo, 19 July 2023

• A new anti-drug policy in Colombia, which hasn't released publicly, but already has detractors. The Ministry of Justice has not issued the document, but the Attorney General, Francisco Barbosa, has already announced his negative vote against the initiative.
  - El Colombiano, 18 July 2023

• The Public Ministry of Santa Cruz, Bolivia, ordered the arrest of the head of the Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking (Felcn) at the Viru Viru airport, after evidence was found against him for sending half a ton of cocaine to the Barajas-Madrid airport.
  - El Deber, 18 July 2023

• Authorities at the Belgian port of Antwerp seize almost seven tons of cocaine in a shipment of bananas from Ecuador
  - El Deber, 18 July 2023

• Harsh criticism from the Attorney General's office of the Petro government's strategy against drugs in Colombia. The initiative for the years 2023-2033 is discussed in the (useless) National Narcotics Council.
  - El Tiempo, 17 July 2023

• This is how the FARC perpetrated the extermination of the Awá people in Nariño, Colombia
  - El Tiempo, 17 July 2023

• Cocoa, to gain the most out of the export market. In Colombia there are more than 4 million hectares of high aptitude for cacao. Greater business and state investment is required to take advantage of its potential.
  - El Colombiano, 17 July 2023

• When Sigmund Freud and Carl Koller discovered the benefits of cocaine
  - El Espectador, 17 July 2023

• Nariñ, Colombia: an indigenous leader is kidnapped and assassinated, worsening the humanitarian situation. The victim was a young man, &AAcute;lex Germán García Guanga, from the indigenous guard of their reservation in Ricaurte.
  - El Tiempo, 14 July 2023

• Republicans criticize the decision to suspend the monitoring of illegal cultivations in Colombia
  - El Tiempo, 14 July 2023

• Mexico claimed that Americans are the ones who traffic 85% of the fentanyl seized at the border - "it's not the migrants but the Americans." Americans are subject to fewer checks at border crossings or inside vehicles.
  - El Colombiano, 14 July 2023

• "If your son consumes coca, it is Petro's fault," Francisco Santos (former Colombian ambassador to the United States) reacted explosively. (And if your child consumes nicotine or alcohol?) following the announcement by the United States to stop monitoring coca crops.
  - El Pais, 13 July 2023

• The Human Rights Council of the United Nations will investigate a conspiracy led by Nestor Martinez, the former Prosecutor General of Colombia, in collaboration with the US Drug Enforcement Agency, to sabotage the peace process in Colombia
  - Colombia Reports, 13 July 2023

• How a peaceful country became a gold rush state for drug cartels. In Ecuador, an intelligence official said: "People consume abroad, but they do not understand the consequences that take place here."
  - New York Times, 13 July 2023

• "Nepotism": the harsh claim of Gustavo Bolivar for the scandal of the contract with Sjoerd van Grootheest, the husband of the Minister of Mines, Irene Veléz. He has just received a contract for $2,600 per month through the Colombia in Peace Fund to lead the communication strategy on the substitution of illicit crops in Colombia.
  - El Pais, 12 July 2023

• "No more excuses for your failure, President" - a harsh message from a US congresswoman to Petro, for the growth of illicit crops. María "No more excuses for your failure, President" - a harsh message from a US congressman to Petro, for the growth of illicit crops.
  - El Pais, 12 July 2023

• Attention: the United States suspends monitoring of coca crops in Colombia. Now they have another target in their sights, such as fentanyl.
  - El Pais, 11 July 2023

• What do the Colombian Police say about the end of the measurement of coca crops by the United States? General William René Salamanca indicated that the institution has its own measurement system.
  - El Tiempo, 11 July 2023

• VIDEO: Will the voluntary substitution of illicit crops (of coca) be consolidated?
  - Noticias Caracol, 11 July 2023

• What do the Colombian Police say about the end of the measurement of coca crops by the United States? General William René Salamanca indicated that the institution has its own measurement system.
  - El Tiempo, 11 July 2023

• The United States suspends monitoring of coca crops in Colombia: these are the reasons. Washington has begun to pay more attention to the fight against fentanyl trafficking, and coca production - although still important - is of less concern to them.
  - El Tiempo, 11 July 2023

• The Colombian Army destroyed a cocaine mega-laboratory that was operating in El Peñol (east of Medellín. The illegal complex belonged to the feared El Mesa gang and represented income of up to $2.1 billion pesos a month (about US $500,000/month).
  - La Razon, 10 July 2023

• The Prosecutor's Office in La Paz, Bolivia, admitted a complaint against Arlen Lovera, former Vice Minister of Coca and Integral Development, accusing him of directing a "network of corruption" that benefited from the donation of large sacks of coca leaves (taques). The crimes for which he is being investigated are use of a counterfeit instrument and improper use of influence, which for now is a provisional qualification.
  - La Razon, 10 July 2023

• The United States Government, through the New York Court, ordered the capture of the leader of Sendero Luminoso in Peru, Víctor Quispe Palomino, alias comrade 'José'. The crimes that are imputed to him are terrorism and illegal drug trafficking. He should hire the lawyers that the Sackler family used.
  - El Comercio, 10 July 2023

• The unknown story of the anti-drug policeman who was an "infiltrator" of drug trafficking. The now former PNP non-commissioned officer Elmer Gamarra Briceño was trained by the DEA to be an anti-narcotics agent without the highly paid DEA first detecting that his family was a drug trafficking clan that operates in the triple border of Loreto. He left the police and is now accused of murdering Colombian traffickers.
  - El Comercio, 10 July 2023

• Cocaine produced in Bolivia generates billions, but those dollars 'leak' to Brazil and Paraguay. Bolivia produces the drug in large volumes in conjunction with criminal organizations from Peru. Before the pandemic, the illegal business generated close to $2.5 billion per year, according to studies. But Bolivia does not attract investment.
  - El Deber, 09 July 2023

• The government of Scotland wants to pass a law that decriminalizes all drugs to improve public health. The ruling Conservative Party in England completely opposes this humane policy.
  - Diario del Sur, 08 July 2023

• "It is urgent that we get into the psychedelic conversation." While Australia legalized the medical use of ecstasy since July 1, Adriana Correa launched 'Atajos Mentales', a podcast that -- along the lines of also a journalist Michael Pollan -- exposes related scientific advances. with these substances.
  - Diario del Sur, 08 July 2023

• The presence of illegal armed groups, the increase in coca cultivation and the increase in the number of cattle in some natural parks is a matter of concern in Colombia, according to Julia Miranda, a Congressional representative for the New Liberalism party
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 07 July 2023

• The announcement of the ceasefire of the National Liberation Army (ELN) causes joy and hope in Nariño, Colombia. This has been taken as a goodwill gesture by that organization that has many weapons.
  - Diario del Sur, 05 July 2023

• Coca cultivation in Peru reached an all-time high in 2022, with the highest growth of crops outside of traditional planting areas. Peru registered 95,008 hectares of land dedicated to coca cultivation last year. This historical figure represents an increase of 18% in one year, and almost 54% above the 61,777 reported in 2020.
  - Insight Crime, 05 July 2023

• Faced with Evo Morales's complaint that 17 tons of drugs that left Bolivia "with the endorsement" of the State, the Vice Minister of Controlled Substances, Jaime Mamani, warned that the former president discredits the fight against drug trafficking with "lies"
  - El Razon, 04 July 2023

• Bolivia is now listed as a supplier of cocaine to 31 countries on three continents - Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East
  - El Deber, 04 July 2023

• The former president and national head of the MAS political party, Evo Morales, denounces that 17 tons of cocaine left Bolivia with the guarantee of the State. He affirms that keeping the Minister of Government, Eduardo del Castillo, in his position is synonymous with "defending corruption and drug trafficking at this time".
  - La Razon, 02 July 2023

• The Vice Minister of Social Defense and Controlled Substances for Bolivia, Jaime Mamani, affirmed this Monday that, by wearing down the management of the government of Luis Arce and David Choquehuanca, the fight against drugs is discredited "with lies" after former President Evo Morales spoke of a alleged shipment of 17 tons of drugs from Bolivia to Spain.
  - La Razon, 02 July 2023

• The largest trafickers of tobacco products, products that contain highly addictive and cancerous nicotine, will have to post eye-catching warning signs about the dangers of cigarette smoking in over 200,000 stores across America beginning Saturday. The signs will briefly explain the devastating health effects of smoking and environmental smoke from nicotine-delivery devices. Coca tea does not require such signs, not being dangerous.
  - CNN, 01 July 2023

• Researchers determine that Xanax and Valium and Klonopin, addictive benzodiazepines used by 12% of adult Americans, are associated with brain injury and suicide. Drinking coca tea is not associated with brain injury and suicide.
  - Zero Hedge, 01 July 2023

• Cali and Colombia continue to turn their backs on the environmental crisis in Los Farallones. The use of mercury for gold extraction has multiplied, to the point that it has already been detected in animals. Illegal mining is becoming more technical and aggressive. Complaints about corruption of government officials and the police persist.
  - El Pais, 01 July 2023

• Australia legalizes psychedelic drugs, such as MDMA and magic mushrooms, for mental health treatment
  - South China Morning Post, 01 July 2023

• The price of coffee in Colombia bounces off a ceiling of $2 million pesos. A batch of 125 kilos of coffee bean is valued at $1.36 million pesos, the lowest value so far this year. The Federation of Coffee Growers will change the formula for setting prices. The dynamics of these values coincides with a context of lower grain production. The Federation explained that these reduced prices correspond to the fact that the climatic variables have not been favorable for the processes of flowering and filling of coffee beans in the coffee-growing areas of the country.
  - El Colombiano, 30 June 2023

• Hipólito Mora, founder and former leader of the self-defense groups of Michoac´n, is assassinated in México. He led the groups that emerged to combat the cartel known as Los Caballeros Templarios, and he denounced multiple threats and attempted attacks against him.
  - El Deber, 30 June 2023

• The size of coca leaf crops in Perú increased by 18% during the last year: increasing from 80,000 to 95,000 hectares. Protected Natural Areas, Buffer Zones and native and indigenous communities total more than 30,000 hectares of coca leaf crops. We report on everything behind the government's double talk about the eradication of illegal coca leaf.
  - El Comercio, 30 June 2023

• Rice growers ask the government of Colombia for solutions to avoid bankrupcy. The Ministry of Agriculture provided close to $20,000 million to help leverage the harvest and surplus grain.
  - El Tiempo, 29 June 2023

• Families in Tumaco (Colombia) bet on the substitution of crops for illicit use. Communities of La Variante and Llorente have stated that they are committed to legal economies, which is why they have begun the eradication process.
  - Diario del Sur, 29 June 2023

• In the municipalities of Tumaco and Olaya Herrera, the Colombian Navy located and destroyed six spaces where coca paste was made, a laboratory for making cocaine, and a supply warehouse.
  - Diario del Sur, 28 June 2023

• Why are the police (the DEA) in charge of medical research and the practice of medicine? Clinical researchers have recognized the therapeutic potential of psychedelics for decades. In recent years, veterans groups and some lawmakers have also begun to appreciate this. But none of that matters if law enforcement disagrees, a law enforcement that is not trained in medicine. Science and the courts say that MDMA has medical uses, and should be on Schedule III - the DEA, rejecting science and the law, placed MDMA back on Schedule I.
  - American Council of Science and Health, 28 June 2023

• Magic mushrooms. LSD. Ketamine. The drugs that power Silicon Valley. Entrepreneurs including Elon Musk and Sergey Brin are part of a psychedelic movement that proponents hope will expand minds, enhance lives and produce business breakthroughs.
  - Wall Street Journal, 28 June 2023

• The national Indigenous Guard of Colombia is a lightly armed confederation of defense groups that have sought to protect broad swaths of Indigenous territory from violence and environmental destruction that is linked to the country's long internal conflicts involving politics and the coca leaf
  - New York Times, 27 June 2023

• Victory in Peru as corporations denied right to exploit Indigenous lands for mining of metals, and extraction for oil and natural gas
  - People's World, 27 June 2023

• Is the prohibition of marijuana in Colombia viable and lasting? The collapse of the constitutional reform, which would have given free rein to the use of marijuana by the adult population, leaves many lessons. It failed in the last (eighth) debate with several absences. Its passage came close, and there are reasons to think that such a measure will be passed sooner or later. This has happened in several countries, to the extent that the characteristics of cannabis have become better known, which is already used in fundamental activities such as medicine.
  - El Espectador, 25 June 2023

• "You have to stop being afraid of cannabis", says Fabio Villa Rodríguez, director of the School Against Drug Addiction in Antioquia. He believes that Colombia missed a valuable opportunity to regulate cannabis use. Datn El Tiempo, 23 2023 JUN

• "In the next legislature will be victory for the regularization of cannabis in Colombia." The representative Juan Carlos Losada and the senator María José Pizzaro, authors of the reform, discuss what is coming for the proposed law.
  - El Tiempo, 23 June 2023

• The government of Gustavo Petro responds to the United States about its concern about coca plants in Colombia. Defense Minister Iván Velásquez reiterated his position. voluntary substitution is prioritized.
  - El Tiempo, 23 June 2023

• The poor statistics of the fight against coca in Colombia that coincide with the concerns of the United States. Forced eradication is underway. It is at its lowest level in almost a decade and voluntary replacement plans do not get off the ground.
  - El Tiempo, 23 June 2023

• After 23 days of the 'narcoflight' case, which put the Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking (Felcn) in the eye of the storm, the General Commander of the Bolivian Police Álvaro José Álvarez Griffiths removed José Illanes from the position of director, and replaced him with Ismael Tito Villca.
  - Pagina Siete, 23 June 2023

• Sweet and fruity e-cigarettes, basically drug trafficking devices for highly addictive nicotine, thrive despite a crackdown on teen-vaping. Disposable e-cigarettes which expolit addictive nicotine, which have escaped FDA restrictions, comprise more than half of the vaping market and are produced in flavors such as cherry and watermelon.
  - Wall Street Journal, 23 June 2023

• Europe has banned the use of chlorothalonil, a cancer-causing pesticide, inside the European Union. So companies in Europe are exporting tons of the toxic chemical to developing countries, including Colombia. But Europe won't allow imports of the harmless coca tea.
  - Euronews.green, 22 June 2023

• Senator Giraldo gave misleading arguments against the legalization of cannabis in Colombia. On June 19, during the last debate on the proposed constitutional reform that sought to legalize the consumption of cannabis for recreational purposes and that failed to pass on June 20th, a Senator of the Conservative Party, Mauricio Giraldo, said that "legalization increases consumption," "increases the rates of suicide and traffic accidents, which increases spending on health," and that "marijuana has more toxic substances than cigarettes".
  - La Silla Vacia, 22 June 2023

• Gustavo Petro and Álvaro Uribe clash on Twitter over a proposed law for the recreational use of marijuana. Former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez wrote on his Twitter account on June 21, after the National Government of Colombia suffered another legislative defeat in Congress when the proposed law was archived that sought to regulate cannabis for adult use was archived, in the eighth debate. Uribe: "Good news to have prevented the legalization of the recreational use of marijuana. A great policy of authority is needed to prevent drugs from continuing to reach schools. The promoters of legalization should see what happens with violence, the increased consumption of various drugs, the growth of the illegal market, etc., in countries where it has been legalized." Petro: "Drugs reach schools precisely because the mafias manage it, thanks to criminalization. With the criminalization of drugs, many politicians get rich, finance their campaigns and build armies. With the money of the drug traffickers and these politicians get their votes with terror, so violence grows."
  - El Pais, 21 June 2023

• The record levels of illicit crops (such as the coca leaf) in Colombia continue to be a threat to the United States that must be faced using all available tools. So said the drug czar of this country, Rahul Guota. "We are reviewing the entire spectrum of cooperation that includes eradication, interdiction, and alternative development, since they are all tools that are required."
  - El Tiempo, 21 June 2023

• The small peaceful country of Costa Rica is being terrorized by drug cartels, that use Costa Rica to ship drugs from Colombia to the highly addicted United States which loves exporting the misery caused by its drug control laws
  - TicoTimes, 20 June 2023

• They did not obtain enough votes: the Senate of Colombia failed to pass a new law allowing the adult use of marijuana. The plenary session of the Senate had 47 votes in favor and 43 against, but it required 54 positive votes to pass. Another failure of the government.
  - El Colombiano, 20 June 2023

• Is the proposed law allowing the adult use of cannabis vanishing like a puff of smoke? The review in the Colombian Senate got stuck last night. If the proposed law is not approved this Monday, it will be dead and will have to start over again as a new proposed law.
  - El Colombiano, 20 June 2023

• With a lax attitude to shell companies and regulation as well as its lack of extradition treaties, the United Arab Emirates became home to the big drug lords, those known as the 'super cartel'.
  - Whale Hunting, 20 June 2023

• An increase in sales of 'magic' mushrooms fosters a revolution in the use of psychedelic drugs in the United States as consumption soars of psilocybin
  - Zero Hedge, 20 June 2023

• In the midst of investigations into the plane at the service of BoA that flew from Viru airport in Bolivia to Spain with half a ton of drugs, three deputies from the Creemos political party suspect that there is another case of a "drug flight" that would have occurred in February. For this reason, they requested reports from three ministries about the arrival of an aircraft that took a Bolivian woman to Guinea, Africa, presumably with a drug shipment.
  - El Deber, 20 June 2023

• Decriminalizing marijuana is the conservative thing to do. In the case of the war on drugs, state intervention has impeded the development of free, peaceful, and prosperous societies. As Gómez and Buckley, titans of conservatism in their respective countries, well understood, the truly conservative position on drugs is to decriminalize, limit the scope of the State and mitigate the harmful effects of consumption by strengthening the civil society.
  - La Silla Vacia, 18 June 2023

• The extended meeting of the 6 Federations of Coca Growers of the Tropic of Cochabamba held this Saturday closed ranks around the head of the Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS), and former president, Evo Morales, whom declared that he is the "unique candidate" forthe 2025 national elections.
  - El Pais, 15 June 2023

• What happened? The last debate on the proposed law to regulate the trade of cannabis for adult use in Colombia has been postponed. The proposed law should be approved before June 20, since it will not possible to debate in extra legislative sessions because it is a legislative act that seeks to reform the Constitution.
  - El Pais, 15 June 2023

• A new wave of invasions of the sugarcane-producing farms in Valle and Cauca (Colombia) has caused a loss of sleep not only for industry producers, but also for authorities seeking to coordinate strategies to prevent this phenomenon from spreading. The properties have been illegally occupied again and invaders have destroyed 6,000 hectares, affecting production and, in this way, the job stability of 6,000 industry employees.
  - El Colombiano, 15 June 2023

• The Prosecutor's Office for Controlled substances has issued summons for all the heads of the special, elite, and High Intelligence groups of the Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, so that they can testify about the shipment of cocaine shipped at the Santa Cruz airport, Viru Viru, in February of this year, and transported in a plane rented by BoA to Madrid, Spain
  - El Deber, 15 June 2023

• Drinking alcohol weekly could be connected to 61 different diseases. Yet it is legal to sell, while coca tea, which is illegal to sell, is NOT connected to 61 different diseases.
  - Fox News, 15 June 2023

• The reverse opium war. Over 100 years ago, the companies in Christian West (led by Britain) flooded China with tons of opium (and fought two wars with China to trafick their heroin, ultimately extorting Hong Kong from China to British control). Now, in (unstated) revenge, China is allowing its companies to flood the West with modern day opium - fentanyl. Though you really can't blame China, but rather the opioid drug trafficking empire created by the Sackler family, their Purdue Pharma, and a large number of American companies that profited from the huge opioid problem plaguing the West.
  - Quillette, 14 June 2023

• Coca growers denounce that the Government of Bolivia donated coca to people who falsified credentials and community resolutions, with economic damage of 1.88 million bolivianos; defendants respond that it is "a fallacy and madness". The defendants are the Vice Minister of Coca, Armin Lovera; the leader of Cofecay related to the MAS, Ernesto Mamani, and an alleged partner, Naftha Otmar.
  - Pagina Siete, 14 June 2023

• According to a complaint from the Bolivian Confederation of Peasant Workers, the trafficking network for the donated coca mocked the police. There were nine verification filters in the Vice Ministry of Coca and those responsible for the lack of control are still unknown. From the Csutcb there is talk of "directed" seizures of the sacred leaf from the coca producers of the Yungas.
  - Pagina Siete, 14 June 2023

• Attacks on farms in Cauca set off alarms for invasions in Colombia. While the sugarcane farmers fear that the invasions will spread, their unions ask for solutions from the Government.
  - El Tiempo, 14 June 2023

• In the rural area of the municipality of Corinto, Cauca, the location and neutralization of a laboratory, by the police and army, for the processing of cocaine hydrochloride was achieved, presumably belonging to the residual organized armed group, structure "Dagoberto Ramos".
  - El Nuevo Liberal, 13 June 2023

• Excessive alcohol consumption may accelerate the worsening of Alzheimer's disease (which doesn't happen when you drink coca tea)
  - EurekaAlert, 12 June 2023

• The unreliable scientific evidence to support medical uses of cannabis
  - SF Gate, 12 June 2023

• In Tumaco, Colombia, 14,138 families are substituting crops grown for illicit use. Given the constant disclosures by PNIS beneficiaries, it has been indicated that the commitments agreed with the communities are being met.
  - Diario del Sur, 09 June 2023

• The vice president of Bolivia, David Choquehuanca, and the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Ghada Fathi Waly, met this Friday to discuss the actions that Bolivia is taking on the coca leaf.
  - Pagina Siete, 09 June 2023

• A little white pill has given Syrian President Bashar Assad powerful leverage with his Arab neighbors, who have been willing to bring him out of pariah status in hopes he will stop the flow of highly addictive Captagon amphetamines out of Syria.
  - SF Gate, 09 June 2023

• A byproduct of sucralose, an artificial sweetener in Splenda, is found to cause 'significant health effects' in new study, including: increased DNA damage, elevated cancer risk and/or a leaky gut. Drinking coca tea does not cause these problems.
  - Fox News, 08 June 2023

• The Colombian Congress discusses the bill to regulate the use of cannabis for cannabis tea, flowers and cigarettes. Alejandro Ocampo, the representative who promotes the initiative, distributed cannabis tea during the Congressional session to the attendees.
  - El Pais, 07 June 2023

• The drug trafficking of cocaine and gang violence have increased killings in once-peaceful Ecuador, with weary people in Ecuador looking to migrate to escape homicides and extortion
  - SF Gate, 07 June 2023

• For eight years, between 1955 and 1963, CIA agents ran a hidden brothel in one of San Francisco's poshest neighborhoods and tested LSD on unsuspecting Bay Area residents. A racist, George Hunter White, a loyal employee of the racist Harry Anslinger, ran the program for the CIA.
  - SF Gate, 06 June 2023

• The evidence and statements of those involved in the case of the drug flight, in which was transported 478 kilos of cocaine from the Viru Viru airport in Bolivia to Spain, involved the personnel of four State institutions. Minister Eduardo Del Castillo admitted that that an "international drug mafia" penetrated the Government using officials from different agencies.
  - Pagina Siete, 06 June 2023

• Between February and May of this year in Colombia, the National Police have eradicated 4,510 hectares planted with coca plants, which is equivalent to an average of 38 hectares per day. There are more than 200,000 hectares of coca in Colombia.
  - El Tiempo, 06 June 2023

• The First Commission of the Colombian Senate, with 15 votes in favor, and 4 for no, has just approved this Tuesday the seventh debate of the legislative act that seeks to regulate cannabis for adult use in Colombia, which will allow open sales. Now the proposed law goes to its last debate in the plenary session of the Senate.
  - El Pais, 06 June 2023

• Former President Evo Morales: I don't know where government "corruption and the protection of drug trafficking" is going to take the country?
  - El Pais, 04 June 2023

• This is the route of the coca semi-submersibles through the Colombian Pacific; but how do they build them? The Pacific Naval Force has intercepted 13 vessels and seized 64,458 kilos of cocaine hydrochloride.
  - El Pais, 04 June 2023

• Cocaine seizures fall: President Petro says that with its legalization, "violence in Colombia would automatically end"
  - Colombiano, 02 June 2023

• "Poison in every puff": each cigarette in Canada to carry this warning. Government says warnings about smoking dangers will be printed directly on cigarettes -- a first in the world. This warning is never needed for coca tea.
  - Al Jazeera, 01 June 2023

• Colombians start smoking from the age of 15. The percentage of young people between the ages of 12 and 21 who have smoked addictive cigarettes at least once is 15.6%.
  - Colombiano, 28 May 2023

• The political opposition in Bolivia compared the the Chapare region, Cochabamba, with the State of Sinaloa, Mexico, after the shooting carried out by drug traffickers and the discovery of several drug factories.
  - Pagina Siete, 25 May 2023

• The Surgeon General warns that social media is a drug that harms children and adolescents. The report by Dr. Vivek Murthy cited "a profound risk of harm" to adolescent mental health and urged families to set limits and governments to set tougher standards for use.
  - New York Times, 23 May 2023

• The war on drugs: an irrational crusade, when society permits sales of alcohol, tobacco and prescription drugs, which kill many more people
  - Mises Institute, 22 May 2023

• The anti-drug forces in Bolivia destroyed 27 coca paste factories and 7 cocaine laboratories in the Tropic of Cochabamba, affecting the drug-trafficking economy by approximately 1.9 million dollars. Each laboratory had an approximate production of 80 to 100 kilograms of cocaine hydrochloride per day.
  - Pagina Siete, 20 May 2023

• Did scientists accidentally invent an anti-addiction Drug? People taking Ozempic for weight loss say they have also stopped drinking, smoking, shopping, and even nail biting.
  - The Atlantic, 19 May 2023

• The United States recorded nearly 110,000 overdoes deaths in 2022, with 75,000 deaths due to synthetic opioids such as fentanyl
  - New York Times, 18 May 2023

• María Fernanda Cabal and her acid criticism of the decrease in the eradication of coca crops in the Petro Government. The opposition congresswoman warned that the eradication of illicit crops has fallen since the arrival of Petro to the Presidency.
  - El Pais, 17 March 2023

• The Prosecutor General's Office of Colombia has increasingly come over fire over top prosecutors' alleged involvement in covering up organized crime. The prosecutors, and some police officers, are alleged to be favoring senior mafia figures and paramilitary organization AGC.
  - Colombia Reports, 16 May 2023

• The addictive cellphone app, TikTok, profits by feeding teenagers a diet of darkness. Self-harm, sad-posting and disordered-eating videos abound on the popular addictive app.
  - Wall Street Journal, 15 May 2023

• Senator María Fernanda Cabal and her acidic criticism of the diminishment of the eradication of coca farm lands under the leadership of Gustavo Petro, president of Colombia
  - El Pais, 12 May 2023

• This is how they are using the Cauca River to move coca and marijuana to Cali, Colombia. Experts assure that the controls on this fluvial route are minimal, and that is why micro-trafficking has turned it into a new route for their activities.
  - El Pais, 12 May 2023

• A narco-submarine with three tons of cocaine, the largest in 30 years, was detected and intercepted by the Colombian National Navy together with the Colombian Air Force. It has a cargo of three tons of cocaine that would have been taken to Central America.
  - El Pais, 12 May 2023

• Indigenous leaders from Cauca justify the kidnapping of more than 20 soldiers: "The public security forces are not a guarantee of security."
  - El Pais, 11 May 2023

• The Colombian Army confirms that a group of soldiers was kidnapped by the community in the municipality of Patía, in Cauca (Colombia). Apparently, the uniformed officers were carrying out an operation against cocaine production laboratories.
  - El Pais, 11 May 2023

• Marijuana/cannabis growers in Thailand say that imports from the United States are hurting their incomes, because the imports are less expensive, the imports often half the price of locally grown cannabis
  - Al Jazeera, 08 May 2023

• Casual use of cannabis/marijuana by adolescents is determined to raise the risk of depression
  - Medical Xpress, 08 May 2023

• The National Police in Honduras seized over one million coca plants spread across 84 hectares, a nursery with two million coca seedlings, and facilities for processing cocaine in a protected forest reserve (Patuca National Park) in the eastern part of the country.
  - The Tico Times, 07 May 2023

• The cannabis industry in California is collapsing financially, with municipalities in the northern part of the state making plans for significantly reduced tax revenues as a result of a collapse in wholesale prices. Once selling for more than $4,000 per pound, bulk buyers are now shopping in the $300 to $500 range for fresh harvests, according to experts, and some growers reported clearing out their crops for less than $200 per pound for fear of being stuck with product.
  - Zero Hedge, 06 May 2023

• The University Santiago de Cali will host a unique event in the country with the First International Cannabis Forum that will take place in June at its Pampalinda campus, in the south of the capital of Valle del Cauca, between May 11 and 12. It will be a forum to discuss the scientific advances in relation to the medicinal benefits of the plant.
  - El Pais, 06 May 2023

• The healthy consequences of drinking coffee without sugar every day. The consumption of sugar-free coffee helps prevent and fight disease. Here we tell you 10 of these benefits.
  - El Pais, 06 May 2023

• Clashes between dissidents of the Farc and the ELN in Cauca (in the municipalities of Caldono and Jambaló) left a member of the Nasa indigenous guard, William Vargas, dead.
  - El Pais, 04 May 2023

• A new study reports that heavy use of marijuana increases the rate of schizophrenia in men. Thirty percent of cases of schizophrenia could be stopped by stopping the use of marijuana, especially increasingly potent marijuana.
  - Bloomberg, 04 May 2023

• It is time to heavily tax a deadly drug that kills more than 140,000 Americans each year - alcohol. The costs of alcohol-related harm -- including expenses related to health care, law enforcement and losses in workplace productivity -- have dwarfed alcohol tax revenues. Another parasitic socialist industry. Coca tea doesn't kill anyone.
  - New York Times, 04 May 2023

• How the FDA worsened the opioid epidemic. Bureaucratic error caused the failure of ketorolac, a promising nonaddictive painkiller.
  - MWSJ, 03 May 2023

• Gonzalo Lupaca is the first sentenced for the violent takeover of the coca leaf market 'parallel' to Adepcoca. Gonzalo Lupaca was apprehended and detained in November of last year, involved in the violent takeover and burning of the Villa El Carmen market building. A judge ruled for a sentence of three years in jail for Lupaca.
  - La Razon, 03 May 2023

• Terrorists assassinate a social leader in Cauca who had received threats from illegal armed groups. Indepaz reported the murder of Diego Fernando Papamija Chilito, who was a recognized social leader, who served as president of the Community Action Board of the corregimiento of Puerto Rico, in the rural area of the municipality of Argelia, Cauca, Colombia.
  - El Pais, 03 May 2023

• On the highway between Pasto and Popayán, three people were captured who were carrying more than eight kilos of coca paste.
  - El Pais, 03 May 2023

• Australia will ban recreational vaping of highly addictive nicotine, in a major crackdown on e-cigarettes as teen use soars. Around the world, teens and even young children are becoming addicted to vaping as an addictive habit.
  - CNN, 02 May 2023

• The crushed and flavored coca leaf changes an ancient taste in Bolivia. An interviewee points out that now customers ask for it crushed and "they prefer it mixed with a flavored sweetener".
  - Pagina Siete, 02 May 2023

• Gabriel Hilaya and his wife Elizabeth Villca, a couple that grows coca leaf, was assaulted by their own worker and an accomplice who was lynched. As a result, one of the assailants was found dead, while the victim and her son are hospitalized in La Paz, Bolivia.
  - El Deber, 02 May 2023

• The demands of the indigenous minga to President Petro, the ELN and FARC dissidents. Under a white shelter that housed the nearly 5,000 inhabitants of the southwestern part of the country for three days, the communities demanded a ceasefire and end of hostilities, and put together a proposal to guarantee their participation in the Total Peace process.
  - El Espectador, 01 May 2023

• The coca crisis: Argelia, Colombia, is agonizing due to the fall in prices. The Spectator newspaper traveled to Argelia, in Cauca, one of the epicenters of the coca economy in the country, and documented the collapse in prices that began in the in September 2022: the price of an arroba de coca leaf fell 45%, and a kilogram of coca paste fell 30%. The crisis is being experienced in a municipality that depends almost entirely on coca cultivation and that today has its economy on hold.
  - El Espectador, 30 April 2023

• The coca crisis in the Micay canyon, Colombia [video]: peasants on the brink of starvation. So are the peasants who depend on that crop - on the coca leaf.
  - El Espectador, 30 April 2023

• The coca-growing farmers of the Yungas feel betrayed by the current Adepcoca leadership, which on Friday allowed the Minister of Government, Eduardo del Castillo, to participate in a sector assembly, in which the official asked to "close the wounds and work together", despite the fact that seven leaders are still in jail. "The minister who one day told us that we are a criminal organization appeared in our assembly with a political discourse that we do not believe, as well as the current leaders who no longer represent us. That is why the base supporters are dissatisfied."
  - Pagina Siete, 30 April 2023

• One day after seeing the Minister of Government, Eduardo Del Castillo, dance with Tomasa Medina, an Afro-Yunguan woman, and after he received a rooster as a gift, the cocaleros feel betrayed by the current leadership for having allowed the national official to participate in the Adepcoca assembly in La Paz, while there still are 25 defendants and seven leaders in prison in Bolivia.
  - Pagina Siete, 29 April 2023

• The Bolivian government managed to overcome the resistance in Adepcoca and began to convince the coca growers to work to solve all the problems that they suggest throughout this time. The Minister of Government, Carlos Eduardo Del Castillo, asked for work on four central issues: judicial, political, coca price, and eradication.
  - El Deber, 28 April 2023

• A group of bipartisan lawmakers reintroduced the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act in the House and Senate on Wednesday, after the legislation designed to free up banking services for the cannabis industry stalled in last year's Congress.
  - New York Times, 28 April 2023

• . The Bolivian government reached out to this Friday to the Assembly of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca), through the Minister of Government, Eduardo del Castillo, who asked permission to meet with their representatives to discuss industry issues, and he even told them that it is time to close "old wounds".
  - Pagina Siete, 28 April 2023

• Blessed coca: for our ancestors it was a gift from the gods, for us it is a gift of nature
  - El Pais, 27 April 2023

• . A law for sodium consumption: these are the imported products that are going to be banned. The proposed law aims to improve the health of Colombians by limiting excessive sodium intake. Why a law against excessive sodium consumption?
  - El Tiempo, 25 April 2023

• Black smokers are at the center of a New York fight to ban menthol cigarettes - strongly opposed by nicotine trafficking tobacco companies - especially Altria and R.J. Reynolds. Decades of aggressive marketing by tobacco companies have caused Black smokers to consume menthol cigarettes, whose cooling sensation on the throat makes them more appealing and addictive. In California, where menthol cigarettes are banned, nicotine-trafficking tobacco companies have begun to try to bypass the ban by selling cigarettes that mimic menthol.
  - New York Times, 23 April 2023

• The opioid drug trafficking family, the Sacklers, bribed gave millions to institution that advises on opioid policy. Even as the nation's drug crisis mounted due to the aggressive drug trafficking of the Sackler family (none of whom ever went to jail - they are not black or Hispanic), the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine continued to accept funds bribes from some members of the drug-trafficking Sackler family, including those involved with Purdue Pharma.
  - New York Times, 23 April 2023

• Chronic alcohol consumption makes some people more sensitive to pain through two different molecular mechanisms -- one driven by alcohol intake and one by alcohol withdrawal. This does not occur if one drinks coca tea.
  - Scripps Institute, 21 April 2023

• Americans bought more marijuana than chocolate in 2022 [video]
  - CNN, 20 April 2023

• The Justice Department's Office of Inspector General is investigating whether the Drug Enforcement Administration under chief Anne Milgram improperly awarded millions of dollars in no-bid contracts to hire her past associates. One no-bid contract being investigated is $4.7 million "strategic planning and communication" at costs far exceeding pay for government officials. Also under scrutiny is $1.4 million to Wilmer Hale, a Washington law firm, for a recent review of the DEA's scandal-plagued foreign operations that was widely criticized for giving short shrift to agent misconduct and how to prevent it.
  - Associated Press, 19 April 2023

• Oliverio Orfilio Pai Rodríguez, the feared head of the ELN in Colombia, who is fighting for control of coca in Ecuador. He is one of the most wanted criminals in southwestern Colombia.
  - El Tiempo, 19 April 2023

• New marijuana drinks in California have a huge dose of addictive THC. Traditional marijuana drinks have about 10 milligrams of THC. These new drinks have 100 milligrams of THC.
  - SF Gate, 18 April 2023

• Will students at Hong Kong University topple a statue of its founder - that of H.N.Mody, whose fortune came from the opium trade? Contemporary Hong Kong was founded upon opium; legal and licensed until 1941.
  - South China Morning Post, 17 April 2023

• In recent months, coca prices in Colombia have plummeted. The oversupply of crops, the transition of armed groups to other businesses, and the increase in crops in other countries has meant that many coca growers can no longer survive from this economy.
  - Cambio, 16 April 2023

• "For the United States, legalizing drug trafficking and consumption is a bad idea" - says US Ambassador Francisco Palmieri. After all, look at the deaths due to two highly addictive but legal drugs, nicotine and alcohol.
  - El Pais, 16 April 2023

• Farc dissidents and Brazilian gangs dominate the drug trade in the Amazon. Marijuana and cocaine are being navigated using the river highways, fattening the businesses of "Iván Mordisco".
  - El Colombiano, 15 April 2023

• Indigenous harvesters of Brazil nuts in Bolivian Amazon face hardships
  - Tico Times, 15 April 2023

• Consuming alcohol in moderation has no health benefits. The scientists found that light or moderate alcohol consumption is not significantly associated with lowering any risk of cause of death. Unlike coca tea, which does have health benefits.
  - El Espectador, 10 April 2023

• A social leader who had left Nariño due to threats from Farc dissidents is murdered in Cali. He was the representative of the community council, La Voz de los Negros.
  - El Pais, 10 April 2023

• The vice president of the Adepcoca, Reynaldo Laura, reported yesterday that the Fourth Constitutional Chamber of La Paz rejected the petition presented by the leader Arnold Alanes, of the MAS. The judicial action had the purpose of recognizing Laura as president of the cocalera organization.
  - Pagina Siete, 09 April 2023

• The Colombian Attorney General's Office dealt a hard blow to a network that was dedicated to building semi-submersibles to transport tons of cocaine through the Colombian Pacific bound for the United States and European countries.
  - El Pais, 08 April 2023

• The legal marijuana market in California is losing hundreds of marijuana farms each month, as farmers choose to quit the legal market. Low wholesale prices and high taxes have made it almost impossible for operators to run a profitable small business, pot industry insiders say.
  - SF Gate, 07 April 2023

• In Potosí, Bolivia, a 71-year-old "narco-grandmother" is captured when she was trying to transport cocaine in the middle of molded bread, and was traveling from Uyuni to Chile.
  - Pagina Siete, 06 April 2023

• Editorial: at least three events registered last week confirm that drug trafficking is healthy in Bolivia, and that its operators work closely with the dangerous First Command of the Capital (of Brazil), which represents a serious risk to national security.
  - Pagina Siete, 04 April 2023

• Forced eradication of coca: in what way? Where are the Colombian Public Force operatives going? The prioritized department is Putumayo, where 1,980 hectares of drug crops have been exterminated.
  - El Tiempo, 04 April 2023

• Moderate drinking has no health benefits, analysis of decades of research finds. The risk of a myriad of health problems increased significantly after less than two drinks a day for women and after three for men. Drinking organic coca tea has no such problems.
  - New York Times, 04 April 2023

• A lot of cocaine: an oversupply has coca growers holding with lots of coca paste. The oversupply in the market harms small coca growers and favors large producers.
  - El Colombiano, 02 April 2023

• An ex-combatant of the Farc is assassinated in Chocó. The details of the crime against Levinson Valoys Mosquera, perpetrated in the municipality of Bahía Solano, are unknown.
  - El Colombiano, 01 April 2023

• Moderate drinking has no health benefits, analysis of decades of research finds. The risk of a myriad of health problems increased significantly after less than two drinks a day for women and after three for men. Drinking organic coca tea has no such problems.
  - JAMA Network Open, 31 March 2023

• The FDA continues to permit the inclusion of phenylephrine, a useless ingredient in hundreds of cough and cold products. In 2001, the FDA did order the removal of phenylpropanoamine from flu drugs (it was linked to strokes). And in 2006, it greatly restricted the use of pseudoephedrine (which is easy to convert to the illegal methamphetamine). But it has to offer the public some placebo, so it allows phenylephrine, which is poorly absorbed and most it is decomposed in the body, with studies showing that at low doses it is no more effective than a placebo.
  - Science Based Medicine, 30 March 2023

• Consuming a large amount of alcohol creates a vicious cycle: the alcohol changes signaling pathways in the brain, which in turn affects cognitive functions such as decision-making and impulse control -- and makes the individual more likely to drink.
  - EurekAlert!, 30 March 2023

• President Gustavo Petro of Colombia criticizes the national prosecutor, Francisco Barbosa, for "confusing peasant farmers who grow coca leaves with rich drug traffickers, which is why the prisons are filled with peasants and drug traffickers fly around in helicopters"
  - El Colombiano, 28 March 2023

• El periódico, el Washington Post, informa sobre los crecientes problemas por drogas y delitos relacionados con las drogas en Costa Rica, víctima del enorme consumo de cocaína en Estados Unidos.
  - Tico Times, 27 March 2023

• "Costa Rica continues to be the main transshipment point for cocaine," affirms the United States. Another unwilling victim of America's huge consumption of cocaine.
  - La Nacion, 27 March 2023

• Colombia risks losing the support of the United States in the failed fight against cocaine, according to Colombia's Attorney General
  - Reuters, 27 March 2023

• People cannot obtain the ADHD medicines, thanks to drug policy mismanagement by the Drug Enforcement Agency. To avoid repeating history, the regulation of medically used controlled substances should be transferred from the D.E.A., a law enforcement agency with no expertise in medicine, to the Food and Drug Administration, which specializes in health.
  - New York Times, 26 March 2023

• It is obscene that in Colombia the manager of a farmers' union, in this case the federation that represents the Colombia's coffee growers, earns about $30,000 per month, while between 35% and 40% of the citizens suffer from food insecurity, that is, they suffer from hunger. It is even more obscene if one considers that of those 17.7 million people, hundreds of thousands of them are coffee growers that are hungry.
  - La Silla Vacia, 26 March 2023

• Farmers from multiple parts of Colombia say cocaine sales have collapsed after a surge in 2021 in the production of the illicit drug. A ack of buyers for cocaine in Catatumbo is causing a food crisis in the region whose economy almost entirely depends on the drug trade.
  - Colombia Reports, 24 March 2023

• Switzerland has approved plans to legalize the sale and consumption of cannabis in Zurich in a trial designed to assess social and economic benefits
  - CNBC, 23 March 2023

• "Holding hunger": the coca crisis spreads through Colombia. The purchase of coca leaf and paste in the country is in crisis. The coca farmers, the most vulnerable link in the chain, have not been able to sell an arroba of leaves or a kilo of base paste for months. 62% of the coca crops are concentrated in Nariño, Putomayo y Norte de Santander.
  - La Silla Vacia, 23 March 2023

• Germany is expected to introduce a bill in the coming weeks which, if passed, would greenlight the consumption and sale of cannabis in Europe's largest economy. Under the plans, cannabis would no longer be classed as a narcotic, and citizens over 18 would be allowed to carry up to 30 grams of the drug for personal use. Consumers would also be free to grow up to three plants at home, and licensed stores and pharmacies would be able to sell cannabis products.
  - CNBC, 22 March 2023

• The threats that will jeopardize the existence of coffee. Coffee production could be affected by climate threats in countries like Colombia.
  - El Tiempo, 21 March 2023

• The mayor of Cali, Colombia, Jorge Iván Ospina, spoke about the situation in some municipalities of Cauca, due to the drop in the price of coca leaf and coca paste, assuring that the armed groups have ordered a halt to the cultivation of this plant in this area of the country.
  - El Pais, 21 March 2023

• In Beni, Bolivia, members of the Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking find a 'megalaboratory'. The authority explained that the laboratory had the capacity to produce between 80 and 100 kilograms of cocaine.
  - Pagina Siete, 21 March 2023

• Nicotine drug-trafficker Juul Labs agreed to pay a $255 million settlement to resolve claims it concealed the addictiveness of its e-cigarettes to sell to consumers and minors
  - Top Class Actions, 21 March 2023

• Cannabis use in adolescent years may create reproductive complications in women. Exposure to THC at a young age could lead to depleted ovarian follicles and matured eggs in adulthood by nearly 50 percent. Coca tea does not cause this problem.
  - Medical Xpress, 21 March 2023

• Jamundí, Colombia, the land of the cholao (a fruit salad) fears the night and the mountain of coca. Under the shadow of fears, deaths of young people and threats, from this municipality they ask for attention.
  - El Tiempo, 20 March 2023

• People from Los Yungas, Bolivia, stand up politically and announce "a vote to punish the MAS". From Adepcoca and organic Cofecay they assure that the party in government (the MAS) has no footprint in that region. The organization related to the MAS says that it is false and an example is the mayoralties in which the 'blues' won.
  - Pagina Siete, 19 March 2023

• The strong alert in some regions due to an oversupply of drugs and insecurity. Governors of various departments such as Cauca, Nariño y Antioquia are concerned.
  - El Tiempo, 19 March 2023

• The Bolivian Ombudsman files a judicial appeal in favor of the cocalero César Apaza. On Thursday, when Apaza was returned from the La Paz hospital to the Chonchocoro prison. The defense indicated that that Apaza still has signs of partial paralysis in his extremities and "adjjustment disorder".
  - Pagina Siete, 18 March 2023

• Laughing gas, nitrous oxide, is a potent recreational narcotic drug, yet fully legal for sale. Doctors are now detecting an increasing number of cases of paralysis caused by inhalation of laughing gas.
  - Yahoo News, 18 March 2023

• Cartels other than those in México fight over the coca business in Colombia
  - El Tiempo, 17 March 2023

• Coffee plantations reduce the food supply of birds, as compared to the food supply provided to birds by forests
  - Phys.org, 17 March 2023

• Global cocaine production hits 'record high' as new trafficking hubs emerge
  - Zero Hedge, 17 March 2023

• Colombia produces the largest amount of cocaine that is snorted in the world. The country added 204,000 hectares of leaf and produced 1,400 tons of cocaine.
  - El Colombiano, 16 March 2023

• Why is the United States concerned about the anti-drug policy of the Petro Government in Colombia?
  - El Colombiano, 16 March 2023

• It is more profitable to plant coffee than coca in Cauca: what is happening? Coca leaf has dramatically lowered in price in Cauca, Colombia.
  - El Tiempo, 16 March 2023

• The government of Colombia has requested that the United Nations remove the coca leaf from the list of prohibited substances. The vice-minister of multilateral affairs, Laura Gil, argued that drug trafficking, not the coca leaf, is responsible for violence in the country.
  - El Pais, 13 March 2023

• Living with terror: the harsh testimonies of sugarcane cutters about attacks by indigenous people on farms in the north of the department of Cauca, Colombia, by a group of people who demand the right to land with blood and fire.
  - El Pais, 12 March 2023

• Evo Morales arrives in the Yungas of La Paz, Bolivia, despite the fact that he was declared persona-non-grata and that roadblocks were installed against him.
  - El Deber, 11 March 2023

• The town of La Asunta, Bolivia, declares Evo Morales "persona non grata and enemy" of the cocaleros. The former president will lead a political training workshop this Saturday together with Quintana and Huanacuni. "As the Federation of La Asunta, we cannot allow (Evo Morales), the person responsible for the division and fight between the Yungus coca-growing family, to show up to brainwash more comrades."
  - Pagina Siete, 11 March 2023

• Cocaleros in Bolivia reject that Evo Morales will lead a "political training workshop" in the Yungas. It was announced that the activity will take place Saturday in the municipality of La Asunta. The cocalero leaders affirm that he was responsible for several deaths and the imprisonment of the leaders of Adepcoca and Cofecay. Adepcoca and Cofecay request a resolution to declare Evo Morales "persona non grata".
  - Pagina Siete, 10 March 2023

• Coca eradication is restarted in Colombia. Police intervened at 769 hectares with coca plants. Uniformed officers faced 14 blockades in this process.
  - El Tiempo, 07 March 2023

• "There are no significant advances in its implementation": Ombudsman's Office on the Peace Accords of Colombia
  - El Pais, 07 March 2023

• JEP, the war crime tribunal of Colombia, has formally accused the former Prosecutor General (Nestor Humberto Martinez) and former International Affairs director (Ana Fabiola Castro) of fraud and concealing evidence for trying to extradite a former FARC leader (Jesus Santrich) on false drug charges that had been fabricated by US authorities (DEA agents in Colombia, and US attorneys in New York). The operation failed after the DEA agent flown in to coordinate the conspiracy found out that the JEP's prosecutor and magistrates were considerably less corrupt than his bosses and the DEA's partners in Colombia.
  - Colombia Reports, 07 March 2023

• Costa Rica está sobre abastecida de marihuana (todacía ilegal allí), debido a los nuevos suministros de marihuana procedentes de Colombia que compiten con los suministros de Jamaica
  - Q Costa Rica, 06 March 2023

• Vice President Francia Márquez made a new call to decriminalize the use of coca leaf in Colombia, at least in indigenous territories: "Continuing to criminalize the use of the leaf will not allow Colombia to achieve total peace."
  - witter, 06 March 2023

• Vice President Francia Márquez made a new call to decriminalize the use of coca leaf in Colombia, at least in indigenous territories: "Continuing to criminalize the use of the leaf will not allow Colombia to achieve total peace."
  - l Pais, 06 March 2023

• Massacres, criminal gangs and extortions: ¿is the Valle de Cauca in Colombia again in the middle of a drug war?
  - El Pais, 05 March 2023

• The coca leaf flourishes in Mexico in the shadow of synthetic drugs. The Mexican crops are still incipient, with some 36 hectares of coca eradicated.
  - El Tiempo, 04 March 2023

• The United States issues a warning to Colombia about the forced eradication of coca crops. "Peace requires robust forced eradication effort." Maintaining eradication, and dismantling the criminal organizations that are dedicated to this business, are the key points of the first report that reveals the Biden administration in the Petro era.
  - El Tiempo, 04 March 2023

• Two companies in British Colombia, Canada, can produce and sell cocaine and heroin, but only for scientific and medical purposes, with no sales to the general public
  - Vice, 03 March 2023

• The abuses of 'telehealth': why are ads for ketamine and other addictive drugs following me around the Internet?
  - New York Times, 02 March 2023

• The drug industry has agreed to pay more than $50 billion to settle lawsuits over its role in the opioid epidemic, earmarked for prevention and treatment programs in the states, municipalities and tribes that filed thousands of opioid-related cases. None of the drug-trafficking corporate executives went to jail.
  - New York Times, 02 March 2023

• These are the groups against which the ELN wages war to the death over coca. Intelligence agencies point out that the confrontations are taking place in five departments (provinces) in Colombia.
  - El Tiempo, 02 March 2023

• CIA documents reveal that the army of Colombia turned Medellin into the murder capital of the world in the 1980s, not the Medellin drug cartel. The documents contradict decades of government propaganda that falsely blamed the drug traffickers. The terrorism campaign was coordinated by 4th Brigade of the national army.
  - Colombia Reports, 01 March 2023

• Peace leaders in Putumayo, Colombia, bet their lives on coca crop substitution
  - Insight Crime, 01 March 2023

• Editorial: coca eradication goals in Colombia
  - El Pais, 28 February 2023

• Why do the statistics in the fight against drugs in Colombia not coincide? El Tiempo consulted to the Police and the Prosecutor's Office on the differences in the results.
  - El Tiempo, 28 February 2023

• The role of drug trafficking in the economy is 4.5% of GDP. Colombia reaches new highs in cocaine production.
  - El Tiempo, 27 February 2023

• The great challenges of the agricultural sector in Colombia. In 230 municipalities there is less harvested area than under conditions of severe or very severe erosion.
  - El Tiempo, 26 February 2023

• Three new politicians push for the normalization of marijuana use en Colombia
  - La Silla Vacia, 26 February 2023

• Using marijuana every day can raise a person's risk of coronary artery disease by a third compared with those who never partake
  - CNN, 24 February 2023

• Editorial: the United States has lost the war on drugs. It needs to end outdated anti-drug policies, invest in treatment, address why people need drugs to be happy, and make addiction treatment part of the national health system.
  - New York Times, 24 February 2023

• Not one hectare of coca was eradicated in January in Colombia. Interdiction also fell by 32%.
  - El Colombiano, 23 February 2023

• The government of Colombia will join that of Bolivia in asking the United Nations to remove coca from its list of prohibited substances
  - Colombia Reports, 23 February 2023

• "In January it is normal that we do not eradicate coca": director of the National Police responds to controversy over illicit crop targets in Colombia.
  - Semana, 22 February 2023

• The former head of the 'FBI' of Mexico, Genaro García Luna, is found guilty in a US court of of taking millions of dollars from the Sinaloa drug cartel when he was in charge of Mexico's bloody war on drug trafficking.
  - New York Times, 21 February 2023

• Cattle farming, not coca leaf growing, drives deforestation and clearcutting of the Amazon in Colombia
  - The Guardian, 19 February 2023

• How ketamine is legally being trafficked via telehealth. With loosened rules around remote prescriptions, a psychedelic-like drug has become a popular treatment for mental health conditions. But a boom in at-home use has outpaced evidence of safety. But still, these people cannot buy coca tea.
  - New York Times, 19 February 2023

• "The United States has to do more to control drug use": Luis Gilberto Murillo, the Colombian ambassador in Washington
  - El Tiempo, 19 February 2023

• The DEA goes after the drug network that involves the powerful ex-prosecutor of Colombia, Ana Catalina Noguera. The falsification of the signature of a federal agent would open the door to extraditions.
  - El Tiempo, 19 February 2023

• The coca leaf in the National Development Plan of Colombia, with at least one goal: "Promote the alternative uses of the coca plant"
  - La Silla Vacia, 18 February 2023

• A healthy drink with coca tea: ground green bean coffee
  - Tico Times, 17 February 2023

• The Prosecutor's Office and the Attorney General's Office oppose the suspension of eradication of mini-crops in Colombia. The Ministry of Justice has a draft resolution ready that protects Family Farming Units from coca eradication; it will be discussed in the National Narcotics Council.
  - El Tiempo, 16 February 2023

• César Apaza, mprisoned leader of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) in Bolivia, suffered an attack. an embolism and is hospitalized. The lawyer Evelyn Cossío held the Ministry of Government responsible for the delicate state of his health, because he was not treated in a timely manner in the Chonchocoro prison.
  - Pagina Siete, 15 February 2023

• US Attorney Damian Williams in New York published evidence that confirms that DEA agents allegedly conspired to traffic cocaine from Colombia in 2017. The conspiracy was meant to discredit the war crimes tribunal in Colombia, and to undermine the peace process in Colombia.
  - Colombia Reports, 14 February 2023

• Ana Catalina Norguera, the former chief of prosecutions for financial crimes, is arrested for her alleged involvement in the extortion of drug trafficking suspects. She and her colleagues tracked down alleged drug traffickers and demanded money to obstruct their extradition to other countries. The current Attorney General, Francisco Barbosa made Noguera his Financial Crimes chief after taking office in early 2020.
  - Colombia Reports, 14 February 2023

• Before his death, on the morning of this Saturday in the municipality of Mallama, Nariño, the indigenous leader Moisés Marcos López, was kidnapped by heavily armed men who were traveling in a high-end vehicle, a Mercedes Benz. He was the legal representative of the political movement of Colombian Indigenous Authorities in Nariño.
  - El Tiempo, 12 February 2023

• Is drug trafficking responsible for the excess of dollars in Costa Rica? January closed with a surplus of US$620 million in the foreign exchange market, a situation that also affects the historic drop in the dollar exchange rate.
  - Q Costa Rica, 09 February 2023

• About half a billion dollars worth of cocaine (about 3.2 tons) -- enough to service the New Zealand market for 30 years, the Australian market for 1 year -- was found floating in the Pacific Ocean
  - Insider, 08 February 2023

• Opinion: La Coca Nostra of Bolivia: the Chapare region is the headquarters of the MAS political party, it is the nucleus of political power in Bolivia, and it is the center for drug traffickers and coca paste and cocaine production.
  - Pagina Siete, 08 February 2023

• In Colombia, you can eat cannabis bread and tuna. Invima authorized the production of various cannabis-based foods. The health authority is studying 165 manufacturing licences.
  - El Colombiano, 07 February 2023

• Anxiety and fear are the feelings that overwhelm the sugarcane workers in northern Cauca, Colombia, after the events that occurred last Monday afternoon at the Ukrania farm, located in the village of El Tetillo, in which two workers lost their lives.
  - El Pais, 07 February 2023

• Vapers: a trend that affects the hearts of young people. There is currently no medication or method to cure nicotine addictions. Electronic cigarettes or vapers are just as addictive and harmful to health as tobacco. Yet, they are more legal than the coca leaf.
  - El Universal, 03 February 2023

• Australia will allow prescriptions for MDMA and psilocybin to treat mental illnesses that are resistant to other treatments
  - The Guardian, 03 February 2023

• A controversial proposed law by the Petro government could legalize up to 67% of the cultivations of coca lead in Colombia. The law proposed by the Ministry of Justice plans to legalize cultivations of coca leaf on plots of lands of less than 10 hectares. These lands are almost half of the coca farm lands in Colombia.
  - El Colombiano, 01 February 2023

• Juan Fernando Petro, the brother of the president of Colombia, maintained that there are cases of drug traffickers who seek to sneak in as peace managers by paying million dollar sums of money. He denounced that the drug traffickers are trying to enter into total peace. "They are using my name underhandedly."
  - El Colombiano, 30 January 2023

• The story of "Orion V", the ship that sailed from Colombia with 1,750 cows and landed in Spain with 4.5 kilograms of cocaine.
  - El Colombiano, 30 January 2023

• Can Colombia really replace oil and gas revenue, with income from renewable energy, tourism, and agriculture?
  - OilPrice.com, 30 January 2023

• One in eight Americans over 50 show signs of addiction to food with lots of added sugar and salt, such as fast foods and sodas
  - Univ. Michigan News, 30 January 2023

• The Surgeon General of the United States argues that social media should not be used by children under 13 years of age. This is much like alcohol and nicotine should not be used by children under the age of 13.
  - CNN Health, 29 January 2023

• Police in Spain seize $144 million worth of cocaine on a cattle ship that travelled from Colombia through Togo to Spain.
  - Yahoo News, 28 January 2023

• One benefit of using marijuana - that it makes people more creative - is not true. Marijuana does make you more jovial, which people falsely assume means that they are more creative.
  - Discover, 28 January 2023

• Daily consumption of caffeine temporarily alters the structure of your brain
  - Big Think, 27 January 2023

• Cannabis exports skyrocketed in Colombia: five provinces exported US $8.4 million in cannabis between January and November 2022
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 26 January 2023

• Federal agencies are questioning Snapchat's role in the spread and sale of fentanyl-laced pills in the United States as part of a broader probe into the deadly counterfeit drugs crisis.
  - Zero Hedge, 25 January 2023

• Did a top-ranking anti-drug security official in Mexico, Genero Garcia Luna, reveal the name of a DEA informant to a Mexican drug cartel, who murdered the informant?
  - The Intercept, 21 January 2023

• New guidelines for consuming alcohol in Canada state that "no amount" is healthy. The guidance builds on growing evidence, after decades of sometimes conflicting research, that even small amounts of alcohol can have serious health consequences.
  - New York Times, 20 January 2023

• California joins other states in suing three companies over insulin prices that are too high. The state is taking action against three major drug companies and the big pharmacy benefit managers in an effort to temper costs for people with diabetes, which can be hundreds of dollars a month.
  - New York Times, 19 January 2023

• Given the "historic" levels of coca plantations in Colombia, the United States believes that it is "fundamental" to use all available tools, including eradication.
  - El Tiempo, 17 January 2023

• Mexican cartels: the 'invisible' hand that manipulates the cocaine market in Colombia. The 'invisibles' are in charge of "financing, and for that they do not need to be visible, they do not need to have an entire armed force behind them, because they are not involved here in those territorial disputes over the drug-trafficking business"
  - El Pais, 16 January 2023

• "There will not be persecution of coca farmers, but only the capitalists of cocaine" [drug traffickers] - according to Colombia's director of Illegal Plant Farming Substitution.
  - El Tiempo, 15 January 2023

• The drug traffickers of America and the Caribbean know that some of the funniest moments of humor are enjoyed by reading, listening and observing everything that the governments, politicians, military, police, prosecutors and magistrates say and do against the drug traffickers with pompous proclamations, repeated promises and multimillion-dollar investments in weapons and equipment without obtaining positive results. The mafias are winning the global war on drugs.
  - El Tiempo, 14 January 2023

• Even a little amount of alcohol can harm your health. What qualifies as 'excessive alcohol use' is two drinks a day for men and more than one drink a day for women. Scientists think that the main way alcohol causes health problems is by damaging DNA./A>
  - New York Times, 14 January 2023

• In the period 2013-2020 in Colombia, there were 28,541 deaths associated with drug use were, "taking into account that (the victims) presented positive toxicology results associated with psychoactive substances; the main substances found were alcohol and cocaine". Not reported is that more people, in the same time period, died from consumption of sugary beverages in Colombia.
  - El Colombiano, 12 January 2023

• Cultivations of illegal coca plants: a reduction in the goals for this year sparks a debate. The police of Colombia are tasked with eradicating 20,000 hectares of coca leaf this year, 30,000 hectares less than the goals set last year by the government of former president Iván Duque.
  - El Tiempo, 12 January 2023

• Grupo Semana will acquire the El País newspaper. This assures the future of Cali's main newspaper, which has been published for 73 years, one of the leaders of the press in Colombia.
  - El Pais, 11 January 2023

• The increase in profits from drug trafficking, associated with the devaluation of the peso against the dollar, is not only triggering cocaine production in Colombia, but in the future it will make it difficult for armed groups to want to give up this bonanza to get involved in the "total peace" that promoted by the government of Colombia.
  - El Colombiano, 10 January 2023

• Since Colombia signed a free trade agreement with the United States, exports from Colombia to the United States have dropped 50%
  - Colombia Reports, 07 January 2023

• Since Colombia signed a free trade agreement with the United States, farmland used to cultivate coca went up 219%. Despite evidence indicating that the FTA destroyed the agricultural sector in Colombia, and boosted cocaine exports to the US, neither Washington nor Bogota want to renegotiate the FTA.
  - Colombia Reports, 07 January 2023

• Bolivia is preparing to celebrate the Coca Leaf Chewing Day. A law declared that January 11th of each year is the National Coca Leaf Chewing Day. The coca leaf is an Intangible Cultural Heritage of the country.
  - Pagina Siete, 07 January 2023

• Vaping: a pleasure that can affect the lungs and even the immune system. Contrary to what is believed, vapers or electronic cigarettes are addictive due to their nicotine content, and can cause damage to the lungs, kidneys, and even the immune system.
  - Semana, 06 January 2023

• The legal use of mushrooms that are hallucinogenic begins in the state of Oregon
  - New York Times, 03 January 2023

• The cocalero leader related to the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS - the ruling party), Arnold Alanez, asked Friday for the extension of the investigation of the "coup I" case to more than 20 members of the original Association of Coca Leaf Producers (Adepcoca) of La Paz, Bolivia. Alanez affirmed that these people allowed the then civic leader Luis Fernando Camacho to operate in 2019 from the coca-growing market of Villa Fátima. The leader of the parallel coca market said that he has corresponding evidence to support the accusation.
  - Pagina Siete, 01 January 2023

• The arrest of Governor Luis Fernando Camacho is considered by the opponents as a 'trophy' of the Government of Bolivia to correct the internal fights of the MAS and stop the constant questioning of the administration of President Luis Arce. However, the cocaleros, along with their leader and chief of the MAS, ex-president Evo Morales, were skeptical of the arrest of the Governnor and warned that he could be arrested as part of a "political calculation".
  - El Deber, 01 January 2023

• The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, in a message sent through his Twitter account, announced a bilateral cease-fire with major armed groups, lasting until June. "We have reached a cease-fire with the ELN, the Segunda Marquetalia, the Estado Mayor Central, the AGC y the Autodefensas de la Sierra Nevada groups."
  - El Tiempo, 01 January 2023

• The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, in a message sent through his Twitter account, announced a bilateral cease-fire with major armed groups, lasting until June. "We have reached a cease-fire with the ELN, the Segunda Marquetalia, the Estado Mayor Central, the AGC y the Autodefensas de la Sierra Nevada groups."
  - El Espectador, 01 January 2023

• TikTok is an addictive drug that the government of China is providing to Americans, says the incoming chairman of a new House select committee on China, Representative Mike Gallagher. He calls TikTok "digital fentanyl" because "it is highly addictive and destructive and we are seeing troubling data about the corrosive impact of constant social media use."
  - CNN, 01 January 2023

• The stock prices of most cannabis companies lost roughly two-thirds of their value in 2022 as a lack of change in federal laws. Worse, cannabis prices continue to fall as supply increases.
  - MarketWatch, 31 December 2022

• The government of Japan is encouraging people to drink more addictive alcohol, as tax revenues from alcoholic beverages decline. A standard drug trafficking tactic.
  - Yahoo News, 31 December 2022

• 2023: zero hour for the new drug policy in Colombia. The government of President Gustavo Petro has been slowly announcing its strategy.
  - El Tiempo, 31 December 2022

• Oscar Rodríguez, social leader and councilor of the municipality of Linares, located in the Colombian department of Nariño (southwest), was assassinated this Thursday. Rodríguez worked as a spokesperson for the organization Unión Campesina por la Paz de Linares and also led processes of substitution of crops for illicit use from the presidency of the Association of Workers of Coca growers (ASTROCAN).
  - El Deber, 30 December 2022

• 2022, the year in which Colombia was flooded with coca leaf. The bonanza of drug trafficking is unprecedented. The government of Gustavo Petro reduced restrictions on illicit crops.
  - El Colombiano, 30 December 2022

• The coca growers of the Six Federations of the Tropic of Cochabamba, together with the leader of the MAS, Evo Morales, debate and evaluate the administrative and political management of President Luis Arce and Vice President David Choquehuanca.
  - El Deber, 30 December 2022

• "We can't waste troops going after coca". General Luis Mauricio Ospina referred to relations on the border with Venezuela and Ecuador.
  - El Tiempo, 29 December 2022

• "Industrialize coca" for the small grower, the commitment of the Government of Colombia. Felipe Tascón is the director of the Illicit Crop Substitution Plan, which is part of the Territory Renewal Agency, and in an interview with EL TIEMPO he assured that President Gustavo Petro gave him a task of the industrialization of the lands where coca is planted and "to be the vanguard to achieve the presence of the State in those regions".
  - El Tiempo, 28 December 2022

• The 'narco juniors' of the Sinaloa Cartel have big plans for marijuana, and they are borrowing ideas from the dispensaries in California. Sinaloa Cartel members want to get a jump on the potential legalization of marijuana in Mexico.
  - Business Insider, 27 December 2022

• Three types of synthetic drugs circulate in Bolivia and their prices are six times more than cocaine. The drugs are ecstasy, fentanyl and tusi.
  - El Deber, 26 December 2022

• Analysis: the dangers that President Petro's strategy in the fight against drugs could bring to Colombia. The president, and the Global Commission on Drug Policy, have called for a paradigm shift in world drug policy since 2011, although without defining what it would mean. what is proposed, except for some fragmentary ideas which is far from a viable and comprehensive model.
  - El Pais, 25 December 2022

• Former President Evo Morales of Bolivia gave more information about his complaints against the current national government of Bolivia with regards to the protection of drug trafficking, and on this day the Vice Minister of Social Defense and Controlled Substances, Jaime Mamani (anti-drug czar), admitted that he pays the informants of the Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking (FELCN) with cocaine.
  - Pagina Siete, 25 December 2022

• A national oversupply of marijuana in the United States is causing prices to plummet and is imperiling businesses. Ill-fated hopes that a Democratic-controlled Washington might loosen decades-old restrictions on the drug have given way to a market glut and plummeting prices that have put scores of businesses at risk of collapse.
  - Politico, 25 December 2022

• The insatiable demand of consumers for chocolate is destroying forests. Ivory Coast, for example, has lost 80 percent of its forest cover in the past 50 years, mainly due to the expansion of cocoa farms. In Indonesia and Malaysia, palm oil farming is causing severe deforestation (palm oil another ingredient in low-quality chocolates).
  - Al Jazeera, 24 December 2022

• Freddy Machicado, the young coca grower leader from the Yungas, who emerged as one of their leaders with the greatest support in his region, has been imprisoned in the San Pedro prison since September 2022. His bases support his leadership. From the point of view of Adepcoca, the coca producers see him as a leader with solid and inclusive ideas.
  - Pagina Siete, 23 December 2022

• The coca growers of Cauca, where the conflict is so intense that coca no longer makes them money. The prices of an arroba of coca leaf, for example, is less than half, while the products used to maintain the crop -- such as fertilizer and insecticides -- have doubled in price. This week, an arroba (about 11.5 kilograms) of coca leaf dropped to about 35 thousand pesos.
  - La Silla Vacia, 22 December 2022

• Ivory Coast is the top cocoa producing country in the world, but receives just four percent of the chocolate industry's estimated annual sales of $100 billion
  - Al Jazeera, 22 December 2022

• The Petro administration does not change its position with regard to the gradual reduction of coca cultivation. The United States asked for Colombia to move carefully in substituting coca crops for others. A spokesman for the US State Department told this publication that "the immediate transition from a forced eradication strategy to a voluntary one must be made to control the growth of illicit crops".
  - El Tiempo, 21 December 2022

• Coca violence crosses Putumayo into Peru. As the fighting rages, the number of uncounted massacres along the border river is increasing. The absence of a regional drug policy allows the spread of violence, while crops for illicit use continue to migrate to neighboring countries.
  - La Liga, 21 December 2022

• The world is crossing over into the "golden age" of cocaine with greater productivity. Behind this boom is a massive growth in cultivated area, as well as higher crop productivity.
  - La Republica, 20 December 2022

• So this is the route that President Gustavo Petro is taking to regulate cocaine. Petro wants that the money that comes to the country through international cooperation is not used to finance the war against drugs, but rather for "economic transformation programs." Each announcement of the President of Colombia is aimed at decriminalizing this drug.
  - El Colombiano, 20 December 2022

• The controversy continues over President Petro's green light to grow coca in Colombia. Petro is emphatic in saying that it is necessary to "remove the peasantry from an economy that no longer gives more than it gave", and he maintained that this should be gradual.
  - El Pais, 20 December 2022

• Why the Liberica variety of coffee beans could become more popular, joining the Arabica and Robusta varieties in the marketplace, since Liberica is better able to handle global warming and changes to the environment
  - Real Clear Science, 19 December 2022

• President Gustavo Petro and Senator María Cabal had a new 'disagreement' over social networks and this time cocaine, dollars and drug trafficking were the issues that led to an exchange of responses between the two.
  - El Pais, 17 December 2022

• Faced with the controversy that has been generated by the proposal to allow peasants to continue growing coca leaves while they work on substitute crops, President Gustavo Petro maintained that "when we say that we are not going to attack a peasant, that instead we are going to transform the region so that it can become productive in legal economies, we are also not saying that we are going to allow cocaine."
  - El Colombiano, 17 December 2022

• Faced with the controversy that has been generated by the proposal to allow peasants to continue growing coca leaves while they work on substitute crops, President Gustavo Petro maintained that "when we say that we are not going to attack a peasant, that instead we are going to transform the region so that it can become productive in legal economies, we are also not saying that we are going to allow cocaine."
  - El Tiempo, 17 December 2022

• Quebec this week advanced the acceptance of psychedelic therapies by becoming the first governing medical body in Canada to publicly fund medical psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy. Psilocybin is the primary psychoactive in 'magic' mushrooms.
  - Forbes, 16 December 2022

• President Petro unleashes a controversy: coca will be grown in parallel to other crops. He proposed that cocaleros can maintain their illicit plantations while the substitution is progressing. The pilot project will be in Catatumbo.
  - El Colombiano, 16 December 2022

• President Petro unleashes a controversy: coca will be grown in parallel to other crops. He proposed that cocaleros can maintain their illicit plantations while the substitution is progressing. The pilot project will be in Catatumbo.
  - El Espectador, 16 December 2022

• President Petro unleashes a controversy: coca will be grown in parallel to other crops. He proposed that cocaleros can maintain their illicit plantations while the substitution is progressing. The pilot project will be in Catatumbo.
  - El Tiempo, 16 December 2022

• Wholesale marijuana prices have crashed by as much as 95% since California voters legalized cannabis in 2016. Originally being sold for $2000/pound, marijuana is now sell for $400/pound, and some is selling for $100/pound.
  - SF Gate, 14 December 2022

• The US FDA is urged to ban the sales of tiameptine, the 'gas station heroin', a readily-available drug that can mimic opioid toxicity, and that is legally sold in most US states. Yet people can't buy coca tea, which is dangerous.
  - Fox News, 14 December 2022

• The Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico, having lost a lot of illegal business to legal sales of marijuana in the US, are waiting for Mexico to allow recreational marijuana, so that the cartel can continue to profit from marijuana while obeying the law.
  - Business Insider, 13 December 2022

• To reduce nicotine drug trafficking, New Zealand on Tuesday passed into law a unique plan to phase out tobacco smoking by imposing a lifetime ban on young people buying cigarettes. The law states that tobacco cannot ever be sold to anybody born on or after 01 January 2009.
  - Associated Press, 13 December 2022

• Opioid drug traffickers CVS and Walgreens to pay $10.7 billion in a multi-state settlement over their role in the drug trafficking of opioids. None of the white executives responsible for these crimes at these companies will go to jail.
  - Zero Hedge, 12 December 2022

• Opinion: the entire drug policy system of the United States (and thus the world) needs an overhaul
  - New York Times, 11 December 2022

• Nicotine drug trafficker, and e-cigarette maker, Juul settles more than 10,000 lawsuits for $1.2 billion. The lawsuits targeted the nicotine drug trafficker as a major cause of a US youth-vaping epidemic.
  - Zero Hedge, 09 December 2022

• A Quebec Superior Court judge has authorized a class action lawsuit against Epic Games, the developers of the popular video game Fortnite. The suit was first brought to the courts in 2019 by three Quebec parents who claimed that Fortnite was designed to addict its users, many of them children, to the game. According to the original filing, the plaintiffs say their children exhibited troubling behaviours, including not sleeping, not eating, not showering and no longer socializing with their peers.
  - CBC News, 08 December 2022

• Are foods with cannabis and THC better, or at least less bad, than alcohol?
  - MWSJ, 07 December 2022

• The European Union enacts a new law to prevent import of good linked to deforestation. This ban will hurt the coffee and cocoa industries of Colombia.
  - South China Morning Post, 06 December 2022

• A higher percentage of daily energy consumption of ultraprocessed and added-sugar foods with high levels of calories was associated with cognitive decline among adults from an ethnically diverse sample. These ultraprocessed foods include frozen pizzas, fast food hamburgers and fries, and breakfast cereals that are high in sugars, fats and empty calories. Those who got 20% or more of their daily calories from ultraprocessed foods had a 28% faster rate of cognitive decline, and a 25% faster rate of executive-function decline, compared with the subjects in the study who ate the least processed foods. Someone following a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet who consumed 400 of their daily calories from ready-to-eat frozen meals, processed meats, breakfast cereals and sugar-sweetened beverages each day saw a faster rate of cognitive decline.
  - JAMA Neurology, 05 December 2022

• The DEA releases its annual report, "Drugs of Abuse". Reflecting the hypocrisy and racism of US drug policies, the report does not discuss the two most destructive, yet legal, drugs in the world, nicotine and alcohol.
  - US Drug Enforcement Agency, 02 December 2022

• Editorial: drug trafficking continues to flourish in Bolivia thanks to illegal coca plantations that are used to manufacture cocaine
  - Pagina Siete, 01 December 2022

• Honduran authorities seized on Tuesday a coca plantation of almost two hectares and a laboratory to manufacture cocaine during operations deployed in mountains in the northeastern part of the country. "Preliminarily, 2.5 manzanas of hallucinogenic crops equivalent to 18,000 bushes, already fully developed, of coca leaf, have been secured."
  - Tico Times, 30 November 2022

• Wade Davis: the differences between coca and cocaine. One is the use of coca taught by indigenous communities.
  - El Espectador, 30 November 2022

• Cannabis is no better than a placebo for pain relief
  - Real Clear Science, 30 November 2022

• In Bolivia, coca crops grew by 4% between 2020 and 2021. The Tropic of Cochabamba is the sector that presented the greatest increase in hectares of coca leaf cultivation.
  - La Razon, 30 November 2022

• According to the UNODC, in Bolivia, traditional coca leaf crops increased in the Yungas from 18,302 hectares in 2020 to 18,756 hectares in 2021. In the same period, in the Tropics of Cochabamba they increased from 10,606 hectares to 11,270 hectares.
  - Pagine Siete, 30 November 2022

• Cultivayiond of coca leaf crops grow 4% in Bolivia; UNODC says planted area is "contained and stable".
  - El Deber, 29 November 2022

• Members of the Bolivian Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking intervened at a crystallization laboratory for coca paste, located in the Amboró Union, a two-hour drive from urban area of Yacapaní, inside Parque Amboró.
  - El Deber, 25 November 2022

• . "It is a failure": President Gustavo Petro will speak in Mexico about changes to drug policy. "The American balance, from Alaska to Patagonia for the last 50 years has been a disaster."
  - El Espectador, 25 November 2022

• The drug problem in Colombia is worse than ever. But the new leftist government is proposing radical solutions.
  - CNN, 22 November 2022

• The recreational use of nitrous oxide, a mildly active drug that is available over-the-counter at a low price in Europe, is causing health problems: severe cold burns, lung injury, and brain and spinal cord damage. Drinking coca tea causes no such problems, but is illegal?
  - Reuters, 21 November 2022

• Is ayahuasca safe? 70 percent of the people using the psychedelic drug experience adverse physical events, though only 2.3% required medical attention
  - StudyFinds, 21 November 2022

• President Gustavo Petro says oil is his economy's worst addiction: "What is more poisonous for humanity is oil and coal, not cocaine."
  - New York Times, 16 November 2022

• This is how the Mexican cartels are operating in Colombia. In more recent times, cartels such as Jalisco Nueva Generación and Sinaloa have gained great strength in transnational crime, which has allowed them to develop all their activities linked to illicit income in connection with other countries, including Colombia. According to an expert, the two major Colombian routes are the Pacific coast of Nariño and Cauca, where 70% of the cocaine comes from, as well as the border with Venezuela, in the Catatumbo area. The Sinaloa cartel is the major buyer of the first route known as the 'Arc of the Pacific', while Jalisco Nueva Generación dominates the second, called the 'Arc of the Caribbean'.
  - El Pais, 16 November 2022

• A new study reports that marijuana and e-cigarettes can harm the heart as seriously as traditional cigarettes - all legal addictive drugs. Racist that chewing coca leaf - which is not addictive, which doesn't harm the heart, is illegal.
  - Medical Xpress, 15 November 2022

• Discovery and engineering of the cocaine biosynthetic pathway
  - J. American Chemical Society, 14 November 2022

• Corruption in the DEA because they know the drug war is not winnable. Cash bribes, parties, lots of sex as some DEA agents conspire with cocaine drug traffickers to enjoy the fun life. "You cannot win an not winnable war. The DEA knows this and the agents know this."
  - Associated Press, 14 November 2022

• If prohibition does not work to combat the abuse of psychoactive substances, while legalization eliminates the worst of drug trafficking, then Colombia must promote alternatives to prohibition
  - Dejusticia, 13 November 2022

• Editorial: The Adepcoca conflict continues latent in Bolivia. Control of the coca leaf market that comes from the Yungas is strategic, not only commercially, but also politically, and this is precisely the aspect that the ruling party seeks to hegemonize, and for this reason it has spared no resources to divide the leaders from the Yungas, defenestrate and persecute their representatives and finally install a parallel representation, which has fueled a fight that does not stop.
  - Pagina Siete, 12 November 2022

• In Yemen, farmers choose growing a narcotic plant with green leaves, qat, over other crops, draining groundwater around Yemen's capital and removing soil, threatening to exhaust precious resources in the climate-vulnerable nation
  - Yahoo News, 10 November 2022

• Big Tobacco, huge nicotine drug traffickers, heralds a healthier world while fighting its arrival. The industry continues to fight efforts to restrict certain products, like spending heavily to urge California voters to overturn a law banning tobacco flavors, flavors which make it easier to trafick the highly addictive nicotine.
  - New York Times, 08 November 2022

• Claudia Ximena Calero Cifuentes, president of Asocaña, the Association of Sugar Cane Growers in Cali: "Regarding the tax on sugary drinks, we have a bad taste about the tax, because we do not see fairness on the issue of the use of sweeteners."
  - El Pais, 06 November 2022

• A compound in the seeds of passion fruit (mayacuya), piceatannol, could be used to stomach cancer
  - South China Morning Post, 04 November 2022

• Egg whites can be transformed into a material capable of filtering microplastics from seawater
  - Phys.org, 04 November 2022

• Opioid drug trafficker Teva Pharmaceuticals, based in Israel, will pay over $523 million in a New York drug case settlement. None of the white executives are going to jail.
  - New York Times, 04 November 2022

• Chlorogenic acid, found in coffee, in laboratory experiments inhibits the ability of the Covid virus to infect cells
  - Phys.org, 03 November 2022

• A single dose of a synthetic version of the mind-altering component of magic mushrooms, psilocybin, improved depression in people with a treatment-resistant form of the disease, a new study found
  - CNN, 03 November 2022

• Opioid drug trafficking pharmacy chains, CVS and Walgreens, agree to pay more than $10 billion to settle lawsuits over their role in the drug trafficking of opioids. None of the white executives are going to jail.
  - MWSJ, 02 November 2022

• A CDC study estimates that, over five years, one in eight deaths of people ages 20 to 64 occurred because of alcohol-related injuries or illness. An example of racist US drug policies, since the deadly, addictive, alcohol is legal, while illegal cocaine is less addictive and less deadly but manufactured by non-white people.
  - New York Times, 02 November 2022 In Costa Rica, a proposed law to allow recreational marijuana copies 14 articles of the plan of Colombian Senator Gustavo Bolívar Moreno, who is close to President Gustavo Petro.
  - La Nacion, 02 November 2022

• Avocado farming by large agribusiness companies in Colombia is threatening the country's páramo, a natural fresh water 'factory'. The rapid expansion of avocado trees toward the uphill páramos could be threatening the frail ecological stability of these ecosystems and Colombia's water supply.
  - Mongabay, 01 November 2022

• The oil industry in Colombia is in jeopardy (accounting for 35% of all exports, and 3% of GDP), while cocaine production soars
  - Zero Hedge, 31 October 2022

• The menthol vaping ban ordered by the FDA shows that the FDA is not an agency based on a lot of science
  - Real Clear Science, 29 October 2022

• In Thailand, hold the drinks and pass the cannabis. Thais embrace new the 'ganja' craze (including 'happy brownies'), but adhere to draconian alcohol restrictions
  - Nikkei Asia, 28 October 2022

• In the midst of a growing conflict over the 2023 census and other regional demands from sectors in La Paz, three organizations of cocaleros from the Yungas are reorganizing, and announced that they will join today's march and begin a blockade of the north La Paz has been in place since November, demanding that the central government comply with the 13 points of its promises.
  - Pagina Siete, 26 October 2022

• Adepcoca announced that this Tuesday they will start a blockade of roads in the Yungas of La Paz from the first week of November, for which they asked the population to stock up on food and other products. They regretted that the Government has not responded to their requests for dialogue to resolve their demands.
  - Pagina Siete, 25 October 2022

• With the promise of legalization, psychedelic drug companies joust over future profits. Cash rich start-ups are filing scores of patent claims on hallucinogens like magic mushrooms. Researchers and patient advocates worry high prices will make the therapies unaffordable.
  - New York Times, 25 October 2022

• Cannabis users experienced 14% more pain in the first 24 hours following surgery than non-cannabis users. Additionally, cannabis users consumed 7% more opioids post-surgery.
  - Neuroscience News, 23 October 2022

• Coca overflows in Tipnis (Bolivia), and those who reject crops are banned. Leaders from the south of Tipnis say that the coca crops are about to enter the San Miguelito community. The indigenous people of those areas are being displaced because they are against the plantations in full reserve.
  - El Deber, 23 October 2022

• Cocaine is flooding into Europe as drug market continues to evolve. Smuggled into Europe in concrete blocks (to be processed in Europe), unmanned submarines, etc. - authorities are seizing only 1% to 10% of the drugs smuggled in. The cocaine sells for $65/gram -- wholesale price is double that of the US. The only thing more evil is that legal drugs such as nicotine, alcohol and sugar kill more people in Europe than cocaine.
  - Yahoo News, 21 October 2022

• Colombia broke in 2021 the historical record for coca crops. Harvests increased by 43%, going from 143,000 hectares in 2020 to 204,000 last year. Similarly, it is indicated that the potential production of cocaine also reached a record level of production. It reached its all-time high, going from 1,228 metric tons in 2020 to 1,400 metric tons in 2021.
  - El Tiempo, 20 October 2022

• Colombia accuses a former army captain of drug trafficking in Narino, one of many in the military helping drug traffickers all the way as high as former armed forces commander, General Leonardo Barrero
  - Colombia Reports, 19 October 2022

• With both the organization of the leaders of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) and the Federation of Neighborhood Councils (Fejuve) of La Paz, groups of the Movement Towards Socialism sealed last night an "alliance for defense of the Government" before the strikes announced in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.
  - Pagina Siete, 18 October 2022

• Picking coca leaves in Colombia: the thankless job that Venezuelans are doing. Up to 13,000 migrants are working in Tibú, attracted by a job that pays relatively well. But opportunities are drying up as sales of coca paste recently nearly halted. The raspachines, as they are often called, are paid 1,000 Colombian pesos per kilo of coca leaf (22 cents).
  - El Pais, 17 October 2022

• Luis Carlos Reyes, director of DIAN (Colombia's tax agency), has joined other government officials and politicians calling to legalize cocaine
  - Colombia Reports, 16 October 2022

• Luis Carlos Reyes, director of DIAN (Colombia's tax agency), has joined other government officials and politicians who are calling to legalize cocaine
  - Colombia Reports, 16 October 2022

• Cocaleros in Bolivia supportive of Machicado will meet on Monday to appoint new leaders and define measures. At the meeting they will also define actions and pressure measures, to demand the release of their companions, prosecuted for the violent takeover of the Villa El Carmen market.
  - La Razon, 14 October 2022

• A legal psychedelic mushroom species, amanita muscaria, is being sold in the US. It can cause euphoria -- or "temporary insanity".
  - Yahoo News, 14 October 2022

• How a weight-less drug, semaglutide, could be useful for treating drug addiction. Some studies show it helps people reduce consumption of alcohol.
  - Yahoo News, 13 October 2022

• A new street drug, xylazine/Tranq, is causing havoc on the streets, and it could be worse than fentanyl. Yet the DEA does nothing, because the drug is a legitimate medicinal drug for horses supposedly sold only for veterinary use. But who knows, since the powerful addictive drug is not Scheduled by the DEA, unlike coca leaves which kill no one.
  - ACSH News, 12 October 2022

• How a Chinese American gangster transformed money laundering for drug cartels. Xizhi Li pioneered a new method that enriched Latin American drug lords and the elite of China. A DEA investigation found the Chinese government may have been involved.
  - ProPublica, 11 October 2022

• With a light blue scarf that, as a sling, holds his left arm, while still recovering from the loss of his hand due to a dynamite explosion, the coca grower Plácido Cota returned this Sunday to an assembly of cocaleros in their sector in the Las Mercedes area.
  - Pagina Siete, 09 October 2022

• Starting tomorrow, coca producers of the Yungas, from the Arnold Alanes sector, will sell the ancient leaf inside the market located in the Villa El Carmen area. On Friday afternoon the building was unsealed, which was burned on September 8 after a violent intervention. The cocaleros began cleaning and reconditioning yesterday.
  - La Razon, 09 October 2022

• Gudelia Botitano, the coca grower leader from Los Yungas, managed to be released and after her detention revealed that the Police beat her and wanted to force her to admit that she was there to incriminate other leaders.
  - El Deber, 30 September 2022

• The government of Colombia has reached a deal with cattle farmers to buy 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres) of land, earmarked for poor rural farmers to push agrarian reform aimed at boosting food production and tackling poverty.
  - Reuters, 07 October 2022

• The U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, on Monday backed Colombia's recent efforts to rethink its drug policy and said the Biden administration and Colombia's newly elected government will work together on rural development programs and interdiction efforts, while sharing intelligence on drug trafficking groups. Petro said coca farmers in remote areas of Colombia should be granted land titles, so that they can be more easily integrated into the legal economy. He suggested the U.S. support a $7 billion scheme to buy land for landless farmers in Colombia, and said an international fund should be created to back projects that would pay some coca farmers to leave the drug trade and become protectors of the Amazon rainforest.
  - StarTribune, 03 October 2022

• How illegal marijuana farmers in the United States are exploiting immigrants. Lured with false promises of high pay and decent labor conditions, immigrants are held against their will by outlaw marijuana farmers who withhold their wages.
  - Politico, 02 October 2022

• A leader of coca growers is apprehended after presenting a letter to the Ombudsman. Gudelia Buditano, from Cofecay, was apprehended, while two other leaders managed to elude the police.
  - Pagina Siete, 28 September 2022

• How coca leaf production in Peru is helping the global boom in cocaine use
  - Insight Crime, 27 September 2022

• The addictive smartphone's role in dumbing down America by causing the oversimplification of most intellectual content
  - Zero Hedge, 23 September 2022

• Question of the day -- "Do you support the request to authorize a new coca market in La Paz?". By the end of the survey, 2,123 people had participated, of which 5.8% believe that a new market should be approved, while 94.2% believe that it should not.
  - Pagina Siete, 22 September 2022

• Bolivia does not agree with the Colombian government that has proposed the path of decriminalization of cocaine under the label of "regulation".
  - El Deber, 22 September 2022

  The Adepcoca led by Freddy Machicado, obtained the support of three organizations to carry out pressure measures, of a national nature, if the Government does not meet their demands on the coca leaf.
  - La Razon, 22 September 2022

• The cocalero leader César Apaza, president of the Adepcoca Committee on Self-Defense, was apprehended early Thursday morning and taken to the police in El Alto, Bolivia. He could be tried for at least 15 crimes for the events of the takeover of the parallel market on September 8th.
  - Pagina Siete, 22 September 2022

• The cocalero leader César Apaza, president of the Adepcoca Committee on Self-Defense, was apprehended early Thursday morning and taken to the police in El Alto, Bolivia. He could be tried for at least 15 crimes for the events of the takeover of the parallel market on September 8th.
  - La Razon, 22 September 2022

• In less than a week, the Bolivian Police have arrested four people for the conflict of the Adepcoca of La Paz, and linked all of them to the group of cocaleros led by Freddy Machicado, who is one of the four detainees in San Pedro. All the detainees are linked by the police with the possession of explosives and the seizure of the parallel market.
  - Pagina Siete, 21 September 2022

• A cocalero from the Adepcoca faction of Machicado is apprehended for carrying explosives. The Bolivian police identified hostile and violent messages on J. Díaz's cell phone, and compared the images on security cameras: Diaz participated in in the takeover of the Villa El Carmen market.
  - La Razon, 20 September 2022

• Andrónico Rodríguez, after his appointment as the acting president of Bolivia, suggested that technical roundtables be held to discuss and resolve the Adepcoca conflict, to help resolve the conflict through the establishment of a single directorship of Adepcoca.
  - Pagina Siete, 19 September 2022

• The leader of the Adepcoca, Arnold Alanes, reported this Monday that, through his legal team, that he will seek the restitution of the coca market in Villa El Carmen, which on September 8 was assaulted and burned by the faction led by Freddy Machicado.
  - La Razon, 19 September 2022

• Cesar Apaza, member of the Committee of Adepcoca and ally of Freddy Machicado, announced this Monday that they will support the creation of a "Workers Center" through a "unity pact" with other sectors.
  - La Razon, 19 September 2022

• The members of Adepcoca (Departmental Association of Coca Producers) will mobilize today for the release of its president Freddy Machicado, who is in pretrial detention. Meanwhile, the parallel group announced its that it will demonstrate, with a goal of having the Government legalize the coca market in Villa El Carmen.
  - Pagina Siete, 19 September 2022

• The members of Adepcoca (Departmental Association of Coca Producers) will mobilize today for the release of its president Freddy Machicado, who is in pretrial detention. Meanwhile, the parallel group announced its that it will demonstrate, with a goal of having the Government legalize the coca market in Villa El Carmen.
  - La Razon, 19 September 2022

• Children are waking up in the night to check their social media notifications on their cellphones, and are losing about 1 night's worth of sleep each week.
  - Business Insider, 19 September 2022

• The Government of Bolivia has allocated for this year an amount equivalent to $US 40 million to support the fight against drug trafficking. There are funds to maintain aircraft and vehicles, as well as as security equipment. The funding should also cover the costs of illegal coca eradication and prevention.
  - El Deber, 18 September 2022

• The Government and the Bolivian Police will activate an operational security plan on Monday, in light of the marches announced by factions of coca growers in conflict, one led by Freddy Machicado (detained in jail) and the other by Arnold Alanes. Likewise, the authorities urged those mobilized to avoid the use of explosive devices.
  - La Razon, 17 September 2022

• Cocaleros from the original Adepcoca, and the group of the MAS leader Arnold Alanes, separately, are ready to arrive in the city of La Paz, Bolivia, with two massive protest mobilizations, on Monday, September 19.
  - Pagina Siete, 17 September 2022

• At least 17 Yungas coca growers in Bolivia have arrest warrants against them. The leaders stated that they are not afraid of going to jail, and announced the formation of self-defense committees to lead the march on Monday, in case they are arrested.
  - El Deber, 16 September 2022

• Coca leaf crops in Peru have increased by almost 20,000 hectares in one year. The president of Devida, Ricardo Soberón, commented that for the moment the work of coca leaf eradication in the north of Vraem will not be resumed because the goal of eradicating 1,200 hectares has been reached.
  - El Comercio, 16 September 2022

• The Adepcoca conflict: the management dispute over the Yungas coca monopoly. The situation has a structural, corporate background, due to the coca monopoly and the resources that move around the ancient leaf.
  - La Razon, 16 September 2022

• The departmental prosecutor of La Paz, William Alave, reported this Thursday that the leader of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) of La Paz, Freddy Machicado, was accused of 14 crimes: havoc and arson; serious injuries; illegal possession and carrying or carrying; deprivation of liberty; prevent or hinder the exercise of functions; home invasion; serious injuries; aggravated robbery; destruction or deterioration of State property; kidnapping; attack against members of state security agencies; illicit arms trafficking; criminal organization; and public incitement to commit a crime.
  - La Razon, 15 September 2022

• At dawn on Thursday, September 15, a court in Bolivia ordered the preventive detention for six months, in the San Pedro de La Paz prison, of the leader of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca), Freddy Machicado. His defense considers the determination unfair and the cocaleros will meet in emergency this morning.
  - Pagina Siete, 15 September 2022

• After confirming the arrests of the former mayor of the city of El Alto (Bolivia), Soledad Chapetón and the president of the Association of Coca Producers of La Paz (Adepcoca), Freddy Machicado, national assembly members and different opposition representatives condemned this judicial process, affirming that the true face of the government of Luis Arce is revealed.
  - El Diario, 15 September 2022

• At dawn on Thursday, September 15, a court in Bolivia ordered the preventive detention for six months, in the San Pedro de La Paz prison, of the leader of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca), Freddy Machicado. His defense considers the determination unfair and the cocaleros will meet in emergency this morning.
  - El Deber, 15 September 2022

• Rise in deaths spurs effort to raise alcohol taxes. Alcohol taxes have been stagnant for years. But after the pandemic sent alcohol-related deaths soaring, activists in Oregon said higher taxes could save lives.
  - New York Times, 13 September 2022

• The Minister of Rural Development and Lands of Bolivia, Remmy Gonzáles, condemned this Friday the "vandalism" with which the members of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) committed when they seized the headquarters of the parallel coca market in the Villa El Carmen area yesterday. "They are not in a position to demand anything."
  - Pagina Siete, 09 September 2022

• Regarding the petition of the Adepcoca coca growers, the Minister of Rural Development and Lands, Remmy Gonzáles, responded to the complaint this Friday by saying that this faction "is not in a position to demand anything at this time".
  - La Razon, 09 September 2022

• A few minutes before one in the afternoon, the members of Adepcoca broke through the police cordon installed in Villa El Carmen and, in the midst of confrontations with members of the faction of Arnold Alanes, entered the parallel coca market. From the roof of the illegal market, members of the Arnold Alanes faction were seen throwing explosives at the Adepcoca associates.
  - Pagina Siete, 08 September 2022

• With the cry of "yes we can", the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca), led by Freddy Machicado, today took over the parallel coca market in Villa El Carmen. Before entering these facilities, the members set off explosives, beat members of the parallel association, and intimidated the press.
  - Pagina Siete, 08 September 2022

• Leaf of Life, an importer of coca leaf powder, is criticized by the FDA over claims without reference to possible cocaine content
  - Nutra Ingredients, 07 September 2022

• San Francisco lawmakers have unanimously approved a measure calling for the decriminalization of psychedelics such as psilocybin and ayahuasca. The order does not immediately enact changes to criminal justice policy in San Francisco, instead urging police to deprioritize psychedelics as "amongst the lowest priority" for law enforcement, and that "City resources not be used for any investigation, detention, arrest, or prosecution arising out of alleged violations of state and federal law regarding the use of Entheogenic Plants listed on the Federally Controlled Substances Schedule 1 list."
  - Double Blind, 07 September 2022

• Opinion: the United States has led a war on drugs outside the United States for decades, and it has been a staggering failure, except for contractors and foreign militaries that earned billions to achieve nothing
  - New York Times, 07 September 2022

• A US appeals court rules that American food giant Chiquita Brands must face trial for financing terrorism in Colombia in the 1990's and early 2000's, according to victim representatives. Chiquita admitted that it had paid AUC, the leading paramilitary organization, $1.7 million through its Colombian subsidiary Banadex between 1997 and 2004 in a 2007 plea bargain with the United States Department of Justice. The new lawsuit is filed by families of people murdered by the AUC.
  - Colombia Reports, 07 September 2022

• The cocalero leader Arnold Alanes denounced this Monday that the leadership of Adepcoca "threatens" his supporters as they march for the closure of the parallel market of Villa El Carmen in La Paz, Bolivia. "They are threatening to purge them, to take away their producer's license authorization, they are threatening to harvest their coca crops, to burn their houses, they are threatening sanctions of large amounts of money.", Alanes said.
  - Pagina Siete, 05 September 2022

• Stock market returns are 1.2% lower at 10 days following a cannabis legalization event, especially medicinal marijuana, and that the implications of the annual sale from this reduction were in the billions.
  - Medical Xpress, 02 September 2022

• The Bolivian Minister of Rural Development and Land, Remmy Gonzáles, convened a meeting this Wednesday, with the leaders of Adepcoca, Freddy Machicado and Arnold Alanes to establish a "separate" dialogue to find a solution to the conflict over the parallel market for coca leaf from Villa El Carmen.
  - La Razon, 31 August 2022

• The Bolivian Minister of Rural Development and Land, Remmy Gonzáles, convened a meeting this Wednesday, with the leaders of Adepcoca, Freddy Machicado and Arnold Alanes to establish a "separate" dialogue to find a solution to the conflict over the parallel market for coca leaf from Villa El Carmen.
  - Pagina Siete, 31 August 2022

• Cannabis drinks are being launched as companies bet on the growing market for legal marijuana
  - CNBC, 30 August 2022

• More people in the United States are smoking marijuana (16%) than cigarettes (11%), as people avoid cancer-causing cigarettes with its highly toxic and highly addictive nicotine
  - NPR, 30 August 2022

• The coca of Peru produced in Vraem, in Sandia and Cojata, localities that are in the Peruvian valleys, goes through at least ten routes to reach Bolivia. This leaf is used almost entirely for the production of cocaine hydrochloride.
  - El Deber, 29 August 2022

• In Orán, Argentina, the coca leaf is offered for sale as in Bolivia. In this city, in northern Argentina and close to Bermejo, the coca that comes from the Yungas is collected to be sold in other cities in Argentina. But in this neighboring country, transportation is not legal, so the vendors decide to mix their merchandise: coca in the middle of large bags of clothes.
  - El Deber, 29 August 2022

• The Government of Bolivia admits the illegality of the Villa El Carmen coca market, and its necessity. The Vice Minister of Coca and Integral Development, Arlem Lovera, recognizes the conflict of having to comply with the law, while also respecting the right to market of Adepcoca producers in Villa El Carmen.
  - La Razon, 29 August 2022

• Between submission to justice and the coca-growing assembly of Catatumbo. Changes coming for extradition and forced eradication?
  - El Nuevo Siglo, 28 August 2022

• An analysis by Rodrigo Pardo: Drugs: a new path for Colombia? Will the Petro government's turn in drug policy work? Will the relations between Bogota and Washington affect, for better or worse?
  - El Espectador, 27 August 2022

• The Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca, Bolivia) of the Freddy Machicado faction warned this Friday of intensifying its protest measures with blockades of 1,000 street corners in the city of La Paz, and also on the highways, and the implementation of hunger strike pickets, in case the Government does not permanently close the market by Arnold Alanes.
  - La Razon, 26 August 2022

• Adepcoca threatens a hunger strike and blockades in the city of La Paz and on the roads to Yungas, in Bolivia. They argue that the parallel coca leaf market encourages drug trafficking. They maintain that the ministers who call for dialogue do not have decision-making power over the conflict.
  - El Deber, 26 August 2022

• Common pots to prepare breakfast, lunch and dinner for hundreds of cocaleros from the Yungas are part of the permanent vigil that was installed in the area,since Wednesday night on Arapata street, in Villa Fátima, at the doors of the Adepcoca building, for fear of a possible takeover of the market.
  - Pagina Siete, 26 August 2022

• Although it is barely a draft, the proposal to decriminalize the cultivation of coca leaf in Colombia and regularize that market -- which began to be heard just as the when the spraying of illicit crops with glyphosate was completely ruled out, it seems that there is a willingness in Washington to open the debate.
  - El Colombiano, 24 August 2022

• Psilocybin helped people with alcohol-use disorder to reduce their drinking. Psilocybin, the ingredient in magic mushrooms, along with talk therapy, showed significant benefit in the largest clinical trial of its kind.
  - NBC News, 24 August 2022

• The psychedelic compound psilocybin, commonly known as "shrooms" or found in 'magic' mushrooms, along with therapy helps people who struggle with alcohol dependence better manage their drinking, a new study found.
  - CNN, 24 August 2022

• Productive projects, land titling and education: requests from communities to stop growing coca. The communities have raised the need for the National Government to arrange conditions to stop the farming of illicit crops, with methods such as the titling of the properties, more education and health programs, as well as as productive projects for food security.
  - El Colombiano, 23 August 2022

• The new director of the National Police in Colombia, General Henry Sanabria Cely, announces that the forced eradication of coca leaf farms will be suspended in Colombia.
  - Colombia Reports, 23 August 2022

• The new director of the National Police in Colombia, General Henry Sanabria Cely, announces that the forced eradication of coca leaf farms will be suspended in Colombia.
  - El Colombiano, 23 August 2022

• Firefighters find dynamite packed with nails in the cocalero conflict zone in La Paz, Bolivia
  - El Pais, 23 August 2022

• The new president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, announces that he intends to regulate the use of illegal substances, including cocaine and marijuana. "Not even the United States, with all their might and money, can win the [Prohibition] war on drugs."
  - CNN, 21 August 2022

• The General Coca Law in Bolivia establishes only two markets for the commercialization of coca: Adepcoca, in La Paz, and Sacaba, in Cochabamba. Constitutional lawyer Williams Bascopé indicated that by allowing a third point of commerce, the Government of Bolivia "encourages the illegality" of Arnold Alanes, the cocalero leader related to the governing Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS). The MAS with its two thirds control in the Legislative Assembly, in 2017, approved the new regulations on coca.
  - Pagina Siete, 16 August 2022

• The former president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, considers that the mobilizations in Santa Cruz for the census and the demonstrations by coca growers from Adepcoca in La Paz point to a "coup d'état", as he discussed on radio Kawsachun Coca. On the other hand, regarding the Adepcoca conflict, he indicated that that there is no political interference from the Cochabamba tropics to keep the parallel market open.
  - Pagina Siete, 14 August 2022

• Coca growers accuse the Bolivian Police of violations planting evidence and other violations of the rights of coca growers. Reports on false facts, illegal searches, implantation of evidence, threats, assaults and even robberies are some of the excesses denounced against members of the Bolivian Police, during the days of repression against mobilized citizens in Santa Cruz and La Paz, according to testimonies from detainees, neighbors and video images.
  - Pagina Siete, 13 August 2022

• The coca grower Plácido Cota, seriously injured by the explosion of dynamite during the conflicts between coca growers from Yungas at the government headquarters, awoke after undergoing surgery to repair his organs. However, he is still considered a critical patient, according to the medical report.
  - El Deber, 13 August 2022

• Judge Ximena Palacios ordered last night the house arrest of 19 coca growers, prosecuted for the use of explosives in protests against the parallel coca market in La Paz, Bolivia, opened by a group related to MAS.
  - Pagina Siete, 12 August 2022

• Two groups of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) called for a march next Monday in the city of La Paz. The traditional cocaleros, led by Freddy Machicado, called 100% of their bases to demand the closure of the parallel market; for its part, the MAS-affiliated group, led by Arnold Alanes, announced the a march for peace.
  - Pagina Siete, 12 August 2022

• The cocaleros mobilized in Bolivia, led by Freddy Machicado, consider that the attitude of the Minister of Government, Eduardo Del Castillo, referring to coca growers as "criminals" hampers the dialogue with President Luis Arce and "worsens " the situation with "unfair" detentions that violate human rights.
  - El Deber, 11 August 2022

• The Adepcoca executive, Arnold Alanes, in an interview in La Razón, remarked that his faction is willing to establish a dialogue table with the opposition blockade of Freddy Machicado to solve the conflicts of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) of La Paz, which began in 2019 with the arrival of Luis Fernando Camacho.
  - La Razon, 11 August 2022

• This Thursday morning, police officers entered lodgings in the Villa Fátima area, in La Paz, from which they took the coca growers Guillermina Huayhua and Zulma Apaza. The women were sleeping in a hostel near the Adepcoca conflict zone when the uniformed officers entered the place to confiscate them, and transferred them to the facilities of the Special Force to Fight Against Crime (FELCN).
  - Pagina Siete, 11 August 2022

• Who do you think is responsible for the conflicts in Adepcoca? This is how our readers voted.
  - Pagina Siete, 11 August 2022

• Coca substitution in Colombia: proposals to the Petro government to restructure the PNIS (Comprehensive National Project for Substitution), which is trying to help almost 100,000 families.
  - El Espectador, 10 August 2022

• The cocalero conflict: in addition to the fact that his life continues to be in danger, Plácido Cota Huaylluco suffered the abandonment of his wife and the deprivation of a son in April. His family blames the cocalero faction related to the Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS) for Plácido's misfortune.
  - El Deber, 10 August 2022

• The Bolivian Minister of Government, Eduardo del Castillo, denounced the this Wednesday that coca grower leaders from the sector led by Freddy Machicado are hiring outsiders to confront police officers who guard the area of Villa Carmen, where the parallel market of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Asociación Departamental de Productores de Coca) is located.
  - La Razon, 10 August 2022

• On Tuesday night, tension returned to Villa El Carmen. Police used tear gas to disperse coca growers from the Freddy Machicado faction, from the Departmental Association of Coca (Adepcoca), after the complaint of a kidnapped police officer. The cocaleros denied the fact and accused the troops of surrounding the Villa Fátima market, and trying to enter the place in order to arrest them.
  - La Razon, 10 August 2022

• The Bolivian Minister of Government, Eduardo del Castillo, describes cocaleros as "criminals" and denies that the police are causing injuries. He defended the "proportionate use of force" by the Bolivian Police. Of the 24 cocaleros that were arrested, 19 are men and five are women.
  - Pagina Siete, 10 August 2022

• The Minister of Government of Bolivia, Eduardo del Castillo, described this Wednesday, 24 coca growers whom he referred to as "infiltrators" in the mobilization of coca growers, whom he said were apprehended carrying home-made weapons during the clashes in Villa El Carmen .
  - Pagina Siete, 10 August 2022

• At least 24 coca growers were detained by the police after the clashes this day in the Villa El Carmen area, in the northern part of the city of La Paz, Bolivia
  - La Razon, 09 August 2022

• Police in La Paz, Bolivia, invade private properties to arrest cocaleros in Villa el Carmen. A large police group violently broke into several private homes in Villa el Carmen, in La Paz, to arrest more than a dozen coca growers.
  - Pagina Siete, 09 August 2022

• The Government of Bolivia, through the Vice Ministry of Internal Affairs and Police, yesterday will said that it will prosecute the president of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca), Freddy Machicado, for allegedly inciting violence in the conflict over the parallel market. Years ago, the former presidents of that sector, Franclin Gutiérrez and Armin Lluta, were also prosecuted for similar acts, denounced by the Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS).
  - Pagina Siete, 09 August 2022

• The explosion of a dynamite cartridge left a demonstrator with serious injuries, a situation that yesterday aggravated the conflict between the Government and the members of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca). That faction announced that it will talk only with President Luis Arce before the closure of the parallel coca market, installed by the MAS cocaleros in the Villa El Carmen area, in La Paz, Bolivia.
  - Pagina Siete, 09 August 2022

• The vice president of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers of La Paz (Adepcoca), Reynaldo Laura, blamed the government for the events that occurred this Monday in the Villa El Carmen area, where a coca grower was seriously injured due to the handling of dynamite.
  - La Razon, 09 August 2022

• Plácido Cota (age: 30), a coca grower injured by the detonation of dynamite, has a high risk of death, according to the medical report of the Arco Iris Hospital in La Paz. The man is a native of the Las Mercedes community, in the La Asunta municipality (South Yungas), and is the father of two children. Plácido was injured by the detonation of a dynamite stick on 1st street in the Villa El Carmen area, when the protesters confronted the Bolivian Police, who repressed them with tear gas.
  - El Deber, 09 August 2022

• The cocalero injured in the clashes with the police this Monday is in a critical situation. According to information from the Ombudsman, "in the incident, he was the victim of the detonation of a dynamite stick on 1st street in the Villa El Carmen area".
  - Pagina Siete, 08 August 2022

• A coming tidal wave: The opioid epidemic is about to get a whole lot worse
  - BigThink, 03 August 2022

• The city of La Paz, Bolivia, was the scene this Tuesday of street clashes between police and coca leaf producers in a dispute over control of the coveted coca leaf commerce building, which left uniformed officers injured and a journalist injured, multiple sources reported.
  - El Pais, 02 August 2022

• The cocalero conflict in La Paz has no truce. Yesterday, after some time, there was a new confrontation in the La Paz area of Villa de Carmen. A march that came from the Yungas to the Government headquarters was repressed by the Bolivian Police in an attempt by marchers to close the parallel coca leaf market, which is administered by a faction affiliated with Movimiento Al Socialismo (the government party). Members of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers of La Paz (Adepcoca), from Freddy Machicado's faction, were the ones who clashed with the police officers, who were monitoring the parallel market after learning of the demonstration. Several hundred peasants, grouped by the Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) and by opponents of the government of leftist President Luis Arce, protested in a neighborhood north of the city of La Paz, to demand the closure of a parallel market of the plant, which they accuse of being illegal and having official support.
  - El Deber, 02 August 2022

• Balance Duque: this is how the president fared in the management of illicit crops and drug policy. Framing of crops for illicit use increased by 11.11% between 2018 and 2022.
  - El Colombiano, 29 July 2022

• Not even a week has passed since the installation of the new Congress and Communes Party (ex-FARC), and two controversial new laws were proposed related to the regulation of the "peasant guardians" and the regulation of the crops of illegal use. One project suggests "not to prosecute" small coca leaf growers in court.
  - El Colombiano, 29 July 2022

• The Communes Party, formerly the FARC group, filed a bill that seeks to ensure that people who participate in the cultivation of plants for illicit use are not prosecuted. The intention of these legislators is that small farmers linked to the cultivation of plantations for illicit use should receive differentiated treatment in criminal matters.
  - El Colombiano, 28 July 2022

• Coca production: the financial engine of criminal networks to challenge the government in Tibú, Colombia. The civilian population lives in the midst of anxiety due to the presence of illegal groups that are fighting for control of the area, putting pressure on activities associated with coca leaf cultivation, and finding an opportunity to avoid persecution on the complex border by the authorities.
  - El Tiempo, 24 July 2022

• President-elect Gustavo Petro called on the sugar association and indigenous of southern Colombia to negotiate the use of land in the southwest of the country. The Nasa people accuse the sugar plantations of damaging the environment by growing sugar cane instead of food. The sometimes violent expansion of land by regional elites has gradually reduced Nasa territory in the north of Cauca over the past 200 years.
  - Colombia Reports, 24 July 2022

• Faced with a confrontation between indigenous peoples and sugar mills in Cauca province, the president-elect, Gustavo Petro, invited them to settle this matter within the framework of the first regional dialogue for peace.
  - El Tiempo, 23 July 2022

• The marijuana industry's origin in northern Cauca. Colombia. The reality overcomes the prejudices. While the cocaine war continues to leave victims and violence in the territories, in full view of all, one of the great businesses of the 21st century is progressing in the country: the cannabis industry. In the north of Cauca province, not far from the areas where the war is reborn, the mountains bear witness to the marijuana boom.
  - El Espectador, 23 July 2022

• Two United States Republican Senators, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, proposed a new law to the Foreign Relations Committee the Senate that seeks that the FARC be re-designated as a terrorist group.
  - El Colombiano, 21 July 2022

• Book review: "American Cartel", how greedy executives, elected officials and government bureaucrats created the largest and deadliest drug trafficking industry in history - that of prescription opioids
  - Economist, 21 July 2022

• Giovani Yule is the new director of the Land Restitution Unit in Colombia which failed to compensate people who had their lands stolen under previous governments. Yule is a member of the Nasa people, one of the leading producers of coca tea in Colombia.
  - Colombia Reports, 20 July 2022

• Jorge Eliecer Mejía, an indigenous community guard of the Nasa people of Colombia, is murdered in the province of Cauca.
  - TeleSUR, 17 July 2022

• The Evo Cup in Bolivia: cocaleros expect to earn US $100,000, while hoteliers do not expect much revenue. The sports delegations have their lodging and special catering. The federations of the Cochabamba tropics say they will invest $50,000 in the U-17 international soccer tournament and that they have requested loans to raise the capital. The federations plan to collect twice as much money in tickets.
  - Pagina Siete, 17 July 2022

• A new law is being considered in California that will legalize psychedelic drugs like DMT and Ibogaine in the entire state of California
  - The Free Thought Project, 16 July 2022

• No amount of alcohol is healthy to drink if you are younger than 40, mostly due to alcohol-related deaths by auto accidents, injury and homicide, according to a new global study
  - CNN, 14 July 2022

• No amount of alcohol is healthy to drink if you are younger than 40, mostly due to alcohol-related deaths by auto accidents, injury and homicide, according to a new global study
  - The Lancet, 14 July 2022

• Sobering new study says that those under the age of 40 should never drink alcohol. The health risks associated with imbibing include auto accidents, injury and even murder, according to the study. Also, those under age 40 receive no health benefits at all from drinking alcohol.
  - Fox News, 14 July 2022

• According to estimates of the White House, the statistics for coca cultivation and cocaine production in Colombia decreased but remained high at 234,000 hectares and 972 metric tons, respectively.
  - El Pais, 14 July 2022

• According to estimates of the White House, the statistics for coca cultivation and cocaine production in Colombia decreased but remained high at 234,000 hectares and 972 metric tons, respectively.
  - El Colombiano, 14 July 2022

• According to estimates of the White House, the statistics for coca cultivation and cocaine production in Colombia decreased but remained high at 234,000 hectares and 972 metric tons, respectively.
  - El Tiempo, 14 July 2022

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  - La Razon, 06 July 2022

• Without glyphosate: Susana Muhamad's plans as President Gustavo Petro's new Minister of the Environment. She was blunt regarding the use of glyphosate. "There will be no glyphosate, we will work on the substitution of illicit crops through the agrarian reform which seeks to provide the peasantry with a forestry economy without generating those conflicts we have today."
  - El Pais, 05 July 2022

• Without glyphosate: Susana Muhamad's plans as President Gustavo Petro's new Minister of the Environment. She was blunt regarding the use of glyphosate. "There will be no glyphosate, we will work on the substitution of illicit crops through the agrarian reform which seeks to provide the peasantry with a forestry economy without generating those conflicts we have today."
  - El Colombiano, 05 July 2022

• A sniper assassinated Ronald Rojas, one of the reintegration chiefs of the now-defunct guerrilla group FARC, who had been denouncing death threats in southern Colombia since 2020. He was murdered at his farm in Palermo (Huila province).
  - Colombia Reports, 05 July 2022

• Corrupt officials and lawmakers received almost $119 million in kickbacks from funds meant for the peace process in Colombia, according to Blu Radio. The scandal involved funds that were meant for peace projects in priority regions that have been ravaged by the armed conflict. More than two dozen mayors complained that they paid kickbacks in order to have projects approved by the Comptroller General's Office, which is supposed to investigate corruption. Right-wing, Conservative Party senators and house representatives allegedly charged mayors a fee to secure the approval of peace projects and the transfer of funds from the royalties fund of Colombia.
  - Colombia Reports, 04 July 2022

• The former president of Bolivia and head of the Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS), Evo Morales, alleged this Monday that the political parties of the right, which gave rise to the opposition groups Comunidad Ciudadana and Creemos, "are the real ones involved in the 'narco-links'".
  - La Razon, 04 July 2022

• UNODC says that 41% of the drugs destined for Europe come from Bolivia and Peru, being transported through Brazil. Part of the drug is also taken through Argentina.
  - El Deber, 03 July 2022

• President Luis Arce announced the the "reconstruction" of the Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking following the murder of three police officers, one of them a volunteer, at the hands of people linked to organized crime and drug trafficking in Bolivia.
  - El Deber, 03 July 2022

• From the Chapare region of Bolivia, most recently have departed authorities from the Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking (FELCN), the Vice Ministry of Social Defense and Controlled Substances and other key units in the fight against drugs.
  - Pagina Siete, 03 July 2022

• Corruption, drug trafficking, police casualties and the "coup" in Bolivia: the mistakes of the era of General Jhonny Aguilera, the former police chief of FELCN. An Interpol report indicates that the head of the Lima Lobo clan paid the former police chief $35,000 to avoid being extradited.
  - Pagina Siete, 03 July 2022

• President Luis Arce of Bolivia relieved the now ex-commander of the Police, General Jhonny Aguilera, of his position and replaced him with General Orlando Ponce on an interim basis, who was the deputy commander until yesterday, in the midst of armed executions and drug trafficking acts that involved members of the institution, casting doubt on its credibility.
  - Pagina Siete, 02 July 2022

• General Orlando Ponce was sworn in this Friday night as the new commander of the Bolivian Police, in an act in which President Luis Arce not only highlighted progress but was harsh with the police institution by denouncing that "some bad police chiefs" have been "sucked in by easy money", but also by demanding a "deep rebuilding of the FELCN anti-drug force.
  - La Razon, 01 July 2022

• Behind the scenes, McKinsey profited greatly by guiding public companies at the center of the opioid drug trafficking crisis. The consulting firm offered "in-depth experience in [legally trafficking] narcotics from poppy fields to pills more powerful than the OxyContin of the criminally-convicted drug trafficking Purdue Pharma owned by the Sackler drug trafficking family.
  - New York Times, 30 June 2022

• The government-appointed Truth Commission in Colombia releases report highly critical of US policies in Colombia, and Colombia's security forces in recent decades. It also delivered a sharp rebuke of United States drug policy in Colombia, saying that mounting a war against drug trafficking had disastrous social and environmental effects, turning poor farmers into enemies of the state and poisoning once fertile landscapes.
  - New York Times, 28 June 2022

• The UNODC reiterates in a 2022 report that coca crops in Bolivia grew by 15% in 2020. The Minister of Government, Eduardo del Castillo, reported that the data shows the "incompetence" with which the fight against drug trafficking was managed during the government of Jeanine Áñez.
  - La Razon, 28 June 2022

• After the UNODC World Report on Drugs 2022 was made public, warning of a 15% increase in coca crops in Bolivia with data up to 2020, the Minister of Government, Eduardo del Castillo, pointed out that that increase occurred during the government of then-president Jeanine Áñez.
  - Pagina Siete, 28 June 2022

• Editorial: more coca, more drug trafficking and more crime in Bolivia
  - El Deber, 28 June 2022

• The parallel coca trade market in La Paz, Bolivia, which was inaugurated by the MAS leader, Arnold Alanes, more than a week ago, and endorsed by the Minister of Rural Development and Land, Remmy Gonzales, who pointed out that there may be "multiple markets". The authority ruled out that the coca trading center in Villa El Carmen is a third market because, in its opinion, "it is also [part of] Adepcoca".
  - Pagina Siete, 28 June 2002

• Cocaleros from La Paz will define actions to prevent a third coca market from functioning. They do not rule out paralyzing the seat of government if the competent authorities do not take action.
  - La Razon, 24 June 2022

• The Food and Drug Administration announced Thursday that it is banning the sale of cigarette products in the US of nicotine drug-trafficker Juul.
  - CNBC, 23 June 2022

• The FDA aims to reduce levels of smoking in the United States by slashing the levels of highly addictive, highly toxic, nicotine in cigarettes
  - New York Times, 22 June 2022

• They threaten the indigenous governor who fights against coca crops in Cauca. Henry Chocué, the indigenous governor of the Las Delicias reservation, is considered the most important leader in the sector today. However, he has received several death threats due to social struggles against the cultivation of illicit crops in the area.
  - El Espectador, 19 June 2022

• The government of outgoing President Ivan Duque deliberately destroyed the peace process with the FARC in Colombia, according to more than 275 NGOs. The resurgence of violence and armed conflict in Colombia during the peace process is the consequence of Duque's refusal to implement the peace deal.
  - Colombia Reports, 16 June 2022

• The US State Department wants to use drones to kill coca plants in Colombia. The State Department wants the drones because it says improvised explosive devices, ambushes, and hazardous wildlife are threats to personnel. Why? Why not industrialize and make legal profits?
  - Vice Motherboard, 09 June 2022

• In late April, the Colombian Navy located and destroyed 20 facilities for illegal cocaine production belonging to dissident groups of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. The Colombian Navy executed the operations, in southeastern Colombia, in the departments of Putumayo, Meta, Guaviare, and Caquetá, with the support of the National Army, the Colombian Air Force, and the National Police. Two of the facilities were cocaine hydrochloride crystallizers, while the others processed coca base paste. In the illegal facilities, authorities found 3,033 kilograms of solid chemical precursors, more than 34,400 liters of liquid chemical precursors, more than 2,200 kg of cocaine hydrochloride, 448 kg of chopped coca leaves, and 164 kg of coca base paste in process.
  - Dialogo Americas, 08 June 2022

• Italian agents on Tuesday confiscated 4.3 tons of cocaine with a street value of nearly a quarter-billion euros (about US $60,000 a kilo) in the northeastern port city of Trieste, dealing a blow to Colombia's feared Gulf Clan in one of the largest drug busts ever in Europe.
  - ABC News, 07 June 2022

• Cannabis and the violent crime surge. Heavy marijuana use among youths, who are smoking more powerful strains of marijuana, is leading to more addiction and antisocial behavior.
  - Wall Street Journal, 07 June 2022

• How Colombia disenfranchised Indigenous Inga communities in Putamayo in favor of an oil company from Canada, Gran Tierra Energy
  - MongaBay, 02 June 2022

• The government of Canada has announced that it will temporarily decriminalize the possession of small amounts of illegal drugs, including cocaine and methamphetamines, in the western province of British Columbia that has been ground zero for the country's overdoses.
  - New York Times, 02 June 2022

• A drug crystallization laboratory with more than 800 kilos of cocaine was discovered in an operation carried out in the Isiboro Sécure national park, department of Beni, Bolivia. According to the investigation, the laboratory was used to process the base coca paste from Peru, and then convert it into cocaine hydrochloride.
  - La Razon, 02 June 2022

• Bolivia will export 100 kilos of coca to Australia for the first time, for the development of research aimed at manufacturing anesthesia based on the coca leaf. SENASAG will send to Australia 50 kilos of coca from the Chapare region and a similar amount from the Yungas region.
  - La Razon, 30 May 2022

• Since the national government of Bolivia began its plan in March 2022 for the eradication of surplus coca leaf crops under the 2022 administration, about 1,800 hectares have been eradicated out of a total of 10,000 that must be eliminated by the end of the year. Analysts and specialists argue that the pace is still slow.
  - El Deber, 24 May 2022

• Alcohol may be more risky to the heart than previously thought. If you do drink, limit your weekly consumption to less than one bottle of wine or less than three-and-a-half 500 ml cans of 4.5% beer.
  - EurekAlert, 22 May 2022

• John Costanzo, a current Drug Enforcement Administration agent, and Manny Recio, a former supervisor in the agency, were charged with leaking confidential law enforcement information to defense lawyers in Miami in exchange for $70,000 in cash.
  - Associated Press, 20 May 2022

• Cesar Giraldo, a campaign chief of former President Alvaro Uribe, and this year's presidential candidate Federico Gutierrez has reportedly been doing business for years with drug traffickers in Colombia's main coffee growing region around Pereira, in the providence of Risarlada.
  - Colombia Reports, 17 May 2022

• How nicotine drug-trafficking tobacco companies got Black American smokers addicted to menthol cigarettes
  - New York Times, 16 May 2022

• Two social leaders were brutally murdered in Valle de Cauca, one in Tuluá and the other in Buga. One, Didimo Rodas, was beheaded in Buga.
  - El Pais, 16 May 2022

• How nicotine drug-trafficking tobacco companies got Black American smokers addicted to menthol cigarettes
  - New York Times, 16 May 2022

• Complete failure: in the last four years under President Ivan Duque, Colombia has spent over $1 billion on its illegal drug policies, and achieved nothing (as usual). Illegal drug production has increased, weakening drug trafficking organizations was not achieved, and many community leaders working for alternatives were assassinated.
  - Colombia Reports, 15 May 2022

• C&eacue;sar Augusto Giraldo Montoya, has been the strongman of Uribismo in Risaralda, Colombia for the last decade, and is known in the region as "Calzones", is a Pereiran businessman and farmer very close to former President Álvaro Uribe. He has done business with drug traffickers or with people close to the mafia. His son, Cristian Camilo, promotes the presidential campaign of Federico Gutiérrez in Pereira.
  - El Espectador, 14 May 2022

• The Bolivian Prosecutor for Controlled Substances ordered an investigation and expert opinion with regards to a cell phone to find out audio, text and other conversations about the sale of a shipment of high-purity cocaine that the Ayoreos seized on Sunday from members of a drug trafficking network in the community of Suejay, 30 kilometers from Cuatro Cañadas.
  - El Deber, 13 May 2022

• After the intervention of several Ayoreos from El Porvenir to a shipment of drugs from Colombian drug traffickers in Cuatro Cañadas that had to be sent to Brazil, the president of the Ayoreo Degüi community, Eusebio Parangay, in an interview with the program 'Influential' from El Deber Radio lamented that the Ayoreo people are involved in this act, but considers that poverty and extreme needs led them to commit the crime. The leader clarified that the Ayoreos involved do not belong to his community; however, he said that the reality in which some Ayorean communities live, especially those in more remote areas, is of extreme poverty, so perhaps "because of their need they grabbed that drug to support their family".
  - El Deber, 13 May 2022

• Nathan Koen, a former DEA agent, is sentenced to 135 months in jail for accepting thousands of dollars in bribes from a drug trafficker.
  - Associated Press, 11 May 2022

• A highly respected prosecutor from Paraguay, Marcelo Pecci, who has been aggressively investigating drug trafficking in Paraguay, is murdered on the beaches of Cartegena, Colombia, allegedly by Colombians affiliated with drug traffickers in Paraguay.
  - SFGate.com, 11 May 2022

• A group of soldiers who were carrying out work to eradicate illicit crops in the Los Cuervos village, in the Tibú municipality, in Norte de Santander, Colombia, were surrounded by approximately 300 civilians who obstructed the work of the soldiers.
  - El Pais, 10 May 2022

• The British startup Clerkenwell Health opens the first commercial facility in Europe for psychedelic drug trials, initially focusing on the use of psilocybin to help people deal with the anxiety associated with a diagnosis of terminal illness, and to support them through their end-of-life care.
  - The Guardian, 09 May 2022

• Walgreens Boots Alliance, which owns a string of retail pharmacies, has reached a $683m settlement with Florida to resolve claims it exacerbated an opioid epidemic in the state. The case hinged on accusations that as Walgreens dispensed more than 4.3 billion opioid pills in Florida from May 2006 to June 2021, more than half of the prescriptions contained one or more easily recognized red flags for abuse, fraud and addiction that the company should have noticed and acted upon.
  - Al Jazeera, 05 May 2022

• Despite the fact that deputy Caleb Villarroel, of Creemos, raised the 'stink', deputy Gladys Quispe, of the Movimiento Al Socialismo, formalized a complaint against him, to which was added the chief of his political faction, Gualberto Arispe, for the alleged crimes of discrimination and racism; in addition, Caleb filed another complaint with the Ethics Commission of the Deputies of Bolivia.
  - Pagima Siete, 04 May 2022

• People who use marijuana have an increased risk of heart disease and heart attack. THC causes inflammation in endothelial cells that line the interior of blood vessels, as well as atherosclerosis in laboratory mice.
  - Medical Xpress, 02 May 2022

• People who use marijuana have an increased risk of heart disease and heart attack. THC causes inflammation in endothelial cells that line the interior of blood vessels, as well as atherosclerosis in laboratory mice.
  - Medical Xpress, 02 May 2022

• Former President Evo Morales insinuated that the Bolivian Ministry of Government is consulting the DEA to investigate his complaint of alleged protection of drug trafficking by some anti-drug agents. "The complaint based on recordings that demonstrate protection for drug trafficking deserves a serious and responsible response, with investigations and not with statements or contradictions. That they act as quickly as they acted with the tiktokers. It seems that they are still consulting with the DEA.", Morales wrote on his Twitter account.
  - Pagina Siete, 30 April 2022

• The former director of the Special Force to Fight Crime (FELCC), Maximiliano Dávila, who was preventively detained for legitimizing illegal earnings, could be the owner of at least 51 real estate properties, according to an investigation by the Public Ministry.
  - La Razon, 29 April 2022

• The Bolivian Minister of Government, Eduardo del Castillo, affirmed this Thursday that in the testimonial statements, collected so far, a series of contradictions were found that do not match some audios presented on April 4 by former President Evo Morales to denounce an alleged protection for drug trafficking in the Cochabambda tropics. Given the "suspicions" of Evo Morales, the Ministry of Government reminded people that the police cannot make arrests without arrest warrants.
  - La Razon, 28 April 2022

• Colombian General Paulino Coronado Gámez and 10 other soldiers admit to crimes against humanity. In the first hearing of its kind, officials admitted to orchestrating extrajudicial killings of civilians in Colombia during the country's civil war.
  - New York Times, 27 April 2022

• Colombian General Paulino Coronado Gámez and 10 other soldiers admit to crimes against humanity. In the first hearing of its kind, officials admitted to orchestrating extrajudicial killings of civilians in Colombia during the country's civil war.
  - New York Times, 27 April 2022

• Among the proposals and suggestions for the 2022 Population and Housing Census in Bolivia, one question comes from the concerns of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers of La Paz (Adepcoca): "Do you consume coca from the Yungas or from the Chapare?
  - El Deber, 26 April 2022

• The Council of Peasant Federations of the Yungas (Cofecay) admonished with a criminal lawsuit against Creemos deputy Caleb Villarroel, who compared the smell of coca chewing with that of marijuana, and who pointed out that this ancestral practice "stinks". The MAS is also analyzing a lawsuit for racism and discrimination.
  - La Razon, 25 April 2022

• Some 1000 people have fled the Sierra Nevada natural park (in Magdalena, southeast of Santa Marta) since fighting broke out between paramilitary groups AGC and ACS on April 15. Drug traffickers have been using routes that cross the Sierra Nevada to transport cocaine from inland coca fields to the container terminals of Santa Marta and Barranquilla.
  - Colombia Reports, 25 April 2022

• Sinaloa and Jalisco Nueva Generación, the cartels that finance the most Colombian cocaine. The illegal money from these groups sustains the entire production chain. Their bosses have tentacles on the 5 continents. These cartels are the international organizations that invest the most resources in coca cultivation, chemical inputs, cocaine production laboratories, storage, maritime and air transportation of the merchandise.
  - El Colombiano, 24 April 2022

• The jailed warlord, "Otoniel", told the war crimes tribunal of Colombia that that politicians and police commanders are on the payroll of conservative AGC, a criminal paramilitary organization. Otoniel additionally claimed that AUC allies in the private sector additionally received 5% of the AUC's criminal activity, which consisted largely of drug trafficking.
  - Colombia Reports, 22 April 2022

• Deep in Colombia, rebels and soldiers fight for the same prize: drugs. The country signed a historic peace deal more than five years ago. But a power vacuum is fueling the rise of new armed groups competing to control the drug trade.
  - New York Times, 21 April 2022

• The former president, and head of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) of Bolivia, Evo Morales, argued this Thursday that there is a dirty war against this political organization with the use of surveys and even people involved in corruption and drug trafficking. "In their dirty war against MAS-IPSP, some right-wing media use alleged polls and people involved in corruption, including drug trafficking, to attack us and try to divide us. They victimize coup leaders who massacred the people, as well they insult and accuse us falsely."
  - La Razon, 21 April 2022

• The former president, and head of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) of Bolivia, Evo Morales, argued this Thursday that there is a dirty war against this political organization with the use of surveys and even people involved in corruption and drug trafficking. "In their dirty war against MAS-IPSP, some right-wing media use alleged polls and people involved in corruption, including drug trafficking, to attack us and try to divide us. They victimize coup leaders who massacred the people, as well they insult and accuse us falsely."
  - Pagina Siete, 21 April 2022

• Is the DEA sticking its nose in the Colombian elections? In a small country like ours, the DEA even gets involved in influencing what it believes is best for the United States, leaving in the garbage whatever the greatest number of Colombian voters desire.
  - El Espectador, 19 April 2022

• While the Government and the Prosecutor's Office say they have not found evidence against senior anti-narcotics police chiefs and against the Vice Minister of Social Defense, Jaime Mamani, who were involved in the audio recordings of the discovery of four laboratories in the Chapare region, the Ministry of Government and the General Command of the Bolivian Police ordered the immediate withdrawal to La Paz of policemen who were fulfilling duties in Umopar de Chimóre and who discovered the drug factories. Police describe this injustice and assure that they intervened in Valle Sacta in the discovery of Colombian drug factories, and only were obeying orders.
  - El Deber, 18 April 2022

• The legalization of recreational marijuana reduces demand for costly prescription drugs through state Medicaid programs
  - Cornell Chronicle, 18 April 2022

• The presidential campaign in Colombia got dirty after the leftist frontrunner, Gustavo Petro, was falsely accused by conservatives of making a deal with jailed politicians and a drug lord. His challengers retracted their attacks, after the evidence and testimony revealed by Noticias Uno suggested that the entire scandal was a hoax.
  - Colombia Reports, 18 April 2022

• After the former president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, revealed that "patriotic police" have informed him of cases of drug trafficking and corruption, former police chiefs pointed out that there is a group of police troops who maintain loyalty to the former president, and they are "secretly campaigning" with Morales with aspirations of facilitating his promotions and occupying high positions, and also taking care of him for the next presidential election. One analyst said "patriotism is not to be confused with pandering."
  - Pagina Siete, 16 April 2022

• After the scandal of the narcoaudios case, parliamentarians and an analyst questioned the Bolivian Minister of Government, Eduardo del Castillo, for giving the polygraph test only to subordinate members of the Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking and not to the authorities and high heads of the Bolivian Police.
  - Pagina Siete, 16 April 2022

• The government of Luis Arce and the Public Prosecutor's Office reported that they found no evidence that links groups dedicated to drug trafficking with Colonels Maximiliano Dávila, José María Velasco and Jaime Arancibia; although there are criminal proceedings against them, none are being investigated for trafficking in controlled substances, despite the fact that there are reports, testimonies, audio recordings and drug factories.
  - Pagina Siete, 15 April 2022

• The Bolivian Minister of Government, Eduardo del Castillo, revealed the that national parks are used by drug traffickers to set up cocaine refining laboratories. In the country, there are about 300 illegally farmed areas. These areas are increasingly unprotected and at risk because coca plantations and drug factories still persist.
  - El Deber, 14 April 2022

• E-cigarette giant Juul Labs will pay Washington state $22.5 million and has agreed to a variety of reforms to prevent underage use and sales. Juul targeted underage consumers and deceived consumers about the addictiveness of its product.
  - Associated Press, 13 April 2022

• Victims and ex-Farc say that President Duque denied their participation in the UN Council. Representatives of the Comunes Party, the Defendamos la Paz movement, and organizations that follow the implementation of the Peace Agreement, have reservations about the way in which President Iván Duque will defend his Peace with Legality program in the Security Council of the United Nations.
  - El Espectador, 12 April 2022

• Evo Morales once again referred to drug trafficking. The former president presumes that the Drug Control Administration (DEA) operates in some State ministries and that there are "infiltrated coup leaders" in the Government of Luis Arce. "It is a national and international campaign to discredit the Cochabamba tropical area and, especially, its leaders, its leaders such as Evo Morales, Andrónico and Leonardo Loza."
  - El Deber, 11 April 2022

• After accusing the former anti-drug chief of covering up drug trafficking, former President Evo Morales affirmed yesterday that he suspects that there are infiltrators of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in "some ministries". "I do not know if that the DEA is within any ministry or ministries, which is trying to implicate or demonize the peasant movement of the Cochabamba tropics," Morales asserted.
  - Pagina Siete, 11 April 2022

• The Minister of Government, Eduardo del Castillo, responded this Monday to the new statements of former President Evo Morales, and emphatically denied that he is coordinating with the Drug Enforcement Administration.
  - La Razon, 11 April 2022

• The Security Council of the United Nations, in violation of a deal, will not allow a social leader to speak at its quarterly session on the 2016 Peace deal with the FARC guerilla group. The social leader will not be allowed to comment on the lack of progress with the deal under Duque. The Security Council does not want any public contradictions of Duque's false report of progress.
  - Colombia Reports, 11 April 2022

• How president Ivan Duque condemned Colombia to a new cycle of violence, empowering guerilla and paramilitary groups such as the AGC, ELN and ex-FARC to strengthen their control, especially in coca growing regions
  - Colombia Reports, 10 April 2022

• Deputy Erwin Bazán, from the political group Creemos, affirmed that the former president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, is trapped between drug calls and allegations of cover-ups by criminals in the Chapare. "Evo Morales is trapped by his ties to drug trafficking; his alleged denunciations accusing the administration of President Luis Arce of protecting drug trafficking end up complicating him. We are close to learning the truth about how Evo and the blues cartel ended up handing over the future of the country to drug trafficking," said Bazán.
  - Pagina Siete, 10 April 2022

• In the midst of the questions about the alleged protection, the Vice Minister of Social Defense and Controlled Substances of Bolivia, Jaime Mamani, assured this Saturday that his work is "transparent and relentless" in the fight against drug trafficking.
  - La Razon, 09 April 2022

• Former President Evo Morales affirmed this Friday that he denounced the the alleged cover-up of drug trafficking in the Tropics of Cochabamba in Bolivia, because his duty is to protect President Luis Arce from the "pro-imperialist coup leaders". "We denounce police chiefs for conspiring and covering up drug trafficking."
  - La Razon, 08 April 2022

• As a result of the scandal caused by the public denunciation by the cocalero leader Evo Morales about an alleged cover-up of drug trafficking, the Creemos bench asked for the resignation of the Minister of Government, Eduardo del Castillo and his Vice Minister of Controlled Substances, Jaime Mamani, for failing to fulfill their duties.
  - El Deber, 08 April 2022

• Former President Evo Morales appears on a list of people who will be summoned by the Prosecutor's Office as a witness for the alleged protection by police of drug trafficking. For this same fact, the Public Ministry issued arrest warrants against the three heads of the anti-drug police who on March 25 allegedly aborted an operation to destroy a cocaine factory in the Cochabamba tropics of Bolivia.
  - El Deber, 08 April 2022

• The former head of the Mobile Police Unit for Rural Areas (Umopar) (Chapare, Bolivia), Lieutenant Colonel Yerko Terán, revealed this Thursday that if the anti-drug forces carried out the coup on March 25 at four o'clock at the drug factory and the megalaboratory installed near the Sacta river, in the Cochabamba Tropics, operated by Colombians, they would have already killed the heads of that unit, because according to him they received money to cover up the infrastructure.
  - Pagina Siete, 07 April 2022

• The former head of the Mobile Police Unit for Rural Areas (UMOPAR)(Chapare, Bolivia), Lieutenant Colonel Yerko Ter&´n, revealed this Thursday that if the anti-drug forces carried out the raid on March 25 at four drug factories and the mega-laboratory installed near the Sacta river, in the Cochabamba Tropics, operated by Colombians, they would have already killed the heads of that unit, because according to him they received money to cover up the infrastructure.
  - La Razon, 07 April 2022

• The Third Sentencing Court of La Paz sentenced on Wednesday the former general of the Bolivian Police, René Sanabria, to 10 years in prison accused at a trial of links to drug trafficking in 2011.
  - La Razon, 07 April 2022

• The scandal that sparked a crisis among Bolivian police chiefs who were accused of protecting drug traffickers and aborting an anti-drug operation denounced by former President Evo Morales, caused the dismissal of the director of the Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking, José Mari´ Velasco.
  - El Deber, 07 April 2022

• The links of the Bolivian Police to drug traffickers are not new. In the government of Evo Morales there were four police chiefs so linked. Today, this case of cover-up that caused the dismissal of the director of the Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking, José María Velasco, similar to the one in which her predecessor Maximiliano D´vila played a leading role in 2019. Three former police chiefs of the 14-year administration of Morales: René Sanabria, &Oscar;scar Nina and Gonzalo Medina, went to jail for links to drug traffickers.< /A>
  - El Deber, 07 April 2022

• The Bolivian Public Ministry implicates ex-general Sanabria with the shipment of 144 kilos of cocaine to the United States. Prosecutor Mirtha Torres alludes to a meeting between the former head of FELCN and Milton Pantoja in Arica in 2010. In it, they agreed to protect the drug shipment.
  - El Deber, 07 April 2022

• After a series of denunciations of "irregularities", the director of the Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking, José María Velasco was fired, and the Special Force was ordered to subject all of the uniformed anti-drug officers to polygraph tests and renovate the High Command and police headquarters.
  - La Razon, 06 April 2022

• The scandal behind the operation in Valle Secta - a Colombian drug mega-laboratory and the official order to leave the place. A captain, surnamed Villegas, was told by the colonel that "the vice minister (of Social Defense and Controlled Substances) Jaime Mamani had called him, and he gave the order for them to leave the place", an order that was disobeyed by Coronel Terán, who maintains that he entered the place, took photographs, made a sketch of its location and confirmed that it was a structure in which "big shots" of the illegal drug business operated.
  - El Deber, 06 April 2022

• The leader of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), Evo Morales, enjoyed this Wednesday that the complaints he made on Monday about an alleged cover-up by drug traffickers, and the existence of a drug factory in the Cochabamba Tropics, were corroborated. However, he again warned about the possibility of 'sowing' evidence against him. "We have received complaints from junior police personnel who warn of an espionage and follow-up plan to sow evidence against us. We are not afraid."
  - Pagina Siete, 06 April 2022

• Following the complaint against anti-narcotics chiefs, Bolivian government authorities for allegedly protecting "big shots" from drug trafficking and after an order was released that stopped the drug trafficking. In drug factories in the Sacta Valley, in the Cochabamba tropics, the former head of the Mobile Police Unit for Rural Areas (Umopar) Chapare, Lieutenant Colonel Yerko Terán , went into "safety" because he fears for his life.
  - Pagina Siete, 06 April 2022

• Police chiefs and high-level anti-drug authorities in Bolivia are involved with drug traffickers. The commander of Umopar Chapare revealed that by orders of Vice Minister Jaime Mamani, the director of the FECLN (José María Velasco) and the national commander of Umopar (Jaime Aranciba) the intervention in drug factories in Valle Secta was abandoned. On March 25, Umopar troops found four factories and a cocaine megalaboratory in Valle Secta, where Colombian citizens worked. "When the troops tried to dismantle those factories, then they allegedly received orders from government authorities and the Felcn to leave the area without doing anything."
  - Pagina Siete, 06 April 2022

• Former President Evo Morales' denunciation of "protection of drug trafficking" led to accusations of "irregularities" within Bolivia's anti-drug force. Colonel Erick Terán denounced the commander of Umopar, Franco Jaime Arancibia, and revealed that the Vice Minister of Social Defense, Jaime Mamani, and the anti-drug director, José María Velasco, asked him to abandon an anti-drug operation carried out on March 25 in the Sajta area of the Chapare.
  - La Razon, 06 April 2022

• "TikTok Brain" explained: why some kids are addicted to social video feeds. The dopamine rush of endless short videos makes it hard for young viewers to switch their focus to slower-moving activities. An entirely legal way be a drug trafficker.
  - MWSJ, 05 April 2022

• Coffee beans are bigger and more plentiful when birds and bees team up to protect and pollinate coffee plants
  - Phys.org, 04 April 2022

• People with diabetes in the United States have been among the hardest disabled by the covid virus. Experts hope policymakers will take notice, and finally get serious about finding solutions for the nation's diabetes crisis, in much part, caused by excessive sugar consumption.
  - New York Times, 04 April 2022

• Accusing the governing party of Bolivia, the Movement towards Socialism, for not fighting effectively against drug trafficking, the deputy for the Creemos alliance, José Carlos Gutiérrez, denounced that armed invaders enter lands from where they appear protected, in the same way that it is done in the Chapare region.
  - El Diario, 03 April 2022

• The FARC dissidents are facing each other in the department of Putumayo for control of the areas where coca is grown and for the drug trafficking routes to the Pacific, which has affected the population, who also feel attacked by the Army's eradication efforts.
  - El Espectador, 01 April 2022

• "The war against drugs is a war against the peasants." In a meeting organized by the José Alvear Restrepo in Bogotá, spokespersons for a dozen peasant organizations denounced, among other problems, the precarious situation of families that depend on coca crops due to the slow implementation of the substitution program.
  - El Espectador, 01 April 2022

• The Defense Minister of Colombia, Diego Molano, claims that victims of an alleged military massacre were guerrillas killed in a "legitimate operation", accusing them of being narco-cocaleros. The UN human rights office says that this is a lie, that among the civilian victims would be a community leader, an indigenous governor and at least one 16-year-old boy.
  - Colombia Reports, 01 April 2022

• The FDA allows phenylephrine in nasal decongestants, despite it being completely useless for treating congestion. It still bans sale of pseudoephedrine over-the-counter, which is highly effective, because years ago, some people bought a lot and converted it into methamphetamine, which no one does anymore.
  - Science, 30 March 2022

• By studying the relationship between gene variants and alcohol consumption, scientists found no real cardiac benefit to drinking alcohol, even modestly
  - New York Times, 29 March 2022

• Can India end its huge addiction to the highly addictive, and deadly, nicotine? Over 270 million people in India are addicted to tobacco products, causing massive health problems. Yet India refuses to let people drink coca tea, which isn't deadly and isn't addictive.
  - South China Morning Post, 26 March 2022

• THC produced from low-THC hemp (by converting CBD synthetically into THC) is crushing prices of THC produced by marijuana farmers. The price of distillate for delta-9 THC has dropped from $50,000 per liter to $6,000 per liter in some areas.
  - Associated Press, 24 March 2022

• Demand for the psychedelic venom (containing 5-MeO-DMT) of the Sonoran desert toad is increasing rapidly. This demand if putting the population of toads at the risk of collapse. A synthetic version is just as psychedelic.
  - New York Times, 20 March 2022

• By 2030, 39% of the rice sector in Colombia could disappear. According to Fedesarrollo, changes are required before the opening of the FTA with the United States. Fedearroz says that steps have already been taken and government investment is needed.
  - El Tiempo, 20 March 2022

• In at least four regions of Pando, Bolivia, illegal plantations of coca have been identified: in the municipalities of Bolpebra, Puerto Rico, Bella Flor y en Santa Rosa del Abuná
  - Pagina Siete, 20 March 2022

• Bolivian police clash with drug traffickers, seize two helicopters and destroy a drug megalaboratory between Santa Cruz and the border with Beni.
  - El Deber, 19 March 2022

• There are 8 cocaleros in the Legislative Assembly in Bolivia.
  - El Deber, 18 March 2022

• Some people with pain, anxiety or depression who obtain medical marijuana cards may overuse marijuana within a short time frame, leading to cannabis use disorder while failing to improve their symptoms
  - CNN, 18 March 2022

• How your caffeine addiction is hurting marine life. Lab trials show caffeine (mostly from consuming coffee, tea and caffeinated sodas) has multiple negative effects on marine species.
  - Hakai Magazine, 16 March 2022

• The huge role of racism and white supremacy in decades of armed conflict in Colombia
  - Colombia Reports, 11 March 2022

• Nicotine drug traffickers, unable to sell flavored e-cigarettes using natural nicotine, 'break' the law by using synthetic nicotine. Lawmakers are trying to pass a law banning the use of synthetic nicotine, as sales skyrocket and the nicotine drug traffickers exploit the huge addictiveness of nicotine to increase sales.
  - New York Times, 08 March 2022

• 20% of cannabis consumption in Bogotá is for medicinal purposes. The Colombian Ministry of Health surveyed 4,564 people who use derived products in Bogotá.
  - Tiempo, 05 March 2022

• The family of opioid drug traffickers, the Sacklers, will pay $6 billion to settle lawsuits over their role in the opioid drug trafficking crisis that has let to nearly 500,000 overdose deaths in the United States. Maybe because they are white or Jewish, none of them are going to jail for their many crimes they still deny committing, unlike cocaine drug traffickers who have caused less misery and few public health disasters.
  - Reuters, 04 March 2022

• The family of opioid drug traffickers, the Sacklers, will pay $6 billion to settle lawsuits over their role in the opioid drug trafficking crisis that has let to nearly 500,000 overdose deaths in the United States. Maybe because they are white or Jewish, none of them are going to jail for their many crimes they still deny committing, unlike cocaine drug traffickers who have caused less misery and few public health disasters.
  - New York Times, 04 March 2022

• The family of opioid drug traffickers, the Sacklers, will pay $6 billion to settle lawsuits over their role in the opioid drug trafficking crisis that has let to nearly 500,000 overdose deaths in the United States. Maybe because they are white or Jewish, none of them are going to jail for their many crimes they still deny committing, unlike cocaine drug traffickers who have caused less misery and few public health disasters.
  - Wall Street Journal, 04 March 2022

• Just one drink of alcohol a day can shrink your brain, but not one cup of coca tea
  - CNN, 04 March 2022

• Before psychedelic therapy and services becomes widely available (thanks to tens of millions in investments), there needs to be a better understanding of all the ways these experiences can go wrong
  - Vice Motherboard, 03 March 2022

• Lu Yu, the Tea Sage of China, who convinced the world to drink tea, not eat it. Lu Yu is chiefly responsible for making tea drinking the norm for most people around the world, thanks to his efforts in the 700s.
  - Atlas Obscura, 02 March 2022

• More people are microdosing for mental health (consuming 5 to 10 percent of a full dose of a psychedelic, such as LSD or psilocybin). But does it work? Scientists are split over whether the benefits some microdosers experience are a placebo effect or something more.
  - New York Times, 28 February 2022

• Major opioid drug trafficker and manufacturer Johnson & Johnson, and three major drug trafficking and distributing companies (McKesson, Cardinal Health and Amerisource Bergen) have accepted terms of their $26 billion offer to settle thousands of civil claims related to the deadly opioid crisis. Johnson & Johnson will pay $5 billion, with lawyers collected $2 billion in fees. There are no separate funds to compensate families and individual victims of the opioid crisis.
  - New York Times, 26 February 2022

• What is next for the coca leaf farmers of Colombia?
  - Borgen Magazine, 23 February 2022

• The National Government of Colombia, through Resolution 227 of 2022, regulated the industrial use of cannabis, in which it establishes the mechanisms for its implementation in food, beverages and textiles.
  - El Espectador, 21 February 2022

• The National Government, through Resolution 227 of 2022, regulated the industrial use of cannabis, in which it establishes the mechanisms for its implementation in food, beverages, and textiles.
  - El Tiempo, 21 February 2022

• Through an official statement yesterday, 36 former ministers of Evo Morales "closed ranks" around the former president and assured that he is not involved in drug trafficking, despite the fact that there are no formal accusations against Morales. Meanwhile, at least 40 other former ministers, including the presidents Luis Arce and David Choquehuanca, did not sign the letter and others such as Juan Ramón Quintana, Walker San Miguel, Claudia Peña and Nila Heredia, among others, are not listed. - Pagina Siete, 18 February 2022

• The national police of Colombia suspended the cooperation of former paramilitary commander "Otonial" with the country's Truth Commission that is investigating the armed conflict. The police ended the hearings after W Radio reported that Otoniel had begun revealing ties between the "world's most wanted drug trafficker" and the security forces of Colombia.
  - Colombia Reports, 18 February 2022

• The International Finance Corporation, one of the world's leading development bank, is accused of lending millions to companies allegedly linked to forced labor in Xinjiang. It has also made promises to help the world of coca, but done nothing.
  - CNN, 17 February 2022

• 36 former ministers come out in defense of Evo Morales and describe charges of drug trafficking as "infamy". "This campaign seeks to discredit Evo's image by maliciously associating him with illegal drug trafficking activities in which some former chiefs and police officers in Bolivia have been involved."
  - La Razon, 17 February 2022

• Drug production in Colombia has declined, while cultivation has increased. Todd Robinson, an Under Secretary of the US Government stated: "We need to continue with eradication."
  - El Pais, 17 February 2022

• The former commander of the armed forces of Colombia, and an ally of ex-president Uribe, ex-General Leonardo Barrero, allegedly helped paramilitary organization AGC control the drug trade in the southwest of the country, in the department of Nariño. Barrero allegedly helped a drug trafficker, Matamba, take over the drug trade in Nariño with the help of the military. The general was the commander of the armed forces between 2013 and 2014, and was sacked over widespread corruption and his alleged obstruction of investigations into extrajudicial executions. While running for governor in Cauca, Barrero allegedly helped Matamba do away with illegal armed groups vying for control over the drug trade in Nariño.
  - Colombia Reports, 15 February 2022

• Pollution of the world's rivers from medicines and pharmaceutical products poses a "threat to environmental and global health". Paracetamol, nicotine, caffeine and epilepsy and diabetes drugs were widely detected in a University of York study. The coca alkaloid breaks down in the environment.
  - BBC, 14 February 2022

• A highly ranked officer of the Colombian Army was removed from his position while his alleged alliance with a drug gang to confront FARC dissidents in the southwest of the country is being investigated. "Since it is in the interest of the institution to contribute to the clarification of the facts, General Jorge Herrera Díaz, who served as commander of the sixth division of the Army with jurisdiction in the south of the country, is relieved of his official duties." Dat Pagina Siete, 14 2022 FEB

• Former President Evo Morales accused this Saturday the US anti-drug agency, the DEA, and its "political and media agents", of executing a "destabilizing plan" in the country. "We warn the Bolivian people and the international community that the DEA, together with its political and media agents that operate in the country, is executing a destabilizing plan of lies and hate speech against the cocalero movement and its leaders. Their plan is to lie to divide."
  - Pagina Siete, 12 February 2022

• The former president and leader of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), Evo Morales, opines this Wednesday that the US Drug Enforcement Agency conspires in Bolivia and those who supposedly help the DEA "betray the struggle of the Bolivian people."
  - La Razon, 09 February 2022

• In Triángulo Negro, a former FARC stronghold, growing coca was exchanged for growing cocoa. The Ares Task Force deactivated operations in Vichada after managing to stop coca production.
  - El Tiempo, 08 February 2022

• Nicotine-trafficking electronic cigarettes are less useful in helping people to quit smoking than nicotine patches, gum or lozenges
  - CNN, 07 February 2022

• Drug overdoses among young Americans translate into over one million years of lost life, study finds. Approximately 22,000 young people between ages 10-24 died of unintentional drug overdose in the United States between January 1, 2015, to December 31, 2019. In those same four years, over 200,000 Americans died due to chronic consumption of sugary beverages. That is 10 million years of lost life.
  - Fox News, 06 February 2022

• The former president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, considers that the accusations against him for drug trafficking "fail". Morales stated again that historically the United States and its "pro-imperialist political agents" attacked the cocalero movement in the Tropics. "I am convinced that the campaign of lies and hate fails because the truth, unity, dignity and responsibility of our people prevail."
  - La Razon, 04 February 2022

• The Government of the United States reported that it offered a reward of up to 5 million dollars, in exchange for information that leads to the conviction of the former Bolivian anti-drug chief, Maximiliano Dávila, accused of drug trafficking, which also made a formal request, for D´vila's extradition, to its Bolivian counterpart.
  - El Diario, 03 February 2022

• The Government of the United States reported that it offered a reward of up to 5 million dollars, in exchange for information that leads to the conviction of the former Bolivian anti-drug chief, Maximiliano Dávila, accused of drug trafficking, which also made a formal request, for D´vila's extradition, to its Bolivian counterpart.
  - La Razon, 03 February 2022

• The Government of the United States reported that it offered a reward of up to 5 million dollars, in exchange for information that leads to the conviction of the former Bolivian anti-drug chief, Maximiliano Dávila, accused of drug trafficking, which also made a formal request, for D´vila's extradition, to its Bolivian counterpart.
  - Pagina Siete, 03 February 2022

• The United States intensifies its anti-drug strategy. Through the Department of State's Reward program, from yesterday it will offer $US 5 million for information that supports the conviction of Colonel Maximiliano Dávila, who was the last anti-drug chief of the government of Evo Morales. The amount is similar to the reward offered in 2015 for the Mexican Joaquín 'Chapo' Guzm´n, the former leader of the Sinaloa cartel who in 2019 was sentenced to life imprisonment in a New York prison for crimes of drug trafficking.
  - El Deber, 03 February 2022

• Former President Evo Morales said that the DEA, the United States anti-drug agency, does not mention him in the report that was the basis of the accusation brought by a New York court against Maximiliano Dávila, the last anti-narcotics chief of his administration. "We have been informed that this supposed DEA report does not mention anything against Evo and some communications media, and the right, want to damage the image of the MAS, of the peasant movement," said the cocalero politician in his program radio Sunday.
  - El Deber, 01 February 2022

• Native American tribes have reached settlements over the toll of opioids totaling $590 million with drugmaker Johnson & Johnson and the country's three largest drug distribution companies (AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson). One study cited in the settlement found that Native Americans have had the highest per capita rate of opioid overdose of any population group in 2015. The tribal settlements are part of about $40 billion worth of settlements, penalties and fines rung up over the years by companies over their role in opioids.
  - Associated Press, 01 February 2022

• Maximiliano Dávila, former director of the Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking (FELCN), was part of the "ring of the Cochala uncles", a group of police officers who operated and had influence within the anti-drug force from 2018. "The Cochlea uncles is a group that was consolidated in 2018, when, without being qualified, Dávila was appointed as National Director of Intelligence by Carlos Romero and the general who declared himself a MAS militant (Alfonso Mendoza), when the position should have gove to a colonel two years older, and not to one who never occupied the first positions in his promotion", said a former member of the FELCN.
  - Pagina Siete, 30 January 2022

• The Drug Enforcement Administration operates in the region and is aware of drug trafficking activities that take place in Bolivia. The United States anti-narcotics office operates with undercover agents in the country, although the Government of Luis Arce ruled out the presence of the US entity.
  - El Deber, 30 January 2022

• The world could lose half of its best coffee-growing land under a moderate climate change scenario. Brazil, which is the currently world's largest coffee producer, will see its most suitable coffee-growing land decline by 79%.
  - Real Clear Science, 29 January 2022

• According to a study carried out by the Community, Action and Liberty Group, coca production skyrocketed in the Bolivian Chapare after the General Coca Law 906 came into effect. The regulation, promulgated in March 2017, made it possible to increase the extension of authorized areas for coca cultivation, from 12,000 hectares to 22,000. The law angered the La Paz cocaleros, who maintain that most of the coca from the Chapare goes to the illegal market. In the ruling party they attribute the increase to the lack of controls during the transitional government. The opposition points out that the anti-drug policy of the Movement Towards Socialism party was a failure.
  - Pagina Siete, 28 January 2022

• "They will never be able to verify that Evo has been an accomplice or a drug trafficker in his life", said the vice president of the Movement Toward Socialism party of Bolivia, Gerardo García, this Friday, in light of requests to include Evo Morales in the investigation against the former anti-narcotics chief, Maximiliano Dávila
  - El Deber, 28 January 2022

• The government of the Movement Towards Socialism party, from different sides, came out in defense of the administration of Evo Morales and to reject any connection with Colonel Maximiliano Dávila. They blamed former president Jeanine Añez and members of the opposition for the drug trafficking events involving former police chiefs, despite different elements showing the contrary.
  - Pagina Siete, 28 January 2022

• Bolivia's National Police Unit plans an international investigation into Evo's alleged links to drug trafficking. "It is not credible, at this point, that MAS assembly members can impartially investigate the head of the MAS", warned the statement of the opposition front.
  - Pagina Siete, 28 January 2022

• The Plenary Chamber of the Constitutional Court of Colombia began 2022 with a historic decision, declaring the state of affairs unconstitutional at one point in the implementation of the Peace Agreement with the former Farc guerrillas. The Court agreed with ex-combatants from all over the country who filed eight separate complaints alleging a lack of security guarantees in the territories, among other breaches of the Agreement by the State. To make this decision, the high court studied a presentation by magistrate Cristina Pardo, revealed by this newspaper last August, in which she clarified that there is a massive violation of the Peace Agreement, since the signatories have no guarantees that they will not be assassinated without the state doing something.
  - El Espectador, 28 January 2022

• The Plenary Chamber of the Constitutional Court of Colombia began 2022 with a historic decision, declaring the state of affairs unconstitutional at one point in the implementation of the Peace Agreement with the former Farc guerrillas. The Court agreed with ex-combatants from all over the country who filed eight separate complaints alleging a lack of security guarantees in the territories, among other breaches of the Agreement by the State. To make this decision, the high court studied a presentation by magistrate Cristina Pardo, revealed by this newspaper last August, in which she clarified that there is a massive violation of the Peace Agreement, since the signatories have no guarantees that they will not be assassinated without the state doing something.
  - Semana, 28 January 2022

• The Plenary Chamber of the Constitutional Court of Colombia began 2022 with a historic decision, declaring the state of affairs unconstitutional at one point in the implementation of the Peace Agreement with the former Farc guerrillas. The Court agreed with ex-combatants from all over the country who filed eight separate complaints alleging a lack of security guarantees in the territories, among other breaches of the Agreement by the State. To make this decision, the high court studied a presentation by magistrate Cristina Pardo, revealed by this newspaper last August, in which she clarified that there is a massive violation of the Peace Agreement, since the signatories have no guarantees that they will not be assassinated without the state doing something.
  - El Tiempo, 28 January 2022

• The Government of Bolivia contradicts the DEA and seeks to separate Evo from Dávila. The Minister of Government presented a report which mentioned that the irregular acts committed by Colonel Dávila occurred during the administration of Jeanine Áñez. However, Dávila was the last head of the FELCN in the Morales government.
  - El Deber, 27 January 2022

• At least nine events between July 2019 and September 2020 demonstrate the closeness between former President Evo Morales, the Movement Towards Socialism party, and Colonel Maximiliano Dávila Pérez, who is accused of drug trafficking.
  - Pagina Siete, 27 January 2022

• The former director of the Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking, Colonel Maximiliano Dávila, offered Bolivian airports to a network of drug traffickers to ship 1,500 kilos of cocaine to New York, according to a DEA report. The report also states that Dávila offered two policemen to protect the plane when it was with the cocaine, and that during this protection the uniformed officers would use their official weapons.
  - El Diario, 27 January 2022

• The drug trafficker Jorge Roca Suárez, better known as Techo de Paja, at the age of 71, faces his third pretrial prevention in the Castro Castro prison, in Lima, Peru. He denies any link with Maximiliano Dávila. The US justice system accuses him of conspiring to manufacture and traffic cocaine to New York, although he denies the charges, describes them as an invention and demands that the Bolivian government investigate the presence of DEA agents in the country who, according to him, have been "entering and leaving" the national territory since 2017.
  - La Razon, 26 January 2022

• The Bolivian Government Minister, Eduardo del Castillo, identified this Wednesday the former director of the Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking Maximiliano Dávila, who was detained in preventive custody for allegedly legitimizing illegal proceeds, as the alleged protector of a network of drug traffickers led by the former kingpin of controlled substances, Jorge Roca Suárez, known as 'Straw Roof'.
  - La Razon, 26 January 2022

• The MAS political party closes ranks in defense of former Bolivian President Evo Morales, while the opposition questions the fight against drug trafficking in his administration and even link him to former anti-drug chief Maximiliano Dávila, who before going to jail attributed his arrest to an attempt to involve Morales in drug trafficking crimes.
  - La Razon, 25 January 2022

• Referring to the case of the former anti-drug chief Maximiliano Dávila imprisoned this Monday, former President Carlos Mesa considered that drug trafficking penetrated high levels of the Government in the last 16 years, most of them when Movimiento Al Socialismo and its boss, Evo Morales, were in charge.
  - Pagina Siete, 25 January 2022

• After the arrest of the former anti-drug police commander, Maximiliano Dávila, for alleged links to drug trafficking, deputy Alberto Astorga (CC), regretted the arrest. He discussed the "comfortable" way in which drug trafficking operates in the governments of the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) and announced that this political organization will request further investigation of former President Evo Morales and his ministers.
  - El Diario, 25 January 2022

• Anguish in Tuluá, Colombia, due to the alleged recruitment of minors by Farc dissidents
  - El Pais, 24 January 2022

• Maximiliano Dávila (the former head of the FELCN) is sent to jail for the crime of money laundering. The Bolivian Prosecutor's Office has identified eight people who will be summoned to testify as witnesses and accused in the framework of the investigation against the former director of the Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking.
  - La Razon, 24 January 2022

• Bolivian police prevent ex-drug chief under investigation by the DEA from leaving Bolivia. He was apprehended in Villazón when he tried to cross over to the Argentine side. The Prosecutor's Office was looking for him to answer for an accusation of money laundering. Maximiliano Dávila, was the last anti-drug chief to be appointed during the presidency of Evo Morales.
  - El Deber, 24 January 2022

• How Jose Felix Lafaurie, director of the cattle ranchers federation (Fedegan) in Colombia, allegedly teamed up with designated terrorists (the right-wing-connected AUG) to steal land and coerce the Supreme Court. Recent testimonies indicate that Lafaurie was directly involved in a massive land heist that left tens of thousands of victims since 1997. His wife is a Senator following right-wing ex-president Uribe.
  - Colombia Reports, 24 January 2022

• On Saturday night, the former director of the Special Forces to Fight Drugs (FELCN), Maximiliano Dávila, was arrested, under investigation by the Drug Control Administration (DEA) for allegedly being part of a gang dedicated to the trafficking of controlled substances. Frn
  - La Razon, 23 January 2022

• On Saturday night, the former director of the Special Forces to Fight Drugs (FELCN), Maximiliano Dávila, was arrested, under investigation by the Drug Control Administration (DEA) for allegedly being part of a gang dedicated to the trafficking of controlled substances. Frn
  - Pagina Siete, 23 January 2022

• Video: paradise does exist - it is called Nuqui (Colombia)
  - El Tiempo, 14 January 2022

• The current candidate for Congress of the Republic, the indigenous leader Aida QuilCué, denounced that she has already been threatened more than 100 times by different actors in Cauca, Colombia. QuilCué, who has served as a senior advisor to the CRIC and the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia, ONIC, announced the intensification of intimidation that has led to the resignation of her bodyguards.
  - El Tiempo, 12 January 2022

• Juan Manuel Santos: "Legalizing drugs is the only way." The former president suggests that policies other than prohibition should be adopted.
  - El Tiempo, 09 January 2022

• The Colombian Federation of Cattlemen (Fedegan) called last Monday for a peaceful sit-in in the port of Cartagena to express their disagreement with the importation of powdered milk from the United States. During the demonstration José Felíx Lafaurie, president of Fedegan, explained his motivation by commenting that: "The industry does not buy milk from farmers, but brings it from rich producers in the United States and Europe."
  - El Pais, 04 January 2022

• Magic mushrooms are safe to treat mental health conditions, first human trial finds. Psilocybin, the psychedelic chemical produced in the fungi can be given in small doses to patients with depression and PTSD.
  - The Telegraph, 04 January 2022

• Coca eradication in Colombia is a complete failure. Despite increased eradication in the last 4 years to over 100,000 hectares eradicated per year, coca cultivation continues to grow and is now over 250,000 hectares.
  - Economist, 01 January 2022

• A kilogram of dry coca leaves sells for US $1.40 in Peru, down 50% in two years, due to strong growth in supply. And yet, coca leaves are still are more profitable crop than other plants.
  - Economist, 01 January 2022

• Arabica coffee futures are about to register their largest annual gain in a quarter-century due to a global deficit. Arabica coffee futures jumped 78% to about $2.30 per pound in New York this year, putting it on track for the best year since 1994, due to severe weather in Brazil and decimated coffee plantations.
  - Zero Hedge, 01 January 2022

• Restaurants in Thailand are cooking with cannabis. Parts of the plant with less than 0.2% THC can be legally used in foods.
  - Economist, 01 January 2022

• Opinion: Colombia cannot afford to abandon its 2016 Peace Accord
  - New York Times, 27 December 2021

• The cocaleros of Yungas, Bolivia, bowed to the repression, but not to the parallelism. The year began with two leaderships, one headed by Armin Lluta and the other by Elena Flores, and ended in the same way, although with two other heads, Freddy Machicado and Arnold Alanes.
  - Pagina Siete, 25 December 2021

• Addictive 'brain hijacking' methods of social media platforms harmful to users, especially children
  - Zero Hedge, 21 December 2021

• A federal judge on Thursday cancels a painstakingly negotiated $4.5 billion settlement between Purdue Pharma and thousands of state, local and tribal governments that had sued the maker of the prescription painkiller OxyContin for the Purdue's role in the opioid epidemic. The judge ruled that the settlement should be cancelled because it releases Purdue's owners from liability in civil-opioid cases addressing the enormous harm caused by Purdue's drug trafficking, the owners being the members of the Sackler family that earned billions from coordinating the drug trafficking of opioids. One thing that had troubled the judge was the more than $10 billion that the Sacklers withdrew from Purdue between 2008 and 2018, as the opioid epidemic was cresting. The Sackler dividends were largely deposited in offshore accounts and trusts that are inaccessible to American authorities - a typically drug-trafficking tactic to shelter money from authorities.
  - New York Times, 17 December 2021

• A research team of six - including authors from federal agencies such as the National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration -- critically comment on cannabis regulatory systems in the United States, writing that administrative burdens stifle much-needed scientific investigation into the drug's potential health applications and safety concerns.
  - Marijuana Moment, 14 December 2021

• Opinion: the substitution of crops for illicit use FR
  - El Espectador, 14 December 2021

• While the DEA struggles to block fentanyl imports from China, it struggles with a lot of other problems: suffering a series of blows that has left it a smaller and less aggressive and effective outfit, with some of the damage being due to self-inflicted scandals. Some academics, along with the Drug Policy Alliance, which advocates for decriminalization, are even calling for the DEA to be eliminated. "They have two strategies, interdiction and criminalization, and neither is working."
  - Real Clear Investigations, 14 December 2021

• Former D.E.A. Agent, Jose Ismael Irizarry, sentenced to 12 years in drug money scheme. Irizarry took part in a seven-year scheme that used $9 million from drug investigations to buy jewelry, cars and a house in Cartagena, Colombia.
  - New York Times, 10 December 2021

• With the goal to end nicotine trafficking in the country, New Zealand plans to gradually ban all cigarette sales in the country
  - New York Times, 09 December 2021

• Allergan, a large pharmaceutical manufacturer, has agreed to pay $200 million to the state of New York for its previous opioid drug trafficking crimes. The company will also be barred from selling opioids in New York for ten years.
  - New York Times, 09 December 2021

• Antwerp has become the main port of entry into Europe for cocaine. Europe has also become a major transit point for shipping the drug east to Russia, and to Asian and Middle Eastern countries. Four million adults consume cocaine in the European Union.
  - New York Times, 05 December 2021

• The U.S. Department of State announces this Tuesday that it removed the FARC rebel group from its list of terrorist organizations
  - El Espectador, 30 November 2021

• The U.S. Department of State announces this Tuesday that it removed the FARC rebel group from its list of terrorist organizations
  - El Tiempo, 30 November 2021

• The U.S. Department of State announces this Tuesday that it removed the FARC rebel group from its list of terrorist organizations
  - New York Times, 30 November 2021

• Use of marijuana in pregnancy may lead to a child that is more anxious and aggressive
  - New York Times, 29 November 2021

• Vaping is risky, so why is the FDA authorizing e-cigarettes? Nicotine can harm the developing brain, and e-cigarettes contain potentially harmful toxins like heavy metals; the long-term effects of vaping -- the heating of nicotine to create an inhaled aerosol -- are uncertain.
  - New York Times, 28 November 2021

• Coca leaf fields. The databases that sowed mistrust between peasants and the UNODC. Three peasant spokespersons and a technician who collected sensitive data from families that took advantage of the voluntary substitution program express their distrust that this information has been collected with the same application used to monitor crops for illicit use. Data that, according to them, the Government could have used to carry out forced eradication operations and captures.
  - El Espectador, 27 November 2021

• Cocoa is the ancestral treasure seeking to resurface in Costa Rica
  - Costa Rica News, 25 November 2021

• Federal district court in Florida issues landmark ruling that paramilitaries in Colombia committed violence, including the massacres of hundreds of people, while the paramilitaries operated in "symbiotic relationship" with Colombian military forces funded with billons of dollars by the U.S. government. The U.S. Dept. of Justice ignore the murders committed by the military and paramilitary, and only prosecuted murderers if they were drug traffickers.
  - The Intercept, 24 November 2021

• How nicotine drug traffickers in the US still rely on impoverished people (no longer able to use slaves) - poor people from Central America - to harvest tobacco on tobacco farms in Kentucky and other states. Health experts have long pointed to the serious threats workers face from nicotine poisoning, pesticides and dehydration -- of little concern to nicotine drug traffickers.
  - New York Times, 24 November 2021

• A jury finds that CVS, Walmart and Walgreens are responsible in part for their involvement in the opioid drug trafficking crisis that killed over 500,000 people in the United States, recklessly distributing massive amounts of pain pills whose destruction caused just two counties in Ohio each over $1 billion in public services.
  - NBC News, 23 November 2021

• A jury finds that CVS, Walmart and Walgreens are responsible in part for their involvement in the opioid drug trafficking crisis that killed over 500,000 people in the United States, recklessly distributing massive amounts of pain pills whose destruction caused just two counties in Ohio each over $1 billion in public services.
  - New York Times, 23 November 2021

• Colombia is the deadliest place in the world for environmentalists. Armed gangs are threatening and murdering community leaders and environmental activists who have been trying to protect Colombia's forest from destruction by mining, lumber and oil companies.
  - New York Times, 18 November 2021

• Acetaminophen, one of the most consumer drugs in the world, commonly taken for pain relief, also increases risk-taking. "Acetaminophen seems to make people feel less negative emotion when they consider risky activities -- they just don't feel as scared." The findings add to a recent body of research suggesting that acetaminophen's effects on pain reduction also extend to various psychological processes, lowering people's receptivity to hurt feelings, experiencing reduced empathy, and even blunting cognitive functions. 25% of Americans use acetaminophen each week.
  - Science Alert, 18 November 2021

• Nicotine drug trafficker, and e-cigarette maker, Puff Bar is under investigation by the attorney general of the state of North Carolina. Puff Bar has become the most popular vaping brand among childred and teens being addicted to nicotine, surpassing nicotine drug trafficker Juul.
  - MWSJ, 17 November 2021

• Coffee and tea (including coca tea) may be linked to lower risk of stroke and dementia
  - The Guardian, 16 November 2021

• The U.S. state of Washington in a $95 billion opioid drug trafficking trial, blames big drug distributors for the crisis: McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen. The companies made huge profits while shipping 3.8 billion opioid doses into Washington from 2006 to 2018, which the state argued led to over 10,000 deaths due to opioids in the state since 2006.
  - Reuters, 15 November 2021

• President Iván Duque ignored an order of the courts in Colombia that barred him from suspending key anti-fraud legislation during the 2022 elections. Duque said Friday that he had approved the 2022 budget, which included a rider to suspend parts of the Guarantees Law that is in place to prevent election fraud. The president deliberately ignored a court order not to ratify the unconstitutional amendment of Colombia's electoral law that was issued by a Bogota court earlier this week. The president apparently is in a rush to suspend electoral guarantees as only massive vote-buying with money from slush funds may prevent an electoral battering of the allies of the unpopular president in Congress next year.
  - Colombia Reports, 13 November 2021

• Psilocybin, the hallucinogen in 'magic mushrooms' relieves depression in largest clinical trial to date, for a pill that contains 25 milligrams.
  - LiveScience, 11 November 2021

• The seven least honest media personalities in Colombia
  - Colombia Reports, 11 November 2021

• Foods with palmitic acid promote cancer metastasis. This is found in the palm oil with which some buns, pizzas or chips are made, for example. Palmitic acid is not found in coca leaf products.
  - RTVE, 11 November 2021

• In the hands of the Constitutional Court of Colombia, is the study of three tutelages presented by peasant communities, supported by social organizations and lawyers' groups, which seek to stop the forced eradication of coca and with the implementation of the peace agreement and the substitution of crops for illicit use in the Pacific off Nariño, Catatumbo in the municipalities of Caloto and Cajibío, and Piamonte in Cauca.
  - El Tiempo, 08 November 2021

• In a new assault on the global consulting giant McKinsey & Company, Congress on Friday started an investigation into the company's role in worsening the opioid crisis, sending a letter demanding records related to its "business practices, conflicts of interest and management standards". By advising opioid makers and "the federal agency regulating their conduct", McKinsey "may have had a significant negative impact on American's health", the committee said.
  - New York Times, 06 November 2021

• Hours of tension in Tibú, Catatumbo (Norte de Santander, Colombia) due to the coca eradication plan. Peasants prevented 180 soldiers from eradicating the plant and illegally detained them.
  - El Tiempo, 31 October 2021

• The new US anti-drug strategy and its support for the Peace Agreement. The Biden government presented its new anti-narcotics policy this week, while in Colombia clashes between coca growers and the military are intensifying over forced eradication. How was the announcement made from Washington received in the regions and peasant organizations?
  - El Espectador, 31 October 2021

• The living wars of Chocó. The recent captures of alias Otoniel and alias Omar seemed like a halo of hope for a decrease in violence in one of the most biodiverse departments in the country, but with coca.
  - El Tiempo, 31 October 2021

• The defense minister of Colombia, Diego Molano, is under fire over evidence indicating that the regime of far-right President Iván Duque has all but turned the country into a police state. The prosecution's Organized Crime Unit chief Javier Enrique Garcia got personally involved in the prosecution of protesters who reported alleged police brutality on social media. Garcia's elite unit receives international funding to combat drug trafficking, but began issuing arrest warrants for citizen reporters and other protesters on terrorism charges.
  - Colombia Reports, 30 October 2021

• Pressure is growing to remove the FARC from the list of terrorism in the United States. According to sources, the State Department is considering it. The theme was discussed in a forum of the United States Institute of Peace.
  - El Tiempo, 28 October 2021

• Marijuana vaping by school-aged youth doubled between 2013 and 2020 in the United States
  - CNN, 25 October 2021

• The growing problem of addictions to the Internet games designed to be addictive. In a paper published in journal, CNS Drugs, on Internet addiction, Martha Shaw and Donald W Black from the Department of Psychiatry, University of Iowa, classify gaming dependency as part of wider internet addiction. The paper defines this as "excessive or poorly controlled preoccupations, urges or behaviors regarding computer use and internet access that lead to impairment or distress".
  - BBC, 25 October 2021

• The violence that threatens peace in Colombia. Since 2017, every 6 days an ex-combatant of the Farc has been killed.
  - El Tiempo, 25 October 2021

• Costa Rica legalizes production of medicinal cannabis and hemp
  - Q Costa Rica, 20 October 2021

• Colombia's legislature votes to suspend an anti-fraud law ahead of 2022 elections, which prevents authorities from awarding public contracts in the six months before and after elections in order to prevent the creation of electoral slush funds. The suspension is probably unconstitutional, a sign of a desperate right-wing government wanting to remain in control in the face of little public support. The president has to sign it (likely), and the Constitutional Court has to approve it (uncertain).
  - Colombia Reports, 20 October 2021

• The security forces of Colombia have abandoned the Catatumbo region in the province of Norte de Santander, allowing illegal armed groups to rule the region instead of the lawful government. The power of the illegal armed groups has marginalized and corrupted local police and army units that are supposed to control the border with Venezuela. The illegal armed groups are vying for control over the border region that is one of the main coca growing regions of Colombia.
  - Colombia Reports, 14 October 2021

• Explosive detonation caused the death of a coca producer. The Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) reported that a new attack took place yesterday. After the explosion, the existence of a deceased person was found, from the regional Inquisivi, presumably due to cardiac arrest due to the loud detonation. "I am kind enough to inform you that last night we suffered a new attack, a dynamite explosion in the sector of Arapata street and Las Américas avenue. After this (the explosion) we found out that there had been a deceased person inside one of the sheds. We assume that, due to the dynamite explosion, the elderly person had a heart attack," said Marcelo Apaza from the Chamaca regional to the Yungas and Chasqui radio stations.
  - El Diario, 11 October 2021

• Less than three months before the end of 2021, the goal of forced eradication in Colombia of crops for illicit use established by the government of President Iván Duque is not even 50 percent. For this year, it was set to end, through forced eradication, 130,000 hectares planted with coca plants, but EL TIEMPO learned of the operational balance, which shows that between January 1 and October 4, 58,000 hectares have been uprooted, which is equivalent to 44.6 percent of the set goal.
  - El Tiempo, 10 October 2021

• The deputy Carlos Alarcón (CC) rejected and described as outrageous the announcements of the cocalero leader Arnold Alanes, about the creation of a new legal market for coca from the Yungas; he asked the Bolivian Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) government to respect the determinations of this organization. After the announcements about the establishment of a new headquarters for the legal coca market by the questioned leader, Alarcón maintained that a worrying level of deinstitutionalization and non-compliance with current regulations has been reached, when trying to establish a new market, despite being against the law.
  - El Diario, 08 October 2021

• A strong explosion was registered in the middle of the building. at 02:00 in the morning on Arapata street in the Villa Fátima, in La Paz, a few meters from the headquarters of the Departmental Association of Coca Leaf Producers (Adepcoca). The detonation affected a motorized vehicle, whose tire burst due to the shock wave, and also a building, which suffered the loss of several windows, among the material damage caused. People in the sector denounced that people related to Arnold Alanes intend to intimidate those who recovered the Yungas coca farm. Personnel from the Fire Department arrived at the sector to investigate the causes of the explosion. "The Alanes group has put dynamite, a vehicle was totally destroyed, the windows of this house were also destroyed, unfortunate what is happening," said one of the neighbors in a video.
  - El Deber, 07 October 2021

• An explosion occurred early Thursday morning near the market of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) in the Villa Fátima area of the city of La Paz, Bolivia. Firefighters reported that there is considerable material damage.
  - La Razon, 07 October 2021

• Legislators from Comunidad Ciudadana demand that the Bolivian Government Minister, Eduardo del Castillo, explain the extreme use of police force during the coca-growing conflict, over control of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers of La Paz (Adepcoca). The deputy María lena Reque, pointed out After monitoring the coca-growing conflict in the Villa Fátima area and in view of the abuses recorded during the confrontations between police officers and coca growers, which caused damage to the infrastructure of this organization and to the homes of local residents, it was decided to request an oral report from the Minister of Government.
  - El Diario, 07 October 2021

• Armin Lluta ceased to be the president of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) of Bolivia, whose assembly held yesterday determined to call elections in 20 or 30 days. "I am leaving for the health of the Yungas, for unity. I feel proud to have united my people. You have not come for me, you have come for this building (pointing to the coca-growing market), you have not fought for me, you have fought for this building," Lluta said in the Villa Fátima area. "The Government now has this message from Armin, that it never messes with Adepcoca again. But Armin has not stolen, he has not betrayed, he has not sold himself," said the leader.
  - El Diario, 06 October 2021

• After the recapture of the facilities of the legal market of the Association of Coca Producers of La Paz (Adepcoca), Senator Rodrigo Paz Pereira (CC) expressed his support. He said that this action was a humiliation for the Police and asked the forces of order not to defend political interests in Bolivia. The legislator made reference to the coca-growing conflict that ended with the recapture of the Adepcoca facilities, by grassroots producers, pointing out that just causes can win.
  - El Diario, 06 October 2021

• One drink of alcohol a day - for example, a cup of wine - increases a woman's risk of breast cancer by 14%. Drinking coca tea does not increase the risk of breast cancer.
  - Wired, 05 October 2021

• The Pandora Papers revealed details about the ties between Colombia's vice-president, the transport minister and a convicted money launderer. According to documents released as part of the Panama Papers dump, Vice President Marta Lucia Ramirez, Transport Minister Angela Maria Orozco and convicted money launderer Gustavo Hernandez owned a company on the Virgin Islands. Following the 2018 arrest of Hernandez in Italy, Ramirez and Orozco revealed that they had been in business with the convicted money launderer until 2012. The Pandora Papers revealed that the two ended up doing business with Hernandez through Ramirez's husband, Alvaro Rincon whose business ties to alleged drug lord "Memo Fantasma" were revealed last year.
  - Colombia Reports, 05 October 2021

• McKinsey & Company, an important advisor to corporate opioid drug traffickers, never told the FDA that it was working for these drug traffickers while at the same time it was advising the FDA on regulations for these drug traffickers and others in the pharmaceutical industry. Pablo Escobar could only have wished to have such advisors for his drug trafficking business.
  - ProPublica, 04 October 2021

• Crespa, gigante, tingo pajarito, pomarrosa and peruana blanca are the names of five of the 14 adaptations of the coca plant detected by the authorities in Colombia and that have arisen from technical manipulations carried out by experts at the service of drug traffickers to increase their productivity. After a couple of decades there are already 14 adaptations, some of which even grow and harvest in atmospheric conditions and soils in which they would not have survived before.
  - El Tiempo, 03 October 2021

• Given the radicalization of the coca-growing conflict at the Bolivian government headquarters and the vain attempts of the ruling party to dismantle this movement that compromises the Yungas region, analysts and parliamentarians warn that the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) has political and economic interests, in its intention to control coca leaf production at the national level.
  - El Diario, 01 October 2021

• A reliable source, who asked for secrecy, informed EL DIARIO that coca growers in the sector that supports Arnold Alanes carry a stamp that is recognized by police officers to release them in case they are apprehended or arrested and residents of Villa El Carmen during the confrontation between coca growers and police assured that they saw "infiltrators" throwing dynamite at their homes.
  - El Diario, 01 October 2021

• Colombia's Supreme Court has convicted former Senator and former Governor Luis Alfredo Ramos, one of the political patrons of President Ivan Duque, for Ramos' connections to drug traffickers and designated terrorists
  - Colombia Reports, 01 October 2021

• They warn "thrust" to substitution of crops in the Budget Law of Colombia. In Congress they pointed out that resources were taken from the program in the last tax reform and in this new initiative there are no other sources of financing. With US $84 million less for 2022, it would be $270 million that would be missing to execute the entire program.
  - El Espectador, 30 September 2021

• Everything you need to know about the conflict in Adepcoca. The cocalero conflict broke out five years ago, and for more than 10 days it has kept the residents of two neighborhoods in La Paz, Bolivia, in suspense.
  - Pagina Siete, 30 September 2021

• Adepcoca Hospital, in La Paz, ends with destruction after police repression of coca growers. Two hours of terror were experienced on Wednesday night by some 300 coca growers who took refuge inside the Adepcoca Hospital, in the face of police repression, pellet shots and dynamite explosions that they say were caused by 'infiltrators' operating with the uniformed men.
  - Pagina Siete, 30 September 2021

• Neighbors of Villa El Carmen in La Paz, Bolivia, demand police withdrawal for "abuses". "We are on 4th Street, they have gassed us, we are upset, they are hiding the pellets. We have nothing to do with it, there are children, the elderly, and the sick." a neighbor in statements to radio FM Bolivia.
  - El Diario, 30 September 2021

• The intervention of Adepcoca (Departmental Association of Coca Producers of La Paz), the recognition of a leadership related to the MAS and the repression of cocaleros not aligned with that party reveal a plan for former president Evo Morales to become the "baron" of coca, former leaders agree. According to their analysis, the strategy consists of creating a matrix organization that brings together the cocaleros of the Yungas (La Paz) and Chapare (Cochabamba) to be led by Morales, president of MAS and the Six Federations of the Cochabamba Tropics.
  - Pagina Siete, 29 September 2021

• A cocalero from the Yungas denounced the that five hooded men beat him and threw stones when he tried to escape from the police repression that broke out Tuesday afternoon at Villa Fátima. The young man, who managed to flee the scene, assured that the attack occurred in complicity with the police, whom he said witnessed the event and did nothing to prevent it. "The actions of the Bolivian Police who work with infiltrators, people of Arnold Alanes (the coca grower leader of the MAS) were very reprehensible. TThey were hooded (their aggressors), I tried to go up, but the young people grabbed me for no reason and beat me, I had to escape by any means down and the Police did nothing, before their eyes they hit me, they threw stones at me, they threw dynamite and they did nothing," the attacked man told Página Site Digital.
  - Pagina Siete, 29 September 2021

• Tired of enduring intense gasification, the residents of Villa El Carmen blocked the secondary roads of the place yesterday, with sheet metal, iron and asked for peace, from the police and the coca growers who insisted on retaking the headquarters of the Association of Coca Producers of La Paz (Adepcoca). Another day of conflict occurred yesterday between cocaleros from the Yungas and the Police, characterized by intense gassing by the troops from the olive green, before which cocaleros, who continued trying to retake the headquarters, responded by exploding sticks of dynamite. The leader of Adepcoca recognized by the Government, Arnold Alanes, for his part, tried to approach the coca-growing women who demand the recovery of the coca market and asked for the formation of a commission to speak.
  - El Diario, 29 September 2021

• Carlos Choque, leader of the Council of Peasant Federations of the Yungas (Cofecay), maintained that the government seeks to legalize red zones and put "in a bag" the coca growers of the Yungas (La Paz) and Chapare (Cochabamba). In addition, he assured that Adepcoca is a private association. "The Government of Bolivia wants to legalize the red zones that are in the La Asunta and Chamaca sectors. It wants to put us in a pocket in the Chapare and Yungas sectors of La Paz. We who are from the original and ancestral zone cannot allow this whole situation," Choque told Radio Compañera. The leader stated that his sector, not aligned to the MAS, must defend its market "with nails and teeth". He assured Adepcoca does not belong to the Government, since it is a private and not a public association.
  - Pagina Siete, 29 September 2021

• Five years of confrontation and several attempts by the MAS to take over Adepcoca are preliminary aspects of the new wave of violence that is taking place in Villa Fátima, La Paz. According to opposition lawyers and assembly members, the bottom line of this dispute is that the ruling party seeks to have a monopoly or total control of coca leaf production, does not want independent organizations and legalize illicit crops, among other things. Yesterday Villa Fátima and Villa El Carmen once again became scenes of confrontation between coca growers, who demand the return of their market, in the hands of a leader related to the MAS, and members of the Police, with the exchange of chemical agents, pellets, stones, and dynamite 'puppies.'
  - Los Tiempos, 29 September 2021

• Police and cocaleros clash again and violence returns to Villa Fátima in La Paz, Bolivia. The requests for pacification of the affected neighbors did not have an echo. The afternoon of this Tuesday returned to violence with gases and the detonation of dynamite puppies. Dozens of residents marched with white flags demanding an end to the violence. Others set up a kind of barricade to prevent cocaleros and police from entering different streets.
  - La Razon, 28 September 2021

• The governments of the United States and Colombia are seeking a new bilateral counternarcotics strategy. In a press statement, the so-called Counternarcotics Work Group said officials from both countries have been working on a "new bilateral strategy" to combat drug trafficking.
  - Colombia Reports, 27 September 2021

• Five years after peace deal, Colombia is running out of time, experts say. A treaty with the largest group of rebels waging war, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in 2016 called for the end of a decades-long war. But that is not the same as achieving peace, and the window for doing so may be closing.
  - New York Times, 26 September 2021

• The United States House of Representatives passed a bill that banned American defense funds for the aerial spraying of coca, the base ingredient of cocaine, in Colombia. The bill that was sponsored by Democratic House Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez additionally bans possible US funds for arms and training of the National Police's anti-riot unit ESMAD.
  - Colombia Reports, 24 September 2021

• Colombia's mass media have been spreading disinformation over an allegedly growing public security crisis in the capital Bogota that is contradicted by local security statistics. The weekly magazine, Semana, which is close to the far-right government of President Ivan Duque and which publishes little favorable to coca, published multiple reports on the "wave of insecurity" in the "capital of fear" over the past few days. Semana claimed on Wednesday that "the critical insecurity situation in the country's capital is reflected by official indicators", which is false. Bogota security statistics indicate that reported crimes in the capital went down 24% in the first eight months of 2021 compares to the same period last year.
  - Colombia Reports, 17 September 2021

• Over 300 million people in China are still addicted to the highly addictive, deadly, nicotine of tobacco smoking, yet the addictive drug is entirely legal. But China still prohibits sales of healthy coca tea.
  - South China Morning Post, 16 September 2021

• Colombia expropriates real estate developed by the husband of Vice President Marta Lucia Ramirez and an alleged drug trafficker, "Memo Fantasma". Fantasma, whose real name is Guillermo Leon Acevedo, was arrested in July in Bogota where the alleged mafia kingpin owned part of the office building that was developed by the company of Martinez's husband Alvaro Rincon. The prosecution is investigating whether or not the VP's husband knowingly took part in the laundering of drug money through real estate development.
  - Colombia Reports, 15 September 2021

• Food scientists say they have found a way to create that perfect chocolate that simplifies the traditional "tempering" process of repeatedly heating and cooling chocolate. They discovered that adding a key component in cocoa butter fat to melted chocolate helps to hold it together and give it an ideal structure, simply and inexpensively. They selected a specific molecule, a saturated phospholipid, to "seed" the formation of proper cocoa butter crystals.
  - Phys.org, 13 September 2021

• The Sacklers, the opioid drug trafficking family, is being offered a horrible deal to settle charges by states that their drug trafficking company, Purdue Pharma, caused more than $2 trillion in damages. The drug trafficking Sacklers are being shielded from civil litigation, and will be able to keep billions of dollars of their drug trafficking projects. Companies (especially those that are legal drug traffickers) like Purdue and (drug trafficking) families like the Sacklers should never find refuge in bankruptcy court. After all, these sweetheart deals are offered to cocaine and marijuana drug traffickers.
  - New York Times, 11 September 2021

• The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday put off a long-anticipated ruling on whether Juul Labs and other major nicotine drug-trafficking (e-cigarette) companies could continue to traffick their addictive products in the United States.
  - New York Times, 10 September 2021

• Panama unveils extent of participation in drug trafficking by government officials. Those arrested included acting service members from Panama's Air Force and Navy, a captain in the presidential guard, and airport security staff, according to Panama's attorney general, Javier Caraballo. A high-ranking official from the Attorney General's Office, who acted as a substitute judge, was also detained for allegedly helping the group launder their drug proceeds.
  - Insight Crime, 09 September 2021

• A court convicted two more former aides (two earlier were convicted) of Colombia's former President Alvaro Uribe for taking part in a criminal organization that operated from the presidential palace. A 2015 Supreme Court sentence indicated that the criminal organization that operated from inside the presidential palace was led by Uribe's former chief of staff, Bernardo Moreno (one convicted earlier).
  - Colombia Reports, 09 September 2021

• Chemically, caffeine looks similar enough to adenosine on the molecular level that it occupies those binding sites, preventing adenosine from binding to those brain receptors. As a result, caffeine works to temporarily suppress sleep pressure, making us feel more awake. Meanwhile, adenosine continues to build up in the body. "Once caffeine wears off, you get a very high level of sleep pressure, and you have to pay it back.", Dr. Blackshaw said. In fact, the only way to relieve and reset an elevated level of sleep pressure is with sleep. And, the more we drink caffeine, the more we build up our body's tolerance to it. Our liver adapts by making proteins that break down caffeine faster, and the adenosine receptors in our brain multiply, so that they can continue to be sensitive to adenosine levels to regulate our sleep cycle. Ultimately, continued or increased caffeine consumption negatively impacts sleep, which will also make you feel more tired.
  - New York Times, 08 September 2021

• The former leaders of the Cali Cartel accused Colombia's former President Andres Pastrana of blackmailing them into accusing his predecessor of corruption. Pastrana last week published a letter in which Gilberto and Miguel Rodriguez claimed that former President Ernesto Samper knew in 1994 that the drug cartel was funding his campaign. According to the Cali Cartel founders, the former president's personal physician visited the drug lords in prison and, "on behalf of Pastrana", said they would be extradited to the United States unless they signed off on the letter. The Rodriguez brothers said that the letter was never meant to made public, but to silence Samper over corruption scandals that were embarrassing Pastrana.
  - El Pais, 08 September 2021

• The former leaders of the Cali Cartel accused Colombia's former President Andres Pastrana of blackmailing them into accusing his predecessor of corruption. Pastrana last week published a letter in which Gilberto and Miguel Rodriguez claimed that former President Ernesto Samper knew in 1994 that the drug cartel was funding his campaign. According to the Cali Cartel founders, the former president's personal physician visited the drug lords in prison and, "on behalf of Pastrana", said they would be extradited to the United States unless they signed off on the letter. The Rodriguez brothers said that the letter was never meant to made public, but to silence Samper over corruption scandals that were embarrassing Pastrana.
  - Colombia Reports, 08 September 2021

• How the FBI's failed war on drugs partially diverted attention of the FBI from preventing the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center that killed thousands
  - Zero Hedge, 08 September 2021

• How so much of our economy, from PepsiCo Frito-Lay chip brands to Facebook's Instagram, to Twitter, to Activision Blizzard video games -- and all sugary beverages - is based on making customers or users into addicts in the classic sense of a dopamine-producing narcotic drug
  - Zero Hedge, 07 September 2021

• Opinion: the United States desperately needs a much better FDA, one that is not alarmingly cozy with the industry it is supposed to oversee, one that doesn't play a central role in accelerating drug epidemics (such as with opioids)
  - New York Times, 06 September 2021

• Colombia's 2016 peace deal was lauded for bringing to an end the longest-running war in the Americas. But five years on, aggressive counter-narcotics tactics and unkept government pledges are blamed for fueling distrust in rural areas of coca growing regions and driving a new cycle of violence.
  - The New Humanitarian, 31 August 2021

• In the mountains and jungles of southwestern Colombia, peasants, migrants and women carrying babies toil doggedly in the coca fields despite the dangers posed by guerrillas and drug traffickers -- and despite the government's anti-drug campaign. "Coca (plantations) were born as a response to institutional abandonment... and have allowed everyone in these areas to achieve a minimum of dignity," said Azael Cabrera, the leader of Agropatia, an organization representing 12 rural communities and townships.
  - France24, 30 August 2021

• Cocaine production soars in Colombia as the oil industry suffers economically due to the coronavirus pandemic and anti-government demonstrations
  - OilPrice.com, 29 August 2021

• The government of China publishes draft guidelines that propose to forbid Internet companies from deploying algorithms that "encourage addiction or high consumption".
  - TechCrunch, 27 August 2021

• The country of Montenegro pledges to eliminate cigarette smuggling through its country. Investigators and journalists were killed while trying to expose smugglers. Now the country is cracking down on a trade it once protected. For many years, the United States supported the government's efforts that tolerated the nicotine trafficking.
  - New York Times, 25 August 2021

• Authorities are reluctant to investigate evidence indicating that Cali police and Colombia's largest supermarket chain Exito conspired to cover up crimes against humanity (Exito being one supermarket chain refusing to sell coca tea products). Facebook has censored news about what locals now call the 'Apocalipso' supermarket because one of Facebook Colombia's news moderators, website La Silla Vacia, branded the it as "fake news". Exito is one of the biggest clients of the family business of La Silla Vacia owner Juanita Leon, whose political website on multiple occasions branded news as "fake" without verification. La Silla Vacia refuses to publish positive stories about the industrialization of the coca leaf.
  - Colombia Reports, 20 August 2021

• FARC dissidents seek consolidation in the southwest of Colombia, in the provinces of Nariño, Cauca and Valle del Cauca. The municipalities across Colombia that are effectively controlled by the different FARC dissident groups are home to more than 85% of Colombia's coca cultivations. Not surprisingly, the main source of revenue of all FARC dissident groups is the cultivation of coca, the base ingredient of cocaine.
  - Colombia Reports, 19 August 2021

• The Biden administration announced on Wednesday that it is banning chlorpyrifos, a common pesticide, widely used since 1965 on fruits and vegetables, from use on food crops because it has been linked to neurological damage in children. The EPA will reverse a Trump-era decision to allow use of the dangerous chemical.
  - New York Times, 19 August 2021

• The drug-trafficking family, the Sacklers, the billionaire owners of Purdue Pharma - the biggest opioid drug trafficking syndicate ever, vowed in court on Tuesday that the family would walk away from a $4.5 billion pledge to help communities nationwide that have been devastated by the opioid epidemic due to their drug trafficking, unless a judge grants the drug trafficking family immunity from all current and future civil claims associated with the company. Purdue and the actions of Sackler family members, who as hands-on board members took a keen interest in drastically downplaying the addictive qualities of OxyContin in marketing efforts to increase the billions possible from drug trafficking, have been widely implicated in the opioid epidemic.
  - New York Times, 18 August 2021

• Police in Cali tried to detain the voluntary bodyguards of journalist Jose Alberto Tejada, who has been suffering threats after reporting on police brutality in Colombia's third largest city. The threat is followed a series of reports in which the journalist exposed evidence of the mass violation of human rights allegedly committed by the Cali Police Department in collusion with armed civilians.
  - Colombia Reports, 15 August 2021

• Carlos Ardila, one of the most powerful oligarchs in Colombia, worth over $2 billion, dies at the age of 91, with his four children inheriting his business empire. The owner of Postobon, with the rights to sell Pepsi in Colombia. Asocaña (the sugar plantation owners' association) and Ardila's sugar company, Incauca, are among the main recipients of government benefits in Colombia. RCN was one of the driving forces behind the 2002 election of far-right President Alvaro Uribe while Postobon allegedly sponsored paramilitary organization AUC. Uribe rewarded Ardila by leasing state-owned land in the southwestern Cauca province to Incauca, one of Ardila's sugar companies, in 2005. This deal created major tensions between Ardila and indigenous people from Cauca, who had been promised this land in compensation for a paramilitary massacre. Former paramilitaries began revealing the extent of the alleged ties between Ardila's corporations and the organization that was declared a foreign terrorist organization by the US Government in 2001.
  - Colombia Reports, 15 August 2021

• Book review: "THE DOPE: the real history of the Mexican drug trade" - the phony way on drugs. The author argues that mythmaking and storytelling have served to "demonize the drug traffickers and cement the narrative of the drug war as a struggle between good and evil". Despite the inescapable truth that the illicit trade is caused by and feeds America's unending demand for narcotics, this portrayal of Mexico has tilted American political realities to fuel the fires of racism.
  - New York Times, 14 August 2021

• Demand for marijuana from California 'explodes' amongst consumers in Mexico, who want to smoke the most prestigious marijuana possible for their Instagram photos
  - Zero Hedge, 14 August 2021

• Rising rates of depression and anxiety in wealthy countries like the U.S. may be a result of our brains getting hooked on the neurotransmitter associated with pleasure, due to cellphone apps and social media that are designed to be addictive by visual and audio stimulation, such as the addictively designed videogames. Not everyone plays videogames, but just about all of us have a digital drug of choice, and it probably involves using a smartphone -- the equivalent of the hypodermic needle for a wired generation.
  - Wall Street Journal, 14 August 2021

• Drug trafficking is profitable with little risk of jail, if you are Jewish and can afford to bribe politicians. The Sackler family, ringleaders of a huge opioid drug trafficking racket that is wrecking havoc with American public health, by spending millions on lobbyists to bribe politicians, will settle all criminal charges without any family members going to jail, by paying about $4 billion dollars in fines, leaving the drug trafficking family with over $6 billion in assets - money that will be effectively untouchable by opioid crisis victims, even though it is Purdue going bankrupt, not the Sacklers. Meanwhile, small time drug traffickers go to jail for life for selling hundreds of dollars of drugs.
  - The Intercept, 13 August 2021

• Government data shows that lockdowns in England to fight the coronavirus caused an extra 1 million people to become legally addicted to alcohol, a drug more addictive and destructive than two illegal drugs, marijuana and coca tea
  - Summit News, 13 August 2021

• U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency gives an award to a police commander in Mexico whose unit is accused of a grisly massacre of 19 migrants. Félix Arturo Rodríguez Rodríguez, the commander of an elite U.S.-trained state police unit, received the award from the DEA for his team's extensive and continuing collaboration with U.S. law enforcement agencies, despite 12 members of his team in jail while prosecutors investigate their role in the murder of the 19 migrants. Rodríguez and his officers have been linked to a string of kidnappings and extrajudicial killings going back years. The unit is considered the personal enforcement arm of the governor of Tamaulipas, Francisco García Cabeza de Vaca, a prominent ally of some U.S. border hawks and currently under investigation by federal authorities in Mexico City for money laundering and organized crime.
  - The Intercept, 10 August 2021

• Colombia can become a major exporter of marijuana, after a new law in July that allows the export of dried marijuana flower. Already, Portugal has become a European hub for marijuana growing, and Colombia has a better climate. The average production cost for 1 gram of dried marijuana flower is 6 cents in Colombia, compared to about $1.25 in the United States.
  - Bloomberg, 09 August 2021

• Nicotine drug trafficking companies, the tobacco giants such as Philip Morris, are counting on sales of noncombustible, nicotine trafficking, products to replace carcinogenic, nicotine trafficking, cigarettes. Government taxes will influence how quickly that happens.
  - Wall Street Journal, 09 August 2021

• Pedro Castillo, the new leftist president of Peru, with enough legal backing, control of the regions where the coca leaf is grown, a paramilitary acting as his local enforcer, and command of the army, Mr. Castillo could easily copy the model used by Evo Morales in Bolivia to build a narco-state and stay in power indefinitely.
  - Wall Street Journal, 09 August 2021

• Colombia's military remains the second largest in Latin America, with nearly 10,600 troops retiring each year. Many struggle to find work in a country where nearly 43 percent of the population is in poverty. Facing few prospects, former service members have ended up providing security for drug traffickers or even leading illegal paramilitary units. Colombia needs a version of America's G.I. Bill - the legislation that helped propel millions of World War II, Korean War and Vietnam War veterans into the middle class - that would offer much more generous benefits than the Colombian government currently does.
  - New York Times, 08 August 2021

• The growing mercenary industry of Colombia. Exporting soldiers has become a vast industry in Colombia, fueled by the country's long U.S.-backed failed war against cocaine, limited opportunity at home and growing demand abroad.
  - New York Times, 08 August 2021

• Security forces in Bolivia eradicated more than 2,800 hectares of coca crops between April and June 2021, over half of which was in Cochabamba. Much a waste of time, as the coca farmers will wait awhile, and then replant.
  - Dialogo, 03 August 2021

• The U.S. State Department is trying to interfere with the attempt by the Attorney General of Guatemala, Maria Consuelo Porras, to restore the rule of law to efforts of the government of Guatemala to crack down on corruption
  - Wall Street Journal, 01 August 2021

• The main Inca highway, from Ecuador through Peru into Bolivia, still benefits people living nearby. A new study finds that wages, nutrition and schooling levels along the Incan mountain roadway are all unusually high.
  - The Economist, 21 July 2021

• People who drink more than six cups of coffee a day had a 53 percent increased risk of dementia
  - SciTechDaily, 30 July 2021

• The attorney general of Guatemala fired a top prosecutor of corruption last week. Heeding calls by Indigenous leaders for a 'paro nacional', or nationwide shutdown, on Thursday, communities and social movements marched, rallied, and blocked roads around the country to demand the president and attorney general resign.
  - The Intercept, 30 July 2021

• An Italian town, Cervia, produces a naturally sweet salt sold mostly locally. A chocolate shop offers bars made with the sweet salt of Cervia and no sugar.
  - Atlas Obscura, 27 July 2021

• Lawsuits and trials involving claims that talc in Johnson & Johnson's baby powder caused cancer are ramping up again, with a new complaint filed in the United States on Tuesday on behalf of the National Council of Negro Women. The group accused the company of "knowingly deceptive marketing to Black women" for decades, despite internal concerns that the product might be harmful. Sugar might cause cancer as much as talc might cause cancer - are sugary beverage companies aware of this risk?
  - New York Times, 27 July 2021

• Colombia's far-right President Ivan Duque swore in Juan Carlos Pinzon, the nephew of a convicted drug trafficker, as his new ambassador in the United States on Monday -- one of many people in Duque's administration with ties to drug traffickers. Still, the U.S. Congress has shown no concern about Duque's multiple political allies with ties to drug traffickers, and the Congress plans to continue sending hundreds of millions of dollars of 'counter'-narcotics aid to Bogota in 2022.
  - Colombia Reports, 27 July 2021

• A province in Canada, British Columbia, has launched a prescription program to distribute strong, untainted opioids to users in a bid to reduce overdoses, sparking both plaudits and criticism. Doctors in the province will now be able to prescribe stronger drugs like hydromorphone, an opioid that is five times more powerful than morphine; Dexedrine, a stimulant for cocaine and methamphetamine users; and tablets of fentanyl, a potent synthetic opioid. The program is the latest attempt by health authorities in British Columbia to get a devastating overdose epidemic under control.
  - Wall Street Journal, 25 July 2021

• Nicotine drug-trafficker company, Philip Morris, calls for bad on cigarettes within ten years, as it tries to transition to being a "healthcare and wellness" company. No mention is made of how Philip Morris for decades profited from earning billions selling a product that killed tens of millions of people by getting them addicted to the most addictive drug on the planet, nicotine. Maybe Philip Morris might want to help the world of the coca leaf as atonement.
  - The Guardian, 25 July 2021

• Two drug trafficking associates will preside over Colombia's Senate and House of Representatives as President Ivan Duque finishes his term after his 2018 election with mafia support. The election of Senate President Juan Diego Gomez and House president Jennifer Arias highlights how the historical mafia influence in Colombia's legislature is becoming increasingly visible.
  - Colombia Reports, 23 July 2021

• America's failed 'war' on drug 'successfully' imprisoned millions of Black Americans while giving nice jobs to mostly white people ineptly fighting the 'war' on drugs. Although Nixon declared the war on drugs on June 17, 1971, the U.S. already had lots of practice imposing drug prohibitions that had racially skewed impacts. The arrival of Chinese migrants in the 1800s saw the rise of criminalizing opium that migrants brought with them. Cannabis went from being called "reefer" to "marijuana", as a way to associate the plant with Mexican migrants arriving in the U.S. in the 1930s. By the time Nixon sought reelection amid the anti-Vietnam War and Black power movements, criminalizing heroin was a way to target anti-war and Black activists and hippies. One of Nixon's domestic policy aides, John Ehrlichman, admitted as much about the war on drugs in a 22-year-old interview published by Harper's Magazine in 2016. Once again, hate pays well for white Christian Americans.
  - Associated Press, 23 July 2021

• Three opioid drug traffickers/distributors -- Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen and McKesson, and drug traffickers/producer Johnson & Johnson -- agree to pay a fine of $26 billion to U.S. states from their huge role in the opioid drug crisis that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. Unlike minority drug traffickers, not a single highly paid (white) executive is going to jail for engaging in these drug trafficking activities. And reaping huge profits are the lawyers working this agreement.
  - New York Times, 22 July 2021

• A DEA agent, a probationary employee, Mark Sami Ibrahim, is arrested for participating in the January 6th treasonous riot by Trump supporters
  - CNBC, 20 July 2021

• Along with the violence to the flow cocaine through their country, rural Guatemalans are fleeing to the United States (or are at least trying to) because of global warming - property destruction from hurricanes and failed crops that along with crime leaves them in extreme poverty
  - Politico, 19 July 2021

• Colombia's former ambassador to Chile admitted before the war crimes tribunal he ransacked his native province of Sucre and terrorized locals to advance his political career, basically turning his government into a criminal mafia. Former Ambassador Salvador Arana sent a shockwave through Sucre after exposing the alleged terrorist activity of more than two dozen businessmen, politicians and police officials from the Caribbean province of Colombia. Arana is a conservative ally of ex-president Uribe. In February 2003, El Roble mayor Edualdo Leon Diaz told Uribe on live television that he feared for his life after filing criminal charges against Arana. Two months later, Diaz was dead as the former governor ordered his death squad to torture and kill his critic.
  - Colombia Reports, 19 July 2021

• Tourists in Colombia can now take hikes in the jungle with guides who used to be members of the FARC leftist group of guerrillas who are now transitioning to peaceful pursuits. They are based in Mesetas, a town about 4 hours south of Bogota.
  - NPR, 19 July 2021

• How the drug trafficking divisions of Big Pharma earned billions in profits while fueling the opioid crisis that has 500,000 people, with more to die in the future - a health crisis caused by this form of legal drug trafficking with the support of the FDA, and orchestrated by the Sackler drug trafficking family
  - Democracy Now, 19 July 2021

• How the Sackler family used their increasing wealth to become one of the biggest legal drug traffickers (opioids) in the world, bribing doctors for favorably publicity, acting philanthropically like Pablo Escobar, are using an army of lawyers charging tens of millions of dollars to scare anyone probing into their drug trafficking. As one academic put it: "there is little to distinguish the control the Sacklers exercised over Purdue from the control that the godfather held over his Mafia family". But instead of jail for the crimes committed by all of the Sacklers and all of their executives and all of their lawyers, the government allowed them to collapse into bankruptcy, while the Sackler family has ove $10 billion of personal fortune - the riches of legal drug trafficking. A preferential treatment that minorities never get for their drug trafficking.
  - New York Times, 18 July 2021

• A government-commissioned review of the food industry in the United Kingdom recommends a new tax on the salt and sugar used in processed foods and restaurant-made foods, with the proceeds used to deliver fresh fruits and vegetables to poorer families. Poor diet contributes to about 64,000 deaths in England each year (more deaths that deaths due to illegal drug use), with Type 2 diabetes projected to cost the National Health Service $20 billion a year by 2035.
  - New York Times, 15 July 2021

• A government-commissioned review of the food industry in the United Kingdom recommends a new tax on the salt and sugar used in processed foods and restaurant-made foods, with the proceeds used to deliver fresh fruits and vegetables to poorer families. Poor diet contributes to about 64,000 deaths in England each year (more deaths that deaths due to illegal drug use), with Type 2 diabetes projected to cost the National Health Service $20 billion a year by 2035.
  - El Iberco, 15 July 2021

• Caffeine makes us more energetic, efficient and faster. But we have become so dependent that we need it just to get to our baseline? 90% of humans ingest caffeine regularly, making it the most widely used psychoactive drug in the world, and the only one we routinely give to children (unhealthy sugary sodas). The predictable symptoms of caffeine withdrawal like other addictive drugs: headache, fatigue, lethargy, difficulty concentrating, decreased motivation, irritability, intense distress, loss of confidence and dysphoria.
  - The Guardian, 06 July 2021

• 15 U.S. states reach a deal with the opioid drug trafficking company, Perdue Pharma, that would pave the way toward a settlement of at least $4.5 billion and resolve thousands of opioid cases. The states decided late Wednesday to drop their opposition to Purdue's bankruptcy reorganization plan, in exchange for a release of millions of documents and an additional $50 million from members of the Sackler family, the company's owners.
  - New York Times, 08 July 2021

• The human rights commission of the Organization of American States (OAS) put the increasingly authoritarian president of Colombia, Ivan Duque, on its list of suspected despots on Wednesday. He is joining the dictators of Nicaragua and Venezuela on this list.
  - Colombia Reports, 08 July 2021

• Without a shred of evidence, Colombia's controversial defense minister Diego Molano on Wednesday claimed that illegal armed groups are behind anti-government protests called for July 20. Jorge Ivan Ospina, mayor of Cali, who has stepped up efforts to recover the peace after Molano plunged his city in crisis, refused to confirm the defense minister's latest conspiracy theory because of the lack of evidence.
  - Colombia Reports, 08 July 2021

• Gangs in Medellin, Colombia, have as many members - at least 3000 - as does that country's last-standing guerrilla group, the ELN, has in all of Colombia
  - Colombia Reports, 06 July 2021

• Nicotine drug trafficker's new tactic for corruption - for $51,000, it bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal (the American Journal of Health Behavior), with all 11 articles written by authors on its payroll, all of the whored articles claiming to offer 'evidence' that Juul products help smokers quit. Part of the whored price includes a fee of $6,500 to unlock the article to the public. One of the many reasons that drug traffickers are so profitable, for in late 2018, much bigger nicotine drug trafficker Altria bought 35 percent of Juul at a valuation equal to that of real companies such as Target, Delta Airlines and Ford Motor Company.
  - American Prospect, 06 July 2021

• Nicotine drug trafficker Juul faces declining sales and thousands of lawsuits claiming it knowingly sold its trendy vaping products to minors. Soon the F.D.A. will decide whether it can keep selling them at all.
  - New York Times, 06 July 2021

• The president of Colombia, Ivan Duque, and his administration, appear to have given up on combating drug trafficking 50 years after the beginning of the disastrous War on Drugs. They seem to have abandoned aerial spraying of coca plants with cancer-causing pesticides, no one believes their statistics on manual eradication, and multiple members of the ruling party are under investigation for links to drug trafficking.
  - Colombia Reports, 05 July 2021

• Colombia puts in jail Guillermo León Acevedo, a money-launderer for drug cartels for decades. Acevedo was discovered, in 2020, to be in business with the husband of the Vice President of Colombia, Marta Lucia Ramirez. The brother of Ramirez is a convicted former heroin trafficker. The arrest of Acevedo puts pressure on the conservative and Christian elite of Colombia that tries to come across as legitimate, but is confronted with mounting evidence they could be nothing more than puppets, an elaborate front doing much of the money laundering for the local mafia and drug traffickers.
  - Colombia Reports, 03 July 2021

• Retail stockbroker Robinhood's mission is to "democratize finance for all", is similar to Pablo Escobar saying his mission was to "democratize cocaine". Robinhood is trying to monetize the addictive nature of day trading of stocks, and let us be honest, day trading by non-professionals is pure gambling.
  - Zero Hedge, 03 July 2021

• The increasingly unsafe and unregulated market for Delta-8-THC, a legal (for now) but weaker form of Delta-9-THC (the main psychoactive chemical in marijuana), with Delta-8-THC legally and easily derived from chemically reacting CBD (the legal chemical in hemp. The result is a Delta-8 market that is fast-moving, prone to malpractice, and intensely mistrustful of itself.
  - Inverse, 30 June 2021

• Nicotine drug trafficker Juul Labs has agreed to pay North Carolina $40 million and change its business practices in the state in a settlement of a teen marketing lawsuit. Regulators and health officials have blamed Juul for the surging popularity of e-cigarettes among teens in recent years. FNR
  - CNBC, 28 June 2021

• The U.S. FDA added a warning about the risk of developing heart inflammation to information about the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines. There have been more than 1,200 cases of pericarditis or myocarditis in individuals who are aged 30 or younger who have received the vaccine doses. They probably could have made this warning earlier, if they weren't selling permission to Biogen for its useful (and public health bankrupting) Alzheimer's drug.
  - Zero Hedge, 28 June 2021

• California Senate Bill 519 would legalize psilocybin (magic mushrooms), 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), dimethyltryptamine (DMT), ibogaine, and mescaline, except for peyote, recently passed the State Senate on a 21-16 floor vote
  - CBS News, 28 June 2021

• The United Kingdom staring in 2023 will band advertising for junk food products - those high in fat, sugar and salt
  - Zero Hedge, 27 June 2021

• Opioid drug trafficker Johnson & Johnson has agreed to pay $230 million to New York state to settle claims that the pharmaceutical giant helped fuel the opioid crisis. The drug trafficker also agreed to permanently end the manufacturing and distribution of opioids across New York and the rest of the nation, opioids developed by a subsidiary and accounting for less than 1% of the market. Cocaine drug traffickers wish they could get similar 'sweet' deals for their crimes.
  - NPR, 26 June 2021

• How the CIA turned Afghanistan into a failed narco-state. The war in Afghanistan has looked a lot like the war on drugs in Latin America, with a rapid militarization of the area and the empowerment of pliant local elites.
  - Mint Press News, 25 June 2021

• Cannabis users are more likely to think about and attempt suicide even if they are not depressed - and women are at greater risk than men
  - Daily Mail, 22 June 2021

• How economic 'progress' in Colombia has left millions of Black and indigenous citizens, who comprise 15% of the population, excluded from economic growth that mostly benefits the white elite.
  - Foreign Policy, 18 June 2021

• Glyphosate pesticides persist for years in wild forest plants, and reduce flower fertility in the long-term while potentially harming pollinators
  - EurekaAlert, 16 June 2021

• Marta Lucía Ramírez, Colombia's vice-president, on Tuesday implied/lied to the press that 40,000 weapons were seized from anti-government protesters as the government began drowning in criminal charges - alleged crimes against humanity. As part of the lie, the VP and the Defense Ministry are trying to associate every single misdemeanor committed in Colombia to the anti-government protests.
  - Colombia Reports, 09 June 2021

• The failed war on drugs by the United States, fueled by a huge demand for cocaine in the United States, helped unleash the violence in Colombia today. Efforts to combat narcotics militarized security forces in the country, thanks to the U.S. providing lots of military equipment and nearly $10 billion to the military of Colombia without demanding results nor progress, neither of which was achieved.
  - Washington Post, 08 June 2021

• Costa Rica Saludable, a public health group in Costa Rica, expresses concern about a 'health' alliance between the Ministry of Health and the Coca-Cola Company, arguing Coca-Cola's unhealthy products worsened covid. A study published by the Global Health Advocacy Incubator indicates that despite the evident need of many countries to adopt healthy diets, the Pandemic created an opportunity for the ultra-processed food and beverage industry to grow in low- and middle-income nations. "During the crisis, multinationals like Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Nestlé, among others, quickly promoted unhealthy, ultra-processed foods and sugary drinks."
  - The Costa Rica News, 07 June 2021

• From 1999 to 2017, the number of alcohol-related deaths in the U.S. doubled, to more than 70,000 a year -- making alcohol one of the leading drivers of the decline in American life expectancy, much worse than cocaine.
  - The Atlantic, 01 June 2021

• A leaked, internal, Nestlé company presentation states that more than 60% of Nestle's core food and beverage products are unhealthy, and that some Nestle products will never be healthy no matter how much they are modified
  - Bloomberg, 01 June 2021

• On May 23rd, less than two weeks ahead of Peru's presidential run-off election, 16 people were massacred in a remote village in an area known as 'VRAEM', the valley of the Apurímac, Ene and Mantaro rivers, where coca is grown.
  - Economist, 29 May 2021

• Bayer said it will evaluate whether to continue using glyphosate, the active ingredient in its popular Roundup weedkiller, in the residential U.S. market, in the wake of a court setback Wednesday in the company's efforts to limit future liability over whether the product causes cancer
  - Wall Street Journal, 26 May 2021

• A Dutch court on Wednesday ruled oil giant Royal Dutch Shell must reduce its carbon emissions by 45% by 2030 from 2019 levels. The lawsuit was filed in April 2019 by seven activist groups, claiming that Shell's business model "is endangering human rights and lives" by posing a threat to the goals laid out in the Paris Agreement.
  - CNBC, 26 May 2021

• Deeply-rooted racism of the white elite in Colombia's third largest city Cali poses a genocide risk for the local black community. The city has a long history of institutionalized racism and white supremacy that has its origin in the city's leading role in Colombia's exploitation of slaves in sugar plantations of the Valle del Cauca province.
  - Colombia Reports, 23 May 2021

• A major right-wing television network in Colombia, RCN, needed less than three minutes to imply that armed conflict victims may be part of a communist plot to destroy the paradise Colombia was while at war. Friday evening's news broadcast failed to inform the public on what was happening in Colombia, but gave a unique insight in RCN's increasingly hilarious conspiracy theories, live bloopers and utter nonsense and lies.
  - Colombia Reports, 22 May 2021

• How Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook lie about how Facebook is contributing to the declining mental health of children where use of social media such, especially Facebook, causes depression in children - hurting more children than do drugs
  - NPR, 18 May 2021

• How legalizing the base ingredient of cocaine could save indigenous lives. A top presidential candidate has proposed bolstering the country's tiny existing legal coca industry in an effort to help reduce harm to locals in the major cocaine producing nation.
  - Vice, 18 May 2021

• A diet high in sugar and fat impairs the immune defenses of the human intestine by disturbing its resident bacteria
  - Nature, 18 May 2021

• There is no safe level of alcohol consumption for brain health. Moderate consumption is associated with more widespread adverse effects on the brain than previously recognized.
  - Univ. of Oxford, 12 May 2021

• Flora Growth, a cannabis company farming medicinal marijuana in Colombia, goes public in the U.S. on the Nasdaq exchange. One advantage for Flora is that it costs $0.06 to cultivate a gram of dry flower in Colombia versus $1.25 in the United States.
  - CNN, 11 May 2021

• Psilocybin and MDMA (ecstasy) are poised to be the hottest new therapeutics since Prozac. Universities want in, and so does Wall Street. Some worry a push to loosen access could bring unintended consequences.
  - New York Times, 10 May 2021

• Aromatic plants that heal the social fabric in the Colombian Amazon. The Asociación de Mujeres Cimientos del Hogar, in the department of Caquetá, is betting on these products in a place where extensive cattle ranching and illicit crops bleed the landscape and the economy.
  - El Espectador, 30 April 2021

• Victims of the spraying of the pesticide, Agent Orange - over 19 million gallons, in Vietnam during the Vietnam war, are still suing Bayer/Monsanto (and Dow Chemical) for health problems such as cancer due to the extremely toxic ingredient in Agent Orange, dioxin
  - New York Times, 29 April 2021

• The coffee federation of Colombia has discovered nine new, more aggressive variants of the fungus that causes coffee rust, urging producers to plant more resistant coffee varieties to avoid spreading the disease. Colombia, the world’s top producer of washed arabica, has 855,000 hectares (2.1 million acres) of coffee crops, while some 500,000 families depend on the industry.
  - WHBL News, 29 April 2021

• A coalition of 80 U.S. agricultural, consumer, environmental, public health, and worker groups sent a letter Thursday to key figures in the Biden administration calling for them to "respect Mexico's sovereignty and refrain from interfering with its right to enact health-protective policies" -- specifically, the phaseout of the herbicide glyphosate
  - Common Dreams, 29 April 2021

• The Biden administration plans to propose banning menthol cigarettes, an action that has been long sought by public health and civil rights groups, after decades of marketing aimed at Black smokers, because they are designed to be more addictive.
  - New York Times, 28 April 2021

• Glyphosate: more than organizations request a hearing at the IACHR to prevent its use in Colombia. For organizations, the review becomes essential in order to prevent more people and communities from being affected by aerial spraying with glyphosate.
  - El Universal, 28 April 2021

• The increase in coca crops in Colombia is not due to the prohibition of spraying.
  - El Tiempo, 27 April 2021

• Drug trafficking: everyone's enemy in Colombia. The Minister of Justice defends the use of glyphosate and as a strategy against drug trafficking.
  - El Tiempo, 26 April 2021

• The battle of the indigenous people against the drug traffickers in Colombia. The war for the control of the 20,000 hectares of coca, for the control of the narco-routes and for the ownership of the land appear in all of the assessments about the stark violence that shakes the region.
  - El Tiempo, 26 April 2021

• Cheap, legal and everywhere: how food companies get us addicted on ák food such as sugary beverages
  - NPR, 26 April 2021

• Indigenous authorities in southwest Colombia said they have detained a member of a drug trafficking group who admitted to assassinating an indigenous leader. The alleged drug trafficker was detained on Thursday during an indigenous counternarcotics operation in Caldono, Cauca, that was organized in response to the assassination of native Colombian leader Sandra Liliana Peña.
  - Colombia Reports, 25 April 2021

• The harsh war between illegal groups that the inhabitants of El Plateado, Cauca, Colombia are experiencing. The genesis of this war, which only last week left about 2,000 people displaced, 14 members of the dissident Carlos Patiño of the Farc were killed in combat, 3 alleged ELN militiamen executed, an Army noncommissioned officer killed and several civilians wounded in a mined field, the war dates back to the appearance of coca crops in the 80s.
  - El Pais, 25 April 2021

• Hidden powers, drug mansions and gangs behind the conflict in Cauca, Colombia. Mexican drug lords tell him ‘Caucakistan’; every 24 hours they kill 2 people, and this year there have been 5 massacres.
  - El Tiempo, 25 April 2021

• Illegal groups that want to exacerbate violence in Cauca. In the north and east of the department of Cauca, the war revolves around the cultivation of genetically transformed marijuana, some coca crops and illegal mining.
  - El Pais, 25 April 2021

• Tensions between indigenous people from Cauca, and coca growers for the minga continue to worsen. Growers claimed that some indigenous community members blamed the coordinator that groups them for the murder of indigenous governor Sandra Peña. The CRIC said that this was not an official statement and that the operations against coca crops will continue.
  - El Espectador, 24 April 2021

• Mushroom coffee for immune support. Supplements for inflammation. And psychedelics promising relief from serious ailments. Mushrooms are everywhere, and investors are paying attention.
  - New York Times, 24 April 2021

• In Colombia, the ten-year-old Free Trade Agreement with the United States has caused more violence and economic inequality, for example, in the Pacific port town of Buenaventura, where little of the riches that flow through the port of the city benefit the mostly poor workers, who face death threats if they try to organize into unions
  - Foreign Policy, 23 April 2021

• An indigenous minga community is attacked in Caldono (Cauca, Colombia), which leaves 22 people injured. Preliminary reports say that the indigenous people were carrying out an activity to eradicate crops for illicit use, when they were attacked from the mountain with rifle bursts. The indigenous people that were attacked are from the same community as Governor Peña, who was murdered on April 20. She supported the eradication programs for illicit crops, and apparently that was the cause of her death.
  - El Tiempo, 22 April 2021

• At least eight indigenous people are injured in Caldono, Cauca (Colombia), after a clash with coca growers, during a confrontation in the morning in the middle of actions to eradicate crops for illicit use. The clash apparently occurred between members from the Nasa community and a group of coca growers from the municipality.
  - El Tiempo, 22 April 2021

• In Nuquí, Colombia, violence threatens tourism. The municipality of Choco also suffers the ravages of the pandemic that in 2020 resulted in receiving only 20% of the visitors who arrive each year. In addition, the presence of the Gulf Clan and the Eln frightens the inhabitants.
  - El Espectador, 22 April 2021

• The Senate of Colombia is discussing this Wednesday a bill that prohibits glyphosate. The Fifth Commission will discuss today, starting at 9:00 in the morning, an initiative that restricts the use of the chemical as a strategy in the fight against drugs. Recently, the Government signed a decree that would regulate the reactivation of herbicide spraying on coca crops.
  - El Espectador, 21 April 2021

• The technical credibility of the Colombian Minister of Health, Fernando Ruiz, is being severely questioned due to the problems he caused in not making a statement on the imminent fumigation with glyphosate, which he opposed as Vice Minister of Health in the Santos Government due to the risk of that fumigation will cause cancer.
  - La Silla Vacia, 21 April 2021

• Why resume spraying with glyphosate in Colombia if voluntary substitution works?
  - El Pais, 21 April 2021

• Resuming spraying leaves farmers without options again. If the fumigation with glyphosate is resumed, the main points of Point 4 of the Peace Agreement would be breached and the State would continue to ignore the suffering of the areas most affected by the armed conflict.
  - El Espectador, 20 April 2021

• Regulation of the coca leaf advanced in the Colombian Congress. After several discussion sessions, the bill that regulates the coca leaf and its derivatives passed its first debate in the First Committee of the Senate. The voted points of the project were welcomed by the majority of the senators, but, at the same time, they received strong opposition from the congressmen of the governing coalition, that is, the Democratic Center, the Conservative Party and the Christian movements.
  - El Tiempo, 20 April 2021

• Several groups and social and indigenous organizations submitted a letter to the Constitutional Court of Colombia, backed by more than 20,000 signatures, in which they request that it prevent the Government from resuming the aerial spraying of illicit crops with the herbicide glyphosate.
  - El Tiempo, 20 April 2021

• A rare wild coffee species, Coffea stenophylla, has a flavor similar to Arabica coffee, a greater tolerance to higher temperatures, and grows under the same range of key climatic conditions as robusta
  - Sci News, 20 April 2021

• How governments subsidize obesity in their countries, harming their citizens, through subsidies and tax breaks for the farming of sugar
  - Am. Institute for Economic Research, 20 April 2021

• "The main cancer attributed to glyphosate is Hodgkin's lymphoma, a lymphatic cancer that can develop 15 to 20 years after exposure." The phrase is already famous. In the previous government, the doctor Fernando Ruiz Gómez said it when he was Juan Manuel Santos' vice minister of Health, without knowing that he would later be the head of that same ministry in the Iván Duque government. Of course, mentioning this again is unnecessary. Unless, that is, Ruiz Gómez himself now agrees with the use of this herbicide, after its return to vast territories of the country by the decision of Duque.
  - El Pais, 18 April 2021

• The report on health and glyphosate in Colombia that few want to read. The University of Córdoba is carrying out an extensive study to determine the risks to human health that the resumption of aerial spraying with glyphosate could have. Although the planes are still parked, these are the data that are informing the health debate.
  - El Espectador, 17 April 2021

• How close is the return of glyphosate spraying in Colombia? The Ministry of Defense said that they will spray 26,000 hectares this year; NGOs say that legal requirements are not yet met. Paula Aguirre, coordinator of the NGO Elementa in Colombia, said: "I do not see the possibility of them arguing their compliance in a transparent way, but seeing how they skipped everything they should do to reach the fumigation scenario, we are not surprised."
  - El Tiempo, 18 April 2021

• The dilemmas of the aerial spraying of glyphosate on coca crops in Colombia. The disseminated study by Daniel Mejía and Adriana Camacho on the subject indicates that to eradicate one hectare of coca it is necessary to fumigate thirtyhectares, questioning its effectiveness. This is partly due to the fact that growers opted to plant small areas to make spraying difficult and interspersed coca with other crops to argue that they are spraying subsistence crops with glyphosate, forgetting that planting coca is illegal.
  - El Pais, 18 April 2021

• In Canada, most producers of marijuana are still reporting that they are suffering from staggering financial losses, 2.5 years after legalization.
  - New York Times, 18 April 2021

• "Magic Mushroom" compound may work just as well as antidepressants, according to a small study.
  - Corta por lo Sano, 15 April 2021

• This Monday the government of Colombia signed the decree for the regulation for the operation of aerial spraying with glyphosate against illicit crops, the National Environmental Licensing Agency (Anla) lifted the suspension that since January it had placed in a necessary key process for return of the herbicide.
  - El Tiempo, 15 April 2021

• Members of the Association of Coca Leaf Producers (Adepcoca) of the Yungas of La Paz marched yesterday to the offices of the Delegation of the European Union (EU), in the South zone of La Paz in Bolivia, where they denounced the antidrug and development cooperation against them, and denounced that the development aid that that organization grants to the country is destined exclusively to the coca growers of the tropic of Cochabamba, related to the Government ruling party.
  - Pagina Siete, 15 April 2021

• In Colombia, the National Environmental Licensing Authority, ANLA, through Resolution 694 of April 14, modified the Environmental Management Plan (PMA) of the Program for the Eradication of Illicit Crops through Aerial Spraying with the Herbicide Glyphosate. Thus, what is authorized through the Resolution issued is the modification of the Environmental Management Plan, including more management measures and a more detailed follow-up and monitoring program so that, in the event that the activity is resumed, the achieve greater control over the environmental effects on water, biotic and socioeconomic components, among others.
  - El Pais, 15 April 2021

• Opposition congressmen in Colombia sent a letter to the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, to express their rejection of the decree of President Iván Duque that gives free rein to the aerial spraying of coca crops with glyphosate in Colombia. The communication, which is also addressed to the 'pro tempore' president of the Senate, Patrick Leahy, and the president of the House, Nancy Pelosi, was signed by Gustavo Bolívar, president of the Interim Commission on Drug Policy, Feliciano Valencia and Iván Cepeda. And the senators Luis Fernando Velasco, Gustavo Petro, Antonio Sanguino, Temístocles Ortega, Iván Marulanda, María José Pizarro, Armando Benedetti, Alexánder López, Guillermo García Realpe, Aída Avella, Jorge Londoño and Julián Gallo (Carlos Lozada) signed.
  - EL Tiempo, 14 April 2021

• 26 thousand hectares of illicit crops eradicated in 2021 is the goal established by the National Government for the first stage of glyphosate fumigations, once aerial spraying is resumed in Colombia.
  - El Pais, 14 April 2021

• Dietary cocoa improves health of obese mice, and likely has implications for humans
  - EurekaAlert, 14 April 2021

• After the Government of Iván Duque signed a decree this week that would regulate the reactivation of the spraying with the herbicide to coca crops, the National Environmental Licensing Authority approved the procedure, a process that was suspended. This is one of the requirements for the fumigations to return to Colombia.
  - El Espectador, 14 April 2021

• Nine planes equipped to carry out aerial spraying tasks with glyphosate have the national police ready to begin these operations, if the National Narcotics Council (CNE) gives them free rein. This was confirmed by the Colombian defense minister, Diego Molano, in an interview with the National Police Radio, in which he also commented that the goal to be sprayed this year is 26,000 hectares.
  - El Tiempo, 14 April 2021

• The Minister of Justice of Colombia, Wilson Ruiz, took another step towards the aerial spraying of coca with glyphosate, which scholars believe will condemn the country to a new cycle of extreme violence. According to counternarcotics think tank Indepaz, Ruiz’s restrictions on the use of glyphosate are so vague they effectively constitute “chemical warfare” and allow the aerial spraying of pretty much anything. Instead of implementing peace policies and resuming the crop substitution program agreed with farmers, the president has been trying to double down using aerial spraying. Experts have repeatedly warned this will further escalate violence without this affecting the drug trade.
  - Colombia Reports, 14 April 2021

• Colombian Justice Minister Wilson Ruiz spoke about the recent decree regulating aerial spraying with glyphosate in the country. Although he insists that the decree by itself does not give the green light to aerial spraying because it needs the approval of the National Narcotics Council, he is the one who presides over this body and openly defends the regulatory framework.
  - El Espectador, 14 April 2021

• ABC's of the decree that regulates aerial spraying of illicit crops in Colombia. The National Narcotics Council will be the one that defines when and where the precision spraying established in the new regulations will begin.
  - El Pais, 13 April 2021

• A study carried out by the University of Granada indicates that smoking cannabis significantly alters key visual functions, such as visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, three-dimensional vision (stereopsis), the ability to focus, and glare sensitivity.
  - EurekaAlert, 13 April 2021

• This is how the satellite and aerial reconnaissance network works to detect coca in Colombia, the Integrated Information and Monitoring System (Siima).
  - El Tiempo, 12 April 2021

• Colombia's military meddles by releasing alleged intelligence documents claiming that a victim of former President Alvaro Uribe's alleged fraud and bribery practices is a former FARC guerrilla
  - Colombia Reports, 12 April 2021

• Tony Chocolonely, a chocolate company based in the Netherlands, tries to prove that ethical chocolate and profits can co-exist, that chocolates can be made without child workers. In 2001, Nestle, Mars, Mondelez, Hershey and four other companies signed an agreement to end child labor on cacao farms in Africa (which supplies more than 60% of the world's cacao). Twenty years later, little progress has been made, while the profits continue to flow.
  - Fortune, 11 April 2021

• The Military Forces of Colombia found and destroyed a mega-laboratory consisting of seven structures used for cocaine production, in a rural area of the municipality of Tumaco, Nariño department. In addition to seizing 1 ton of cocaine, authorities found 400 kg of solid chemical precursors, 11,447 liters of liquid chemical precursors, and equipment for drug production.
  - Dialogo, 09 April 2021

• Gold and coca: the cursed treasures of the Amazonas region of Colombia
  - El Tiempo, 09 April 2021

• This week with the publication of the decree that modified the legal restraints against the President, the government of Iván Duque made an unprecedented show of power in Colombia. In addition to centralizing all the restraints against him in the Council of State, he determined that all actions related to the eradication of illicit crops would fall on that same court. With these determinations, he erases from the map the possibility that regional judges could block government decisions through these legal restraints, chooses his own judge on constitutional issues, and puts a shadow on the remaining procedures to define whether to restart the spraying with glyphosate.
  - La Silla Vacia, 09 April 2021

• According to Senator Feliciano Valencia, a native Colombian leader from Cauca, reported the murder of four people in Santander de Quilichao, a municipality in the north of the province. The massacre is the 26th so far this year. The mass killings would have cost the lives of 99 people so far this year.
  - Colombia Reports, 08 April 2021

• And now the possibility arises that the groups of the Maoist Shining Path that operate in the Peruvian ágle and control coca, drugs and gold, ally themselves with the Bolivians and propose to advance in joint political projects. If this project were to advance, Peru, Bolivia and Argentina would be united by coca and cocaine, rivaling Mercosur, an integration project from which the Argentine Peronist government would like to prevent.
  - El Diario, 07 April 2021

• The justice minister of Colombia, Wilson Ruiz, on Tuesday stripped the judicial branch of powers that force the increasingly authoritarian President Ivan Duque to abide by the law.
  - COlombia Reports, 07 April 2021

• The drivers of deforestation in the Colombian Amazon. Livestock, crops for illicit use (coca), agricultural activities and mining: this has been the transformation of the Amazon rainforest in the last century.
  - El Tiempo, 06 April 2021

• A political ally of President Ivan Duque sabotaged a ceasefire with Colombia’s last-standing guerrilla group, the ELN, according to former President Juan Manuel Santos. Allegedly, "this official was Angelino Garzon", the former vice-president of Duque's political patron, former President Alvaro Uribe.
  - Colombia Reports, 06 April 2021

• Editorial: The balance is discouraging. Coca crops rose 45 percent and invaded protected areas. Not only that, they are also about to cross the natural boundaries that Bolivia has with Peru. This is certainly very worrying data because, as they are illegal plantations that are used for drug trafficking, they lead to the conclusion that this illegal activity is gaining ground in the country, with the consequences of violence that this brings.
  - El Deber, 05 April 2021

• The coca growers leaders of the Yungas, Elena Flores, who is related to the Government, and Armin Lluta, who is an opponent of the MAS, called on all their bases to move to the city of La Paz with different objectives. The concentrations of the two groups will be held today in the morning. Flores' followers intend to continue in the Kalajahuira market, while opposing producers demand its immediate closure.
  - Pagina Site, 05 April 2021

• The resurgence of paramilitarism in the rural area of Cúcuta, Colombia. In the townships of Palmarito and Banco de Arena they denounce that the AGC took over the territory, after a call for help from Los Rastrojos, who were about to lose the war with the ELN. In the battle waged against this guerrilla for territorial control and coca crops, massacres, assassinations, displacements and disappearances make up the panorama an hour and a half from the capital of Norte de Santander.
  - El Espectador, 04 April 2021

• Due to the prolonged time of the mobilizations of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) before the transfer of its market to the Government headquarters, legislators urge coca growers from the Yungas and authorities of the area to prioritize dialogue to resolve the conflict and avoid that scenes of violence increase. The deputy for the Movement to Socialism, Juanito Angulo, pointed out that it is urgent to find solutions to the conflict between coca producers in the Yungas; however, it must be taken into account that the organic aspect of this organization is at stake.
  - El Diario, 04 April 2021

• After weeks of clashes over the "transfer" of the Villa Fátima coca market to the Kalajahuira area of La Paz, Bolivia, the deputy of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), Juanito Angulo, called for dialogue and the intervention of the Ombudsman's Office to resolve the dispute.
  - Pagina Siete, 03 April 2021

• The effort to eradicate illicit drugs and the achievements in the seizure of chemical precursors and the destruction of laboratories were key for the United States to certify Colombia for the fight against drug trafficking that it carried out during 2020.
  - El Pais, 02 April 2021

• Laws for regulating marijauna. The entry into force of this law would generate income for New York close to US $350 million annually in taxes, as well as the generation of thousands of jobs. In addition, part of the money will go to funds for education and the fight against drug addiction. On this, the House Representative for the Liberal Party, Juan Fernando Reyes Kuri, told El País that it is time to take the same step in Colombia that great powers are taking towards an important change in the fight against drug trafficking, but not with prohibitionist policies, but with regulation and job creation around this activity. "We treat marijuana regulation with too much moralism."
  - El Pais, 02 April 2021

• The drug traffickers who fight over cocaine in Nariño and Cauca in Colombia. They are dedicated to drug trafficking and fight for crops and production. The United Nations' Illicit Crops Monitoring System, Simci, reported that during 2019 36,964 hectares planted with coca plants were detected in Nariño (more than all in Bolivia), and 17,356 hectares in Cauca.
  - El Tiempo, 02 April 2021

• The representative of the UNODC in Bolivia, Thierry Rostan, said yesterday that during the hard time of the pandemic, the cultivation of the coca leaf in Bolivia increased, since families planted without any social control. Many families migrated from the city to the countryside, without social control.
  - Los Tiempos, 02 April 2021

• The representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (Unodc) in Bolivia, Thierry Rostan, stated that this organization is following with concern the conflict over the transfer of the Villa Fátima coca market to Kalajahuira, in favor of a group of producers related to the Movement for Socialism. For 18 days, two sectors of the Yungas coca growers have been confronted by the transfer of the coca marketing market to Kalajahuira. The president of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) of La Paz, Armin Lluta, and his affiliates reject this transfer, as ordered by a resolution of the Ministry of Rural Development and Lands in favor of Elena Flores, related to MAS.
  - El Diario, 02 April 2021

• President Luis Arce announced yesterday the resumption of "social control and concerted eradication" of surplus coca leaf crops in Bolivia and projected the elimination of 9,000 hectares of illegal plantations during the remainder of the year, of the more than 32,000 that exist. . The UNODC reported that in 2020 the pandemic influenced the increase in crops, as several families migrated from the city to the countryside to dedicate themselves “without social control” to the cultivation of the plant.
  - Pagina Siete, 02 April 2021

• At the beginning of the coca eradication tasks, President Arce confirms that there will be no "zero coca" in Bolivia. The Government set itself the goal of eradicating 9,000 hectares of coca crops this year with the idea of "stabilizing" the extension of plantations that currently exceed 32,000 hectares.
  - La Razon, 01 April 2021

• The representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (Onudc), Thierry Rostan, said on Thursday that he continues “with great concern”, the case of the conflict between Adepcoca and the Government in La Paz . "Another very important issue is the issue of the commercialization of the coca leaf, access to markets, obviously, we are following these conflicts with great concern," said Rostan, who participated in the inauguration act of eradication in Chimoré.
  - Pagina Siete, 01 April 2021

• This Thursday, for the fourth consecutive day, the Kalajahuira area, in La Paz, Bolivia, was the scene of clashes between coca growers who dispute control of the market of the Departmental Association of Coca Leaf Producers (Adepcoca) of the Yungas. The situation generated unrest among the residents of the area and the drivers at whose headquarters the market recently authorized by the Government is operating, who issued pronouncements announcing the eviction of that coca leaf commercialization point.
  - Pagina Siete, 01 April 2021

• Police tirelessly gasify coca-growing women and there are two detainees in Kalajahuira (La Paz, Bolivia). On Easter Thursday. There are about 100 police officers guarding the illegal coca market. There is an arrested coca grower who left her daughters to go to the march.
  - El Deber, 01 April 2021

• The government of the president of the United States, Joe Biden, will collaborate with Mexico and Colombia to ensure that the fight against drug production and trafficking adheres to compliance with the law and respect for human rights.
  - El Espectador, 01 April 2021

• Legislators in Bolivia ask for dialogue between the government and coca growers. They point out that the best way to resolve the conflict between coca producers from the Yungas of La Paz is through dialogue, which is why they ask this sector to initiate conversations with the authorities of the area and in this way avoid generating greater violence scenarios.
  - El Diario, 01 April 2021

• The political group Adepcoca (cocaleros de las Yungas) is fined for political harassment of an elected candidate in Coroico, Bolivia. It is the first time that, within the framework of the Electoral Misconduct and Sanctions Regulations, a resolution has been issued that sanctions a political organization for violating the exercise of a woman's political rights. The incident occurred in the municipality of Coroico, in the department of La Paz.
  - La Razon, 31 March 2021

• The state of New York legalizes recreational marijuana, and will expunge the criminal records of people previously convicted of crimes that would be legal under the new laws for marijuana. The legislation could create up to 60,000 jobs and generate $350 million in annual tax revenue for the state.
  - ABC NEWS, 31 March 2021

• Coca-growing women from the Yungas arrived in La Paz and took to the streets yesterday to protest and demand the closure of the illegal market, set up in the Señor de Mayo Mixed Transport Union and located in Kalajahuira. They began their protest in the legal market of Villa Fátima and when they approached the improvised market they were gassed and attacked by police officers.
  - Pagina Siete, 30 March 2021

• The evil racism of Simon Bolivar. Bolivar's first revolution failed and the general went into exile in 1815, first to Jamaica and then Haiti whose population of largely former slaves had been independent since 1804 after defeating Napoleon. Bolivar promised to free slaves in 1816 if they helped him overthrow colonial rule. Some 200 slaves joined Bolivar's 650 men and began the liberation campaign that would expel the Spanish in 1819. Bolivar never fulfilled his promise and controversially ordered the execution of three black commanders who helped him free Gran Colombia. Gran Colombia's 1821 constitution maintained slavery, but banned the import of slaves and allowed the future children of slaves to obtain citizenship and be "free". These children, however, were still forced to carry out "useful trades and professions" assigned to them by their parents’ white owners.
  - Colombia Reports, 30 March 2021

• Aa leader of sugarcane agriculture workers in the Valley is assassinated. There is rejection of the crime of the trade unionist Carlos Alberto Vidal, in Florida, Colombia.
  - El Tiempo, 30 March 2021

• The failure of peace and security in Cauca. Dissidents, criminal gangs, neo-paramilitaries and common crime plague the department. The implementation of the Havana Accords is in debt. What is the way out? Some of the region's politicians speak.
  - El Espectador, 29 March 2021

• Forced eradication of coca in Colombia, a history of complaints and questionable statistics.
  - Voragine, 29 March 2021

• No coffee farmer in Colombia is allowed to export coffee without paying the mighty coffee federation, historically one of the main promoters of fascist economics along with the Catholic Church in their rejection of capitalism. Fedecafe couldn’t even compete against foreign coffee producers who came to dominate domestic consumption. Fedecafe said in 2018 that it represented 540,000 coffee growers. Some 215,000 of these farmers, however, were banned from doing business with the federation because they didn’t own land.
  - Colombia Reports, 29 March 2021

• 'Legal' drug trafficking is very profitable to CEOs. Many drug-trafficking pharmaceutical companies face a tsunami of opioid lawsuits, have filed for bankruptcy, or find themselves on the hook for billions of dollars in settlements. But the CEOs and other top executives responsible for the drug trafficking keep getting rewarded.
  - NPR, 28 March 2021

• How much salt and sugar do you consume? Keep in mind that its excess can affect health. These two ingredients, essential in the diet around the world, have high consumption rates that lead to serious pathologies.
  - Semana, 27 March 2021

• Despite a 2016 peace deal with the FARC, Colombia’s long internal conflict continues (partly because the government didn't keep its promise to find alternatives to coca farming). Seldom has that been as evident as this month, when the government bombed a rebel camp full of young people.
  - New York Times, 27 March 2021

• Between 2016 and 2020, 75 coca substitution leaders have been assassinated. The Somos Defensores program, the Viso Mutop Corporation and the Minga Association present today a document on the attacks on this population since the signing of the Peace agreement, which leaves the voluntary substitution effort cornered. The forced eradication of crops is the Government's main tactic.
  - El Espectador, 26 March 2021

• The world is facing a coffee deficit in a supply chain 'nightmare', as freight disruptions lead to tight supply as demand rebounds
  - Bloomberg, 23 March 2021

• Phenpromethamine, a stimulant drug from the era of World War II, is discovered in weight loss supplements in the United States. It has never been approved for oral use, along with deterenol, another stimulant popular in weight loss supplements.
  - Live Science, 23 March 2021

• Chocolate entre Amigas, the Chaparralunas Women's Network for Peace, the Cacao Producers Association (Asocamet) and the Planadas Youth platform are some of the projects in Meta, Nariño and Tolima that work on the social and economic transformation of the regions.
  - El Espectador, 23 March 2021

• The banning of menthol cigarettes, the mint-flavored products that have been aggressively marketed to Black Americans, and that kills many Black Americans, has long been an elusive goal for public health regulators. Advocates are hoping that President Biden will soon come out in favor of banning mint-flavored cigarettes and other tobacco products.
  - New York Times, 23 March 2021

• In a recently published letter from the Colombian Ministry of Health and Social Protection, to the President of Colombia, related to Law 1787 and Decree 613, the Ministry calls for modifications that would allow for the exportation of dry flowers of the cannabis plant
  - Global Newswire, 22 March 2021

• On February 5, the Peruvian National Police seized nearly 10,000 kilograms of chemical precursors used for processing coca leaf to make cocaine, in a clandestine lab in Cusco department. The lab operated in a house in the Pichari district, in the coca-producing valley of the Apurímac, Ene, and Mantaro rivers.
  - Dialogo, 22 March 2021

• President Biden criticized for supporting a "misguided" plan to poison the coca fields of Colombia by the aerial spraying of glyphosate
  - Vice World News, 19 March 2021

• The opioid drug trafficking family, the Sackler family, agrees to pay $4.2 billion as part of a plan to dissolve the opioid drug trafficking company, and OxyContin manufacturer, Purdue Pharma
  - CNN Business, 16 March 2021

• Francisco Ricaurte, a former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Colombia, was convicted on March 9th of running a criminal network known as the Cartel de la Toga, or "Cartel of the Robe", in which judges and lawyers accepted bribes in exchange for providing political elites with favorable outcomes. Ricaurte was a judge on the court from 2004 to 2012 and served as its president in 2008.
  - Insight Crime, 15 March 2021

• "The spraying with glyphosate would affect our territory": protests indigenous leaders. Camilo Niño, technical secretary of the National Commission for Indigenous Territories (CNTI), joins the voices that have spoken about the draft decree on fumigations. They insist that prior consultation should be made to take any step forward.
  - El Espectador, 15 March 2021

• The US sees a direct relationship between peace and eradicating drug crops. The embassy and congressmen emphasize that it is the most promising and sustainable strategy in the long run.
  - El Tiempo, 15 March 2021

• Colombia’s prosecution is under fire again after it closed a corruption investigation against the CEO of the country’s largest banking giant, Grupo Aval CEO Luis Carlos Sarmiento Jr, which is embroiled in a bribery scandal with Odebrecht. Banks in Colombia have done nothing to help the coca growing communities industrialize.
  - Colombia Reports, 15 March 2021

• Lawmakers in Mexico are on the verge of legalizing marijuana, but economists and industry analysts warn against expecting much monetary benefit. Recently, the marijuana industry in Canada, and companies such as Canopy Growth, have struggled to be profitable.
  - New York Times, 13 March 2021

• Conservation scientists at the Smithsonian Institute conservation have created the strictest agricultural certification criteria for coffee: their Bird-Friendly certification requires that coffee is organic and that it meets strict requirements for both mature canopy cover and the type of forest in which the coffee is grown. Bird-Friendly coffees are guaranteed to support bird habitat, in addition to fair and stable prices for coffee producers, healthy environments for local communities, and equal access to markets for Bird-Friendly coffee producers.
  - Forbes, 06 March 2021

• "Putumayo will be at the mercy of violence if the promises of the Peace Agreement are not prioritized." During the discussion "Putumayo defends life and builds routes to peace", regional leaders and experts in human rights spoke about the persistence of violence in this department and the solutions they propose to experience a post-conflict situation.
  - El Espectador, 11 March 2021

• A new coalition in the United States - the Coalition for Cannabis Policy, Education, and Regulation - comprising a wide variety of national corporations, including tobacco and alcohol firms, launched today with the purpose of influencing policy and potentially shaping the first federal cannabis regulations.
  - Politico, 11 March 2021

• The forced eradication of coca could undermine peace in Colombia
  - World Politics Review (locked), 11 March 2021

• Mexico is preparing to legalize marijuana and become the largest market in the world. Lawmakers passed a bill to legalize recreational cannabis, a divisive proposal in a country marked by a deadly war on drugs.
  - New York Times, 10 March 2021

• Amid the fear that exists in rural areas of Cauca, Nariño and Putumayo in Colombia by the illegal armed groups that promote illicit crops, more than 500 peasant producer families in the three departments faced them, but not with violence, but with determination. and the sweat from their brow so that coca does not sprout from the earth, but rather pepper and cocoa.
  - El Tiempo, 10 March 2021

• An assembly of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) in Bolivia resolved to initiate blockades and mobilizations in the event that a parallel coca market begins to operate, approved by the Ministry of Rural Development and Lands. Through a ministerial resolution, the authorization of the transfer of the Villa Fátima coca market to the headquarters of the Señor de Mayo Mixed Transport Union, located in Kalajahuira, in La Paz, was announced.
  - El Diario, 09 March 2021

• A federal prosecurot in New York accused Juan Orlando Hernández, presidente de Honduras, as a collaborator in activities to traffic tons of cocaine to the United States.
  - El Pais, 09 March 2021

• The government of Colombia announces aerial spraying of coca for the 7th time, though the country's Supreme Court has harshly reminded President Ivan Duque that his government has complied with absolutely none of their conditions to restart after the president made a similar mistake in 2019. The President’s office was forced to admit that aerial spraying was a senseless waste of money last year.
  - Colombia Reports, 09 March 2021

• Ensuring quality and safety, the challenge of medicinal cannabis in Colombia. Medicines need to go through the strict approval processes established by the different regulatory agencies.
  - El Espectador, 07 March 2021

• Despite overwhelming evidence, Colombia's prosecution asked a court to drop fraud and bribery charges against far-right former President Alvaro Uribe. The request was expected after prosecutor Gabriel Jaimes had desperately been trying to obstruct his own investigation against the powerful former president who had already been placed under house arrest by the Supreme Court. The close ties between the government and organized crime, and the chief prosecutor’s apparent commitment to organized crime interests, have put Colombia on the brink of becoming a mafia state.
  - Colombia Reports, 05 March 2021

• Puff Bar, an e-cigarette nicotine drug trafficker, schemes to avoid FDA regulation by using synthetic nicotine, since the FDA mostly regulates tobacco-derived uses of nicotine
  - Wall Street Journal, 02 March 2021

• Colombia's most powerful bankers, including bankers Luis Carlos Sarmiento and Jaime Gilinski, have converted some of the country's leading news media into platforms that defend the interests of suspected mafia figures, news media such as El Tiempo and Semana.
  - Colombia Reports, 02 March 2021

• The mayor of Cali, Colombia, Jorge Iván Ospina, expressed his opposition on Tuesday morning to the resumption of aerial spraying with glyphosate in the country, as a strategy to reduce illicit crops. "A million times more I prefer that they annihilate and bomb the cocaine production laboratories, than to fumigate the whole ecosystem destroying the entire ecosystem.", Mayor Ospina wrote on his Twitter account.
  - El Pais, 02 March 2021

• Inhospitable tropical forests with no vehicular access and close to the Atlantic Ocean are the preferred areas for criminal groups to grow coca crops in Honduras. In 2020, Honduran authorities destroyed 424,900 coca bushes, while only 40,000 bushes were reported in 2019. The coca plants grown in Honduras may be of lower quality than those grown in South America. "[The bushes] do not reach 80 centimeters [in height], they do not reach the 2 meters that [plantations] in Colombia have." The experiments with coca plantations in Central America are due to the decline of the Cali and Medellín Colombian cartels.
  - Dialogo, 02 March 2021

• Cocoa and tourism, the competitive bet of Antioquia, Colombia. In Antioquia, the CET Program invested 811 million Colombian pesos (about US$ 220,000) to strengthen the tourism and cocoa chains through seven strategies. Local initiatives, such as tourism and the cocoa chain, have been managed for five years through the Territorial Strategic Competitiveness program (CET), which is funded by the European Union and implemented by the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism. and the Adelco Network.
  - El Espectador, 01 March 2021

• Delta-8-THC, a chemical slightly different from Delta-9-THC, and derived from hemp, is psychoactive - 'marijuana light', but unlike Delta-9-THC, Delta-8-THC is not, for now, illegal to sell and use where hemp possession is legal because hemp laws only prohibit producing Delta-9-THC from the plant
  - New York Times, 01 March 2021

• Colombia's chief prosecutor is the main man of President Ivan Duque to protect his alleged drug trafficking associates, which seems to be working well. None of the investigations against Duque's alleged mafia associates have gone anywhere after Prosecutor General Barbosa appointed some of Colombia's most questionable prosecution on the cases.
  - Colombia Reports, 26 February 2021

• President Ivan Duque's far-right political party falsely accused an opposition senator of involvement in the kidnapping practices of demobilized FARC guerrillas in an ongoing smear campaign. Former deputy Justice Minister Rafael Nieto published an image of opposition Senator Ivan Cepeda (a supporter of coca growers in Colombia) on his Twitter with the byline "the voice of the kidnappers".
  - Colombia Reports, 26 February 2021

• Movie review: "The United States versus Billie Holiday" - a hectic biopic portrays the singer as a victim of abuse, addiction and government persecution, a persecution led by Harry Anslinger, the founder of the FBN/DEA who drove Billie Holiday to death, and ironically, died of a drug overdose himself
  - New York Times, 25 February 2021

• As a measure of the failure of cocaine drug policies, police in Germany and Belgium seize 23 tons of cocaine in the ports of Hamburg
  - CNN, 24 February 2021

• The leadership of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) of La Paz, Bolivia, announced yesterday that it was determined to reinforce the vigil that they maintain in the Villa Fátima market, to avoid a police intervention instructed by court order.
  - Pagina Siete, 24 February 2021

• The export of chocolate made in Bolivia is still low, as the sector still faces difficulties in transport, logistics and certifications that make the product more expensive.
  - La Razon, 24 February 2021

• How six large business associations control the government of Colombia, including Asobancaria, the bankers' association controlled by the third large banking groups: Grupo Aval, Bancolombia and GNB Sudameris
  - Colombia Reports, 18 February 2021

• Columnist Margarita Rosa said on Twitter that she resigned from El Tiempo because she “found it increasingly difficult to self-censor feelings to confront” the newspaper’s controversial owner and banking mogul Luis Carlos Sarmiento.
  - Colombia Reports, 17 February 2021

• In Bolivia, Adepcoca in emergency receives support from sectors and announces roadblocks. The leadership of the coca growers of the Yungas announced permanent mobilizations since Wednesday before the announcement of the intervention of the Police, after a court ruling.
  - Pagina Siete, 15 February 2021

• The Bolivian MAS government has just signed agreements with three universities to advance coca industrialization projects, different from what is already being done in the country illegally but with so much success that government wants to join in.
  - El Diario, 12 February 2021

• Buenaventura, Colombia's biggest port city on the Pacific Coast, will always be subjected to mafia terror until "the state takes control". Two rival factions of organized crime groups have greatly increased violence in the city. [The port will be important for exports of legal coca products.]
  - El Pais, 05 February 2021

• Buenaventura, Colombia's biggest port city on the Pacific Coast, will always be subjected to mafia terror until "the state takes control". Two rival factions of organized crime groups have greatly increased violence in the city. [The port will be important for exports of legal coca products.]
  - Colombia Reports, 03 February 2021

• The drug trafficking consulting firm, McKinsey, will pay U.S. states $573 million for the advice it gave to opioid drug trafficking companies such as Purdue Pharma that 'legally' created the opioid crisis plaguing the United States
  - New York Times, 04 February 2021

• The drug trafficking consulting firm, McKinsey, will pay U.S. states $573 million for the advice it gave to opioid drug trafficking companies such as Purdue Pharma that 'legally' created the opioid crisis plaguing the United States
  - Wall Street Journal, 04 February 2021

• The top bankers in Colombia - Sarmiento, Gilinski, Ardila - could face 4 years in prison if prosecuted, but evidence of tax evasion is ignored by their allies in the government
  - Colombia Reports, 01 February 2021

• The government policy of Colombia to maintain a monopoly on the production and sales of hard alcohol products, such as the country's most popular - aguardiente, causes much organized crime
  - Economist, 30 January 2021

• While nitrous oxide is a legal recreational drug in the United States, and is the tenth most popular drug in the world, and its abuse is rapidly rising. Meanwhile, no one can drink coca tea which has no problems of abuse.
  - New York Times, 30 January 2021

• A total of 20,968,028 soles (about US $5.7 million) was transferred by the National Commission for Development and Life without Drugs (Devida) of Peru to 17 local governments in the north, center and south of the Valley of the Apurímac, Ene and Mantaro Rivers (Vraem) during 2020 to improve the economy of families in the area with alternative and sustainable crops.
  - El Peruano, 30 January 2021

• McKinsey & Company is close to reaching a settlement with state attorneys general over advice it gave to Purdue Pharma LP and other opioid manufacturers that have been targeted by states over their alleged role in fueling the nation's opioid crisis. The talks come amid the release of court filings in recent months detailing recommendations McKinsey made to Purdue on how to aggressively boost sales of its OxyContin painkiller at a time the country was reeling from opioid addiction and deaths.
  - Wall Street Journal, 29 January 2021

• Government officials involved with drugs and health are studying how to safely administer powerful psychedelics for use in psychiatry: ecstasy (MDA), LSD and psilocybin (found in some mushrooms), but are not studying use of the coca leaf for psychiatry (such as treating cocaine addiction)
  - Nature, 27 January 2021

• Through an update to the Anti-Tobacco Law of Colombia, the government seeks to regulate the marketing, advertising, packaging and labeling of electronic cigarettes. There are more than 159 thousand consumers of electronic cigarettes. Annual deaths from causes linked to smoking generate a nationwide expense of $17 billion annually for the care of smoking patients.
  - El Pais, 27 January 2021

• Those eating fried foods increased their risk of heart disease, stroke, heart failure and premature death. [None of these problems occur when drinking coca tea.]
  - New York Times, 22 January 2021

• Corporate media in Colombia are participating in what are possibly illegal intelligence operations that are trying to criminalize government critics, using multiple “intelligence reports” they received from the government that are not corroborated by any evidence
  - Colombia Reports, 22 January 2021

• The signatories of the Peace Agreement in Cuaca, Colombia - the FARC ex-combatants - joined together to publish a catalog with all the productive initiatives that they are executing, despite the 42 assassinations of ex-guerrillas in this region.
  - El Espectador, 17 January 2021

• Opinion: On the need for a coca tax in Bolivia when sales exceed 300 million dollars a year. Should the coca growing sector pay taxes for the coca leaf? For production or for marketing?
  - Pagina Siete, 17 January 2021

• President Biden will nominate Samantha Power as director of the US Agency for International Development. She played an important role in the failed intervention, by bombing, in Libya in 2011. She later advocated for US intervention in Syria.
  - AntiWar.com, 13 January 2021

• Three coca growers from Bolivia's Adepcoca were injured fleeing a tear gas blast. A group of coca growers, according to the complaint, wanter to enter one of the warehouses of the coca marketing building, where they would have exploded a tear gas canister.
  - Pagina Siete, 13 January 2021

• More than 6,000 members of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) of Bolivia marched yesterday to demand the resignation of the Vice Minister of Coca, Rolando Canceno, whom they accuse "of dividing and generating confrontations between the Yungueños". For his part, the Canceno called for dialogue with the sectors but accused the leaders of carrying arms inside the coca producers' market in Villa Fátima
  - Pagina Siete, 12 January 2021

• Colombia’s late president Virgilio Barco personally approved the extermination of thousands of leftist political leaders and activists in 1986, according to local media. The military objected however after which Barco agreed to let the National Army to lead the operation that would lead to the assassination of more than 3,000 party members, according to estimates of the National Center for Historic Memory.
  - Colombia Reports, 11 January 2021

• Gonzalo Cardona Molina, environmental leader, coordinator of the ProAves Andean Parrot Reserve since 1998 and guardian of the yellow-eared parrot, was assassinated in the jurisdiction of La Unión, rural area of Tuluá.
  - El Pais, 11 January 2021

• Toxins in marijuana smoke may be harmful to your health. People who only smoked marijuana had higher blood and urine levels of several smoke-related toxins such as naphthalene, acrylamide and acrylonitrile than nonsmokers. Naphthalene is associated with anemia, liver and neurological damage, while acrylamide and acrylonitrile have been associated with cancer and other health issues.
  - CNN, 11 January 2021

• Federal prosecutors in the United States alleged that Juan Orlando Hernandez, the president of Honduras, received millions of dollars from drug traffickers to help export tons of cocaine to the United States.
  - Wall Street Journal, 11 January 2021

• Coca growers from the Yungas area arrived yesterday afternoon and night at the facilities of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers of La Paz (Adepcoca) to join other affiliates in the vigil that they have been carrying out since the previous week with the end of not allowing the entry of coca producers related to the MAS (the ruling party of Bolivia).
  - Pagina Siete, 11 January 2021

• The government of Bolivia decided to side with the leadership related to the ruling party (MAS) for the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) of La Paz, represented by Elena Flores, in the dispute between the coca growers of the Yungas for the takeover of the institution. The authority made that statement yesterday, after the group that supports the recent election of Armin Lluta as president of Adepcoca - Franclin Gutiérrez's successor - clashed with the one that supports Flores. This last group tried to take possession of the offices inside the coca market, on Arapata street in Villa Fátima.
  - Pagina Siete, 09 January 2021

• Groups related to Bolivia's ruling party, the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), tried to take over three institutions, including the offices of the Coca Producers Association (Adepcoca) in La Paz. Cocaleros led by Elena Flores threw dynamite and repelled stones with metal shields.
  - Pagina Siete, 08 January 2021

• Ever Castro, the former coca grower who created his own productive forest on his 18-hectare farm in Belén de los Andaquíes, in the foothills of Caquete. His farm is a model of an agroforestry scheme, in which several types of crops coexist in the middle of a forest, each of which generates a different income for its owner.
  - La Silla Vacia, 08 January 2021

• Letter to the editor: Walmart's denial of the drug trafficking of opioids, "we were just fulfilling legal prescriptions", is false. Federal law requires pharmacists to evaluate prescribed medication to ensure it is "appropriate, medically necessary, and not likely to result in adverse events".
  - Wall Street Journal, 07 January 2021

• This January 7, just after the release of a UN report that warns about the danger facing the ex-combatants of the Farc, it was reported of the murder of another member of the former guerrilla group, who was in the process of reincorporation. He is Diego María Yule Rivera, who in times of confrontation was known as 'Cristian Ramírez'. He was 39 years old.
  - El Tiempo, 07 January 2021

• James Gilinski, the second richest man in Colombia, and the ghost banker of Colombia, an expert in using offshore tax havens. In 2019, he bought the magazine Semana. The irony of Vicki Davila, the sister-in-law of one of Colombia's most infamous bank robbers, the Gneccos, running Semana for one of Colombia's shadiest banking families, the Gilinskis, was too much for Semana's journalists. They all quit.
  - Colombia Reports, 07 January 2021

• Grupo Aval, Colombia's largest banking corporation, fined for bribing government officials with Odebrecht in order to win rights to construct the country's biggest infrastructure project, Ruta del Sol II. This fine is months after Grupo Aval was fined for evading money laundering regulations.
  - Colombia Reports, 05 January 2021

• The E.P.A. has finalized a so-called transparency plan that it says will improve the credibility of science, but is meant to shield the drug traffickers of Big Tobacco from analysis of how smoking kills.
  - New York Times, 05 January 2021

• The degenerate banking system in Colombia is impeding the country’s economic recovery as entrepreneurs are blacklisted by banks who are waiting for the approval of a grace period for past debts
  - Colombia Reports, 04 January 2021

• In the municipality of Briceño (Antioquia, Colombia), Yolanda Zabala Mazo, 22 years old, was murdered along with her sister, Reina Zabala, 17 years old. Yolanda, who had been part of the ranks of former guerrillas - a former FARC combatant, was currently advancing her reincorporation process in the Territorial Space for Training and Reincorporation of La Plancha in Anorí (Antioquia).
  - El Espectador, 01 January 2021

• Mexico is ready to become the largest legal marketplace for cannabis in the world, legalizing the marijuana industry throughout its supply chain, from farming to distribution and consumption
  - Wall Street Journal, 29 December 2020

• Manual Alonso, a former FARC combatant, was assassinated in the rural area of Miranda, Cauca. He was part of the peace process between the Farc and the National Government, confirmed members of the Farc party.
  - El Pais, 28 December 2020

• The dirtiest little secret of why the drug "wars" never end: corruption of law enforcement agencies on both sides of the U.S. and Mexican border that cooperate with drug traffickers - resulting in tens of billions of dollars spent in recent decades and zero results achieved (except for the deaths of many innocent people)
  - Gatestone Institute, 23 December 2020

• The senator of the Movement to Socialism (MAS) Leonardo Loza affirmed that the coca producers in Bolivia will be the ones who should debate the tax for the sector "if one day" they pay, and not the politicians, since he considered that there are those who raise the issue as "revenge".
  - Pagina Siete, 23 December 2020

• The Amazona Experimental Center (CEA), the cattle farm that transformed environmental conservation in Putumayo. The CEA is the most important scientific research site in the province. Its strategic location is key to the conservation of wildlife species rescued from illegal traffic.
  - El Espectador, 22 December 2020

• A seed bank to guarantee the food security of La Mojana, which is in the north of Colombia and with a million fertile hectares. A project that seeks to rescue seeds used by older generations has been the best alternative to face the intense rains and droughts.
  - El Espectador, 22 December 2020

• Justice Department sues Walmart, saying it fueld the nation's horrendous opooid crisis by allowing its network of pharmacies to fill millions of prescriptions for opioids, thousands of which authorities said were suspicious
  - U.S. Department of Justice, 22 December 2020

• Justice Department sues Walmart, saying it fueld the nation's horrendous opooid crisis by allowing its network of pharmacies to fill millions of prescriptions for opioids, thousands of which authorities said were suspicious
  - New York Times, 22 December 2020

• In Bolivia, a coca grower earns 7 or 10 times the minimum wage of 2,122 Bolivians (about US $ 300). In the Yungas, each coca grower has a quarterly income of 42,000 Bs from the sale of a 'cato' of coca (1600 square meters), he or she harvests 4 times a year and generates an annual return of 168,000 Bs between 12 months = Bs 14,000 per month (about US $ 2000). In the tropics, it is harvested every two months, 42,000 x 6 = 252,000, between 12 months = Bs 21,000 (about US $ 3,000) that is earned each month in the tropics of Cochabamba.
  - El Diario, 21 December 2020

• I complain to Congress and mayors for not going to a hearing on glyphosate in Colombia. Regional Attorney's Office criticized little presence at a key meeting for the return of aerial spraying. The audience was attended by Senator José Obdulio Gaviria, the representatives of Tumaco (Nariño); Leiva and Balboa (Cauca); and Calamar (Guaviare), the mayor of Palmira (Valle), the governor of Nariño and representatives of the governments of Putumayo and Caquetá.
  - El Tiempo, 21 December 2020

• These are the routes of drugs and death in the Colombian Pacific. El Tambo and Argelia (Cauca) are the main enclave of this market. The ports of Tumaco, Pasto, Popayán and Buenaventura are secondary nodes, but that does not mean they are not of equal importance. 'Triangle of marijuana and coca', which is made up of Corinto, Miranda and Toribío.
  - El Tiempo, 21 December 2020

• Abya Yala meeting organized by Evo Morales defines business creation and use of traditional medicine. The meeting convened by the leader of the MAS and president of the coca growers of the Six Federations of the Tropic of Cochabamba brought together representatives of Ecuador, Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Panama, Guatemala, Chile and Bolivia.
  - Pagina Siete, 20 December 2020

• The Church opposes aerial spraying with glyphosate as a system to eradicate illegal plantations of coca crops in Colombia. Monsignor Luis José Rueda, Archbishop of Bogotá, clearly states this in the following interview. "I do not see glyphosate fumigation as the most appropriate proposal."
  - El Tiempo, 20 December 2020

• Although it has been one of the proposals of the National Government, the return of aerial spraying against illicit crops still has a complex process to go forward. Yesterday, a key hearing was started at the National Environmental Licensing Authority to modify the environmental management plan of the glyphosate aerial spray program (Pecig), but this only helps to comply with an environmental risk assessment of the herbicide, and others are lacking, requirements imposed by the Constitutional Court so that the fumigations can return.
  - El Tiempo, 19 December 2020

• In the midst of the processes being carried out by the Government for the National Narcotics Council to approve the return of aerial spraying of coca with glyphosate, there are 228 lawsuits that it faces today and for which the Nation has been condemned by the use of that herbicide.
  - El Tiempo, 19 December 2020

• In Bolivia, senator in the MAS party and coca grower leader Leonardo Loza asked the United Nations not to rely only on "theoretical" reports to declare that 94% of the coca leaf production that leaves the Chapare de Cochabamba region goes to the illegal market.
  - Pagina Siete, 19 December 2020

• The "evil" opioid drug-trafficking family, the Sacklers, are condemned in a U.S. House investigation for refusing to apologize for their role, and the role of their company - Perdue Pharma, in exploiting the opioid drug crisis in the U.S. that has killed 500,000 while earning the Sacklers billions of dollars in drug trafficking profits
  - New York Times, 17 December 2020

• The "evil" opioid drug-trafficking family, the Sacklers, are condemned in a U.S. House investigation for refusing to apologize for their role, and the role of their company - Perdue Pharma, in exploiting the opioid drug crisis in the U.S. that has killed 500,000 while earning the Sacklers billions of dollars in drug trafficking profits
  - The Guardian, 17 December 2020

• From marijuana to cocaine: 40 years of US counternarcotics failures in Colombia, a literally toxic strategy from paraquat and Agent Orange to glyphosate
  - Colombia Reports, 17 December 2020

• Coca producers from the Yungas of La Paz and related to the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) yesterday inaugurated an illegal and parallel market of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) in the Santa Rosa area of the city of El Alto. This paper tried to communicate with the new president of Adepcoca, Armin Lluta, who is in opposition to the Government, but did not answer his cell phone. This is the fourth time that the coca growers related to the MAS attempt to open a market parallel to the legal market of Adepcoca. The first three were in the Chuquiaguillo area, Villa Fátima and the Adepcoca Hospital, with the endorsement of the former Minister of Rural Development and Lands César Cocarico.
  - Pagina Siete, 16 December 2020

• The candidate for the Governor of La Paz for the Frente Para la Victoria (FPV), Franclin Gutiérrez, will hold meetings with different social sectors, among which are representatives of transport and the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA), in search of support for his candidacy, informed the campaign coordinator, Sergio Pampa. Gutiérrez is a coca grower leader of the Yungas.
  - Pagina Siete, 16 December 2020

• As a Christmas gift for Colombia, the Government of President Duque insists on glyphosate to eradicate coca. There is no valid evidence nor the studies from the party of the next president of the United States. And no matter how hard the Duque government tries, the road remains bogged down.
  - La Silla Vacia, 15 December 2020

• Surplus coca crops in Bolivia increased between 2019 and 2020 from 25,500 to 32,000 hectares, mainly due to conflicts and the paralysis of the coca reduction policy in the Jeanine áñez administration, informed the Minister of Government, Eduardo del Castillo. He reported that this year only 2,000 hectares of coca were reduced. He accused the government of Jeanine áñez of having paralyzed the tasks of controlling and reducing coca crops.
  - La Razon, 15 December 2020

• Close to 30,000 coca farmers of the Yungas region of Bolivia are meeting today to elect a new director of the Provincial Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca)
  - Pagina Siete, 14 December 2020

• The production in Colombia and commercialization of cocaine is increasingly sophisticated and has managed to produce record quantities in the last nine years to satisfy a demand that, instead of decreasing, has increased as never before in history.
  - El Tiempo, 14 December 2020

• When correlating the list of municipalities in Colombia with the largest number of hectares of coca and those where the murders of replacement leaders have been registered with those of judicial officials, it is evident that in most of these territories there are no real capacities for the administration of justice - there are few judges or prosecutors.
  - La Silla Vacia, 14 December 2020

• Before a New York judge, a special agent of the DEA revealed the disonesty of versions of Néstor Humberto Martínez schemes against the peace with the FARC. DEA Special Agent Ken Saunders cleared his record on April 9, 2018 when he declared, before Federal Judge Robert W. Lehrbrurger, of the Southern District of New York, that no member of that the DEA had collected any evidence of drug trafficking and money laundering that was later used in Colombia against the peace accords with a former FARC guerrilla.
  - La Neuva Prensa, 14 December 2020

• [VIDEO] U.S. embassy participated in a DEA plot to discredit the war crimes tribunal of Colombia. In a letter, Special agent Craig M. Michelin of the DEA’s Country Office asked his liaison at Colombia’s Prosecutor General’s Office in February last year to provide $500,000 for an illegal operation against the Special Jurisdiction for Peace.
  - Noticias Uno, 14 December 2020

• U.S. embassy participated in a DEA plot to discredit the war crimes tribunal of Colombia. In a letter, Special agent Craig M. Michelin of the DEA’s Country Office asked his liaison at Colombia’s Prosecutor General’s Office in February last year to provide $500,000 for an illegal operation against the Special Jurisdiction for Peace.
  - Colombia Reports, 14 December 2020

• Opinion: The Civil War's 13th Amendment, that abolished racial slavery, actually didn't do so - it just replaced it with criminal slavery by allowing forced bondage - slavery - of those convicted of crimes. So White Christians in the South just started charging and convicting black people with fake crimes, so that they could be enslaved (on a shorter term basis) again. [This was one of the founding principles of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, then the U.S. DEA, which was founded by a notorious racist. Think of all of the heinous marijuana convictions.]
  - CNN, 09 December 2020

• The Drug Enforcement Administration in 2018 reportedly bungled a conspiracy against Colombia's war crimes tribunal in an attempt to cover up a botched conspiracy against demobilized guerrillas. The failed operation cost the head of Colombia’s chief prosecutor, triggered a surge in illegal armed groups formed by former FARC guerrillas and strained relations between the two countries.
  - Colombia Reports, 08 December 2020

• Opinion: Soon after arresting Mexcian General Salvador Cienfuegos on drug-trafficking with the Mexican drug cartels and money-laundering charges, the U.S. releases him to 'maintain' good relations with the Mexican government. Yet another loss in the futile, 50-year failed U.S. war on drugs. The good news for the drug-war bureaucracy is that their jobs and pensions are further secured.
  - Wall Street Journal, 07 December 2020

• How the opioid addiction in the U.S. fuels a crisis for farmers in Mexico. As American make more use of fentanyl, poppy growers are losing market share and thus are turning to migrant work and organized crime to survive
  - The Intercept, 06 December 2020

• In contradiction to multiple statistics, the Minister of Defense, Carlos Holmes Trujillo, assured that "The fight against drugs in Colombia is not a failure." He referred to the report of the US House of Representatives on the matter.
  - El Tiempo, 06 December 2020

• Four indigenous leaders are murdered in southwest Colombia (Santander de Quilichao and Caloto), by a dissident FARC group, for impeding the dissident's drug trafficking activities. The indigenous have found themselves increasingly under fire from rearmed former FARC guerrillas who want to use their indigenous reserve to cultivate coca, the basic ingredient for cocaine, and marihuana.
  - Colombia Reports, 06 December 2020

• A study by the Organized Crime Observatory of the Universidad del Rosario reveals that many of the homicides of former combatants occur in municipalities with large areas of coca in Colombia, where the FARC dissidents operate, and in places where there are irregular armed groups in confrontation.
  - El Espectador, 04 December 2020

• The betrayal of Néstor Humberto. If peace with the Farc "resisted the lies and entrapments of Néstor Humberto and the DEA, apparently it can resist everything", said former President Juan Manuel Santos about Néstor Humberto Martínez, the Attorney General appointed by Santos. "We have to get to the bottom of this sordid affair", that is, the controversy will not rest until it is discovered what is the truth of such anti-peace tricks made by the Humberto-DEA partnership, because, as a very knowledgeable source told me, "the DEA does not get involved in such an operation without having a request for judicial assistance".
  - El Espectador, 04 December 2020

• African cocoa farmers accuse "Big Chocolate" (including Mars, Hershey and Olan) of circumventing a $400-per-ton tax meant to help poor African cacao farmers
  - Zero Hedge, 03 December 2020

• The UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs votes to remove marijuana for medical use from a list of the most risky narcotics such as heroin, but doesn't vote to allow recreational marijuana while still keeping nicotine - the most deadly and addictive drug - off of the lists of controlled drugs
  - New York Times, 03 December 2020

• After years facing accusations over child labor, Big Chocolate took its case on Tuesday to the U.S. Supreme Court, with two companies -- Nestlé USA and Cargill -- arguing that they are not liable for human rights abuses committed on cocoa farms in Ivory Coast. Six Malian former child slaves were trafficked to Ivory Coast and forced to work up to 14 hours a day, six days a week, without pay, in the backbreaking harvest of cocoa beans, according to the lawsuit brought on their behalf against the two companies. At issue is a legalistic question of whether the 18th-century Alien Tort Claims Act, or Alien Tort Statute (ATS), can be used by foreigners to sue U.S. corporations for gross violations abroad, including ones that violate international law like child slavery.
  - Fortune, 01 December 2020

• U.S. chemical companies face few legal risks, and the drug traffickers rely on it, profiting the chemical companies from drug trafficking. For example, Taminco illegally sold enough MMA for Mexican narcos to make $3.2 billion worth of methamphetamine. For that, it paid a fine of just $1.3 million—in one of the only prosecutions of its kind ever.
  - Business Week, 01 December 2020

• Colombian Senator Ivan Marulanda proposes new law that would allow the government of Colombia to distribute cocaine for medicinal purposes. Currently, use of cocaine is legal in Colombia, but not the legal sale of cocaine.
  - MixMag, 01 December 2020

• Colombia's banks have been laying the perfect infrastructure for tax evasion, which is estimated to cost the State more than corruption. The country's largest bankers, the Gilinski and the Sarmiento families, have created almost the perfect infrastructure that makes it almost impossible to resist evading taxes. [And yet, there is no bank for the country's coca growers]
  - Colombia Reports, 30 November 2020

• Colombia's defense minister, Carlos Holmes Trujillo, is trying to get media support for his government’s desire to restart the aerial fumigation of coca plants as farmers are doing all they can to stop him. For a week, the minister has been saying that the security forces will forcibly eradicate 130,000 hectares of coca this year, while his own eradicators told media Trujillo is cooking the books.
  - Colombia Reports, 30 November 2020

• The children of former coca growers in Boyacá, Colombia, are creating a future without coca (or fumigation). The solutions they have devised show how, beyond the hectares of coca and at a time when the government of Iván Duque insists on resuming spraying, there are more useful indicators to measure what works in drug policy.
  - La Silla Vacia, 29 November 2020

• McKinsey & Company, the world's most prestigious consulting firm, proposed in 2017 to the non-convicted (in 2020) drug trafficking company Purdue Pharma that Purdue pay pharmacy companies a rebate for each of their customers who overdosed using Purdue's heroin-pill, OxyContin, the root cause evil of an opioid crisis that killed 450,000 Americans since 1999
  - New York Times, 28 November 2020

• Bolivia reports to date in 2020 that 2,000 hectares of coca have been eliminated and its plans to eliminate 8,000 in 2021. The Minister of Government, Eduardo del Castillo, explained that representatives of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) made their concern known for the increase in coca crops in the government of former President Jeanine áñez.
  - La Razon, 27 November 2020

• After flying over the Chapare, Bolivian Government Minister Eduardo del Castillo blamed former Minister Arturo Murillo for the increase in coca leaf cultivation. According to the authority, the "only thing the previous administration did was incriminate producers, assuring that they were guerrillas".
  - Pagina Siete, 27 November 2020

• Colombia's Sergio Arboleda University is the alma mater of far-right President Ivan Duque and notorious for its ties to organized crime. [It has done no research to help coca industrialization.]
  - Colombia Reports, 27 November 2020

• The investigation into the alleged complicity of former President Alvaro Uribe in three massacres and a homicide is increasing suspicion that Colombia’s banks were sponsoring terrorism. These banks include BanColombia.
  - Colombia Reports, 26 November 2020

• "Measuring the drug trafficking problem in terms of cultivated hectares is a mistake." For Adam Isacson, in charge of Defense Oversight of the Washington Office for Latin American Affairs (WOLA), one must also speak of the absence of the State, poverty, inequality, corruption and impunity.
  - El Espectador, 26 November 2020

• Cannabis tax revenues in Q3 collected by the State of California soared by a record 80% year-over-year, and by a record of $136 million year-over-year, to a $307 million. This brought California’s cannabis taxes during the first nine months of 2020 to $775 million, and on track to exceed $1 billion for the whole year.
  - Zero Hedge, 24 November 2020

• The risks of another drug trafficking epidemic: teenage vaping of highly addictive nicotine. "We are stepping backward from all the advances we have made in tobacco control.", one investigator said.
  - New York Times, 24 November 2020

• How one cacao entrepreneur, Max Brenner, is building a business by using all parts of the cacao pod, not just the 30% fruit part used by chocolate companies
  - Entrepreneur, 24 November 2020

• Chocolate makers are having a hard time reducing their use of sugar. Regulators want sugar levels slashed, but doing so is technically tricky and a tough sell to consumers. [Coca leaf extracts can help reduce sugar.]
  - Wall Street Journal, 21 November 2020

• Colombia's former chief prosecutor, Nestor Humberto Martinez, is facing criminal charges for allegedly conspiring with the US Government in order to file bogus drug trafficking charges against a demobilized guerrilla leader, Jesus Santrich. The conspiracy all but destroyed Colombia’s peace process, spurred the rearmament of Santrich and the FARC's former political chief "Ivan Marquez", and forced Martinez to resign.
  - Colombia Reports, 19 November 2020

• President Ivan Duque wants the US to maintain support for "what used to be Plan Colombia", the U.S.-funded counternarcotics strategy that subsidized at least three drug traffickers. US President-elect Joe Biden called the counternarcotics strategy "one of the most successful -- and bipartisan -- foreign policy undertakings of the last half century", contradicting a GAO report that the policy undertaking has mostly been a failure.
  - Colombia Reports, 19 November 2020

• Evo Morales Ayma has installed his office in the headquarters of the Coordinator of the Six Federations of the Tropics. The headquarters of the Coordinator is located in the town of Lauka Ñ - 172 kilometers from Cochabamba - in the municipality of Shinahota in Chapare. Lauca Ñ is considered the historic center of the cocalero movement in Bolivia.
  - Pagina Siete, 15 November 2020

• Argentina to allow medical marijuana to be grown at home
  - New York Times, 13 November 2020

• The five families who own the news in Colombia [news sources which have done nothing to promote legal uses of the coca leaf] - the Sarmiento (Grupo Aval), Ardila (Postobon, sugar plantations), Santo Domingo, Gilinski (Bancolombia), and Char (Caribbean region) clans
  - Colombia Reports, 13 November 2020

• A 'mega-laboratory' of cocaine, in which up to five tons of this drug were processed, using thousands of tons of coca leaf, was destroyed by Colombian authorities in the last hours in the ágle area of the municipality of Francisco Pizarro, Nariño. The drug trafficking complex was the property of the Residual Organized Armed Group belonging to FARC dissidents.
  - El Pais, 13 November 2020

• It is not only potatoes and corn: cassava and bananas are also experiencing economic crisis. "The downside is that the price they offer us for our product does not compensate for production costs, so corn is not as perishable as potatoes, but at the moment we don't have cash flow. This, apart from the pandemic, is It originates because the corn they bring from abroad is cheaper, so the companies that bought us no longer do it." "They stimulate imports by removing tariffs and in that case national agricultural production is discouraged," explains Vanegas. What is happening with bananas and white corn, beans, in Putumayo. It is a situation that also happens with strawberries and blackberries.
  - El Tiempo, 13 November 2020

• Leonard Loza, the coca grower leader and activist of the ruling political party Movement Toward Socialism, Leonardo Loza, will be the Secretary of the Security and Fight Against Drug Trafficking commission in Bolivia. The new Deputy Minister of Social Defense announced that he will resume the strategy to combat drugs that the government of Evo Morales had implemented.
  - El Deber, 13 November 2020

• Banking moguls Gabriel and Jaime Gilinski all but destroyed what used to be Colombia's most influential news magazine after appointing a controversial media personality as editor-in-chief. The appointment of Vicky Davila, a member of the Gnecco crime family, as director of Semana triggered an unprecedented walkout and the destruction of the magazine’s reputation. The Gilinski family will have to compete with RCN Television and El Tiempo newspaper, who could take advantage of the mass walkout at Semana to marginalize what used to be Colombia’s most renowned magazine into bankruptcy. [Over the years, Semana has done nothing to help the world of the coca leaf.]
  - Colombia Reports, 12 November 2020

• Investors from the United States, Canada and Germany are interested in the future of legalized hemp in Costa Rica
  - La Republica, 11 November 2020

• Technology innovations look to change the cacao landscape in Colombia. Cacao holds promises, if the prices remain high enough, as a 'peace crop' in Colombia, providing smallholders with a viable alternative to coca
  - MongaBay, 10 November 2020

• Leonard Loza, the coca grower leader and activist of the ruling political party Movement Toward Socialism, Leonardo Loza, will be the Secretary of the Security and Fight Against Drug Trafficking commission in Bolivia
  - Pagina Siete, 10 November 2020

• E-cigarettes sold by nicotine drug traffickers can be a 'gateway' to teenagers smoking tobacco cigarettes sold by tobacco-nicotine drug traffickers
  - EurekaAlert, 09 November 2020

• Ex-president Evo Morales returns to Bolivia to cheers. He remains president both of the ruling MAS party, and remains leader of the powerful coca growers labor unions - an intensely loyal and well-organized social movement that over the past two decades has rapidly mobilized tens of thousands of members to support its leader in times of crisis
  - New York Times, 09 November 2020

• The Bolivian Ombudsman's Office condemns violence over control of Adepcoca (the coca growers cooperative) and calls for dialogue. Two sectors of coca leaf producers staged protests in the early hours of the morning in the vicinity of Adepcoca in Villa Fátima.
  - Pagina Siete, 09 November 2020

• How the DEA all but destroyed Colombia's peace process for no apparent reason, which has denied a new, legal future for the coca leaf
  - Colombia Reports, 09 November 2020

• One of the main natural components of ayahuasca tea is dimethyltryptamine (DMT), which promotes neurogenesis -- the formation of new neurons, as well as helps with the formation of other neural cells such as astrocytes and oligodendrocytes
  - Medical Xpress, 06 November 2020

• Three opioid drug traffickers (McKesson, Cardinal Health, Amerisource Bergen) and one large opioid drug manufacturer (Johnson & Johnson) are closing in on a $26 billion deal with state and local governments that would end thousands of lawsuits over the companies’ role in the opioid epidemic. The distributors shipped more than three-quarters of the nation's opioids to pharmacies, rarely raising red flags even when quantities were wildly disproportionate to a store's local population - pure drug trafficking.
  - New York Times, 06 November 2020

• The evidence of ties between Colombias ruling party, the Democratic Center of President Ivan Duque, and drug trafficking is so overwhelming that the prosecution invented more charges against the cops who discovered ties between the far right Democratic Center and the drug trafficking organization of Marquitos Figueroa
  - Colombia Reports, 06 November 2020

• Authorities in Honduras have destroyed more than 100 acres of coca crops in 2020, the latest seizure of 4,000 coca bushes occurring in Iriona, a municipality on the Caribbean coast in the department of Colón
  - InSight Crime, 04 November 2020

• The Government of Bolivia, through the Ministry of Productive Development and Plural Economy and the National Service of Intellectual Property, Senapi, yesterday made the official launch of the Denomination of Origin of the Royal Quinoa of the Southern Altiplano of Bolivia. (The same for the coca leaf in the future!)
  - Pagina Siete, 04 November 2020

• American voters in the state of New Jersey approved a constitutional amendment to legalize recreational cannabis, putting pressure on neighboring states like New York to legalize as well, or lose sales to New Jersey
  - New York Times, 04 November 2020

• In less than one year, the Congress of the Republic of Colombia kills for the second time one of the proposals that generates the most controversy in the country: the regulation of the consumption of marijuana for recreational purposes
  - El Espectador, 04 November 2020

• In less than one year, the Congress of the Republic of Colombia kills for the second time one of the proposals that generates the most controversy in the country: the regulation of the consumption of marijuana for recreational purposes
  - El Tiempo, 04 November 2020

• Oregon became the first US state on Tuesday to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of hard drugs such as cocaine and heroin, and to legalize access to hallucinogenic mushrooms for therapeutic use
  - CRHoy.com, 04 November 2020

• Oregon became the first US state on Tuesday to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of hard drugs such as cocaine and heroin, and to legalize access to hallucinogenic mushrooms for therapeutic use
  - Fox News, 04 November 2020

• The declining oil industry in Colombia could trigger an economic crisis with reserves expected to depleted in six years. With oil generating 7% of Colombia's GDP, and 60% of its exports by value, new income streams will be needed. [Such as a legal coca leaf industry.
  - Seeking Alpha, 03 November 2020

• The Colombian Minister of Justice, Wilson Ruiz, talks about the process that the Government has been carrying out for 16 months to restart the aerial fumigation of illegal crops, following a decision of the Constitutional Court, of July last year, which reopened that possibility.
  - El Tiempo, 03 November 2020

• The Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) of Bolivia affliated with the Movement for Socialism (MAS - the ruling party) was reactivated and decided to implement the control of its affiliates through the coca producer card, a requirement that is issued by Adepcoca led by Franclin Gutierrez.
  - Pagina Siete, 03 November 2020

• When US President Trump took office, he made it clear that he had no intention to fulfill commitments made by his predecessor Barack Obama to support the peace process that included a new counternarcotics policy, the substitution of coca crops, as part of a strategy called "Peace Colombia". Trump was supported by Lindsay Graham and Marco Rubio, Alvaro Uribe and associates. Meanwhile the U.S. opioid crisis was killing ten times more people in the US than cocaine, and the U.S. government was doing little to stop those drug traffickers. Meanwhile, hundreds of millions of dollars allocated by the US Congress achieved no results in Colombia.
  - Colombia Reports, 02 November 2020

• Oregon is on the verge of decriminalizing heroin, coca and LSD. Under the new measure, possession of less than 1 gram of heroin or meth, 2 grams of cocaine, 12 grams of psilocybin, 40 doses of LSD, oxycodone or methadone and 1 gram of MDMA would all be decriminalized.
  - Zero Hedge, 01 November 2020

• In rural Colombia, narcotics gangs step into power vacuum left by peace deal. Massacres and assassinations of community leaders are rising in the countryside as gangs vie for control of coca, marijuana and gold mining
  - Wall Street Journal, 31 October 2020

• Between 2019 and 2020, the National Commission for Development and Life without Drugs (Devida) of Peru invested 54, 923,133 soles (about US $15 million) in the Huánuco region to strengthen alternative development projects and activities, benefiting 17,279 farming families.
  - El Peruano, 31 October 2020

• The senator elected by the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), Andrónico Rodríguez, signaled that the former president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, upon his return to the country, will resume the leadership of the Six Federations of Coca Growers of the Tropic of Cochabamba, of which he is president, and of the party.
  - Pagina Siete, 30 October 2020

• Andrónico Rodríguez, a coca farmer from the Tropic of Cochabamba, and Freddy Mamani, a rural teacher in El Alto, were elected to direct the Senate and House of Representatives, respectively, for the Bolivian Legislature
  - Pagina Siete, 30 October 2020

• Nicotine drug trafficker Juul, with its electronic cigarettes, reduces its valuation to $10 billion from over $38 billion just two years ago, before regulatory crackdowns on its legal drug trafficking. Equal rights demands coca farmers be able to sell an electronic cigarette with the less harmful coca alkaloid.
  - Wall Street Journal, 29 October 2020

• An SOS is heard from the potato farmers of Colombia due to low prices for the producer. The closure of hotels, restaurants and cafeterias reduced potato consumption in the country between 30% and 40%. This, in turn, caused lower potato prices that represent losses for farmers. Relief for debts and actions against imports, among their requests. It is not an alternative to coca leaf.
  - El Espectador, 29 October 2020

• In Putumayo, Colombia, the covid virus doesn't hurt the community as much that of illegal armed groups, and that of the legal controversies of the local government. The province is being hit by the territorial dispute between the gangs, and the governance crisis due to the accusations against its governor and one of his two congressmen. Yurilla, which can only be reached by boat, is a key district because it is the connecting door between Putumayo and Caquetá. It is an important corridor for the military rear (Leguízamo and Solano, in Caquetá, are the largest and most inhospitable municipalities of the two departments) but also for the transport and commercialization of coca and marijuana.
  - La Silla Vacia, 28 October 2020

• Mexican gangsters are sending emissaries and even agronomists to Colombia to trade for cocaine and to improve and guarantee its purity. That in Córdoba, in Bajo Cauca and in Chocó, pamphlets of the Sinaloa cartel and that of 'Los Zetas' are appearing and that foreigners with a Mexican accent are terrorizing the population.
  - El Tiempo, 27 October 2020

• Tetra Technologies wanted to boost sales of calcium chloride, a compound with lots of commercial applications. Now Colombian drug lords are asking for it by name, which they smuggle from Peru through Ecuador into Colombia. They buy huge quantities legally in Peru from Tetra, which doesn't verify who is buying their chemicals.
  - BusinessWeek, 26 October 2020

• The governments of the Colombia and the US are in damage control mode after media revealed how their failing counternarcotics policy is hurting their political alliance. The US embassy and Colombia's prosecution were forced to respond to reports on the alleged involvement of US counternarcotics officials in corruption and Prosecutor General Barbosa's failure to cooperate with the Americans. The reports added to evidence indicating how their bilateral counternarcotics policy failed to prevent Colombia's potential cocaine production to reach an all-time high last year. Both Duque and Uribe are being investigated because they allegedly believed they could get away with US counternarcotics funds to fight political opposition instead of narcos, which is causing discord.
  - Colombia Reports, 26 October 2020

• Young influencers on YouTube are increasingly marketing/trafficking addictive ák food and sugary beverages to fellow children
  - CNN, 26 October 2020

• Attorney General Francisco Barbosa versus Uncle Sam: the unprecedented fracture that separates the allies. The Office of the Prosecutor and the United States are going through a crisis without precedent in 25 years of relations. The departure of the Colombian prosecutors who worked with the US Justice has the government of that country worried and upset. High diplomatic sources in the United States confirmed to SEMANA that the Americans are concerned with a series of decisions that Barbosa has taken, which has interfered with the development of investigations against the big mafias.
  - Semana, 25 October 2020 é

• Indigenous Colombians (many of them subsistence coca growers), facing new wave of brutality, demand government action before they are exterminated because the government refuses to fully implement the Peace Accord, leaving them exposed to criminal attack
  - New York Times, 24 October 2020

• The expanding tentacles of the Jalisco Cartel (CJNG) in Colombia, on which it is highly dependent for cocaine. It is battling the Sinaloa cartel in Antioquia (Medellin). Economics: they pay $5,000/kilo for cocaine in Colombia, and sell it in Mexico for $15,000/kilo, which is then sold in the U.S. for $125,000/kilo. The CJNG ships via planes either from Norto de Santander through Venezuela to Guatemala/Honduras, or ships via boats from Nariño or Cauca ports to Guatemala/Mexico.
  - SofRep, 22 October 2020

• Is Colombia's aviation agency, with its ties to former President Uribe, again working with drug traffickers, this time the Sinaloa Cartel (the last time was with the Medellin Cartel)?
  - Colombia Reports, 22 October 2020

• 63 rural laboratories for the extraction of cocaine base were destroyed by the Colombian Antinarcotics Police in municipalities of Cauca and Caquetá. The operations were carried out in the municipalities of Piedmont (Cauca) and San José del Fragua, Puerto Rico, Valparaíso and Milan (Caquetá).
  - El Pais, 21 October 2020

• The opioid drug trafficking company Purdue Pharmaceutical, the maket of the highly addictive Oxycontin opioid, run by the Sackler drug trafficking family, pleads guilty to federal drug traffickin crimes, will pay $8 billion in penalties, and will shutdown the drug trafficking company
  - CNN, 21 October 2020

• Book review: "White Market Drugs" by David Herzberg - major drug crises are not caused by the black market but in the 'white' one, where the addictive potential of legally prescribed drugs is played done and leads to more deaths and social destruction
  - Wall Street Journal, 21 October 2020

• The ties in Colombia between the government of Colombia's President, Ivan Duque, and organized crime. The president, who was elected in 2018 with the alleged help of a drug trafficking organization, has granted an increasing amount of power to family members and representatives of notorious organized crime figures.
  - Colombia Reports, 20 October 2020

• MAS wins in Yungas, the coca-growing region that confronted Evo Morales. Extortion, bribery and "submission" by the leaders are the reasons identified by the coca growers of the Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) of the Yungas as the cause of the victory of the Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS) in the elections in that coca-growing region on Sunday 18.
  - Pagina Siete, 20 October 2020

• Bolivians return Evo Morales's MAS party to power one year after a U.S.-applauded coup tried to destroy one of Latin America's most vibrant democracies
  - The Intercept, 19 October 2020

• The MAS party wins the presidential election in Bolivia, a year after Evo Morales, their leader and former president and head of the major coca growing organization, was ousted in the last last elections.
  - Bloomberg, 19 October 2020

• Lawmakers in Colombia are debating how to regulate cocaine. Here is what we know about decriminalization.
  - Washington Post, 19 October 2020

• Cannabis farmers in Lebanon, many of whom produce hashish (concentrated cannabis extracts), are switching to food crops, which are cheaper to produce and with higher profit potential during the current economic crisis in Lebanon
  - New York Times, 19 October 2020

• Drug enforcement agents had long tried to solve the mystery of “El Padrino,” a shadowy, powerful force in the world of drug trafficking. They have now identified him as Salvador Cienfuegos, Mexico's defense chief from 2012 to 2018
  - New York Times, 17 October 2020

• Former Mexican defense minister General Salvador Cienfuegos is arrested in the United States at the request of the DEA, the highest ranking Mexican official to be arrested in connection with drug-related corruption
  - Wall Street Journal, 16 October 2020

• How the Colombian indigenous Nasa people, one of the few groups manufacturing legal coca leaf products for sale, are fighting land theft by the sugar company Incauca (in the province of Cauca), owned by Carlos Ardila, a close ally of President Ivan Duque and owner of a powerful media empire, including RCN Television and RCN Radio
  - Colombia Reports, 15 October 2020

• Mexico is poised to become the biggest legal marijuana market in the world. But can it protect the estimated 200,000 families growing it now? Can they now be protected from competition with the large, foreign marijuana firms that have been jockeying for influence, with lobbyists and Canadian and United States companies playing an outsized role in shaping the legislation, which would create an "elite gourmet market" that would benefit big corporations and upper-class users?
  - Los Angeles Times, 12 October 2020

• Colombian President Ivan Duque and his political patron, former President Alvaro Uribe, Prosecutor General Francisco Barbosa and former mafia attorney Diego Cadena have all been charged by former intelligence chief Ramiro Bejerano with fabricating evidence that Bejerano's former boss, former Ernesto Samper, had ormer presidential candidate Alvaro Gomez assassinated
  - Colombia Reports, 12 October 2020

• [IDIOTIC OPINION]: Bolivia flirts with the return of Evo Morales, as a divided opposition could give the upcoming presidential election to a member of Evo's MAS political party, Luis Arce - the idiotic opinion being this will give the country back to Cuba and drug traffickers
  - Wall Street Journal, 11 October 2020

• "The Government of Colombia is not serious with the implementation of the Peace Agreement": Bernard Aronson, former delegate of the US government in talks with the FARC in Havana
  - El Espectador, 10 October 2020

• From being demobilized from the Farc, the coffee growers and their La Mesa Nacional del Café, as the five cooperatives of Cauca and Valle that started it baptized the project, it is, in the words of Antonio Pardo, "the first attempt at a federation that we have to organize everything the coffee issue at the national level of the reincorporated".
  - La Silla Vacia, 09 October 2020

• Several of the massacres that have occurred this year in the country have a common denominator: the municipalities where they occurred are located in the foothills of the western mountain range, the main entrance of the departments of Cauca and Nariño to the Pacific Ocean. A SEMANA report on what is happening in the foothills of the western mountain range shows a panorama marked by drug trafficking and fear strategies to control the population.
  - Semana, 04 October 2020

• Tumaco, Colombia, confined by war and illicit crops. The forced displacement, forced recruitment and drug trafficking that surround this municipality located in the southwest of Colombia, near the border with Ecuador, often hide the joy of its citizens.
  - El Tiempo, 03 October 2020

• In the first presidential forum of Bolivia, the proposals passed between the novel and the familiar. The candidate for Acción Democrática Nacionalista (ADN), María de la Cruz Bayá, argued for a tax on coca from Chapare.
  - La Razon, 03 October 2020

• Donald Trump slammed his predecessor Barack Obama, rival Joe Biden and Colombia’s former President Juan Manuel Santos for sealing a "terrible treaty with the Colombian drug cartels ... and who surrendered to narco-terrorists", though Trump has done nothing to help make the Peace treaty a success
  - The City Paper, 28 September 2020

• Politicians in Colombia seek to have the government take control of the cocaine market, but it is unlikely to happen in the near future
  - Post-Gazette/LATimes, 27 September 2020

• A coca grower (Leonardo Loza), a philosopher and a businessman are fighting for the first Senate seat of the Llajta (Cochabamba, Bolivia). The candidates present their positions on health, education, re-election, complaints against Evo and regional issues.
  - Pagina Siete, 27 September 2020

• Prices of wholesale tea leaves around the world have jumped 50% since March, as more tea is consumed by people stuck at home due to the coronavirus [an opportunity for coca tea?]
  - Wall Street Journal, 24 September 2020

• U.K. "magic mushroom company" Compass Pathways went public on Friday, jumping 71% to $29 in its New York debut after pricing an initial 6.7 million shares at $14 to $16 each. The company's NASDAQ listing is expected to raise $127.5 million. The company has patented a synthetic version of psilopsybin, the active ingredient in hallucenigenic mushrooms.
  - Zero Hedge, 21 September 2020

• Neoliberal obesity and coronavirus in Mexico - billions of American dollars of investments and advertising brought high rates of chronic disease to Mexico which has led to a surging COVID-19 death toll. How free trade and NAFTA enabled companies such as Coca-Cola to flood Mexico with tons of sugary beverages, so that Mexico joins the US in having the most obese people in the world, and that diabetes is the number one killed in Mexico.
  - Al Jazeera, 19 September 2020

• President Iván Duque assured that he hopes to continue advancing with glyphosate spraying protocols in Colombia, with the objective that they are ready before the end of the year and the country can have all the necessary tools in the fight against the increase in crops of illicit use such as coca.
  - El Pais, 16 September 2020

• The president of the United States, Donald Trump, certified Colombia's work in the fight against drug trafficking, but warned about the need for the country to soon resume aerial spraying against illicit crops, if it wants to meet its eradication goals.
  - El Pais, 16 September 2020

• The president of the United States, Donald Trump, certified Colombia's work in the fight against drug trafficking, but warned about the need for the country to soon resume aerial spraying against illicit crops, if it wants to meet its eradication goals.
  - El Espectador, 16 September 2020

• US DEA Special Agent José Ismael Irizarry and his wife Nathalia Gomez Irizarry pled guilty to all charges in a 19 count indictment brought against the couple for a scheme in which they collaborated with the very narcotraffickers agent Irizarry was assigned to bring to justice, diverting over $9 million USD in ill-gotten drug proceeds to their own personal possession
  - Finance Colombia, 15 September 2020

• Over 20 million people in the U.S. are addicted to legal opioids
  - Letter - Wall Street Journal, 15 September 2020

• Addicted to losing: how addictive casino-like cellphone apps have drained people of millions of dollars when they buy addictive "enhancements"
  - NBC News, 14 September 2020

• Colombia sees surge in mass killings despite the 2017 Peace Accord was assigned, one big problem being the failure to provide legal alternatives (e.g., crop substitution) for the nation's coca farmers who are being attacked by drug traffickers and terrorist groups
  - New York Times, 13 September 2020

• A coca farmer, Leonardo Loza, dreams of replacing Evo Morales as the primary senator from Cochabamba, one of the coca growing regions of Bolivia
  - Pagina Siete, 09 September 2020

• The challenge of coffee growers in Colombia: collecting 7.5 million sacks of coffee beans during the coronavirus pandemic
  - El Espectador, 08 September 2020

• Dissidents, the ELN and Clan Golfo - the groups attacking coca eradicators. This year, there have been 13 murders of government workers, and 70 more workers injured, while these workers were eradicating coca bushes in Colombia
  - El Tiempo, 07 September 2020

• VIDEO: El Tiempo Verde: impacts of aerial spraying with glyphosate - experts discuss social and environmental risks of a possible return of the spraying
  - El Tiempo, 06 September 2020

• Iván Márquez and Santrich: the alliances and wars in their plan to re-found the Farc. After a year of rearmament, that dissidence renamed the Second Marquetalia makes its way into the criminal world. Its presence is stronger in Nariño, Cauca, Antioquia, Casanare, Vichada and Arauca.
  - Semana, 05 September 2020

• The Nariño province in southwest Colombia suffered its third massacre in a month. Four people were found shot dead in Buesaco, a locality in the generally calm northeast of the province.
  - Colombia Reports, 05 September 2020

• Four people were killed in the rural area of Buesaco, Nariño, the community denounced this Friday afternoon. This is the third massacre that has been registered in the department of Nariño in recent days, after the murder of eight young people in Samaniego, on August 15, and of six people in Tumaco, on August 22.
  - El Pais, 04 September 2020

• The resurrected Medellin drug cartel, "Oficina de Envigado", controls much of Colombia’s drug trade through a network of local right-wing partners that sell the cocaine to their Mexican clients. Much of their profits are laundered in Medellin and Bogota, just in case Washington DC stops chasing ghosts in Venezuela. Yet, the Colombian prosecutor who went after the members of "the Oficina executive board" and their political allies was fired by Prosecutor General Francisco Barboso in January.
  - Colombia Reports, 04 September 2020

• The Center for Reproductive Rights and the School of Public Health of the Universidad del Valle (Colombia) published this Thursday an investigation that shows how the exposure of people to glyphosate can have negative impacts on reproductive health. Glyphosate aerial sprays are used against illicit coca leaf crops.
  - El Espectador, 02 September 2020

• The Center for Reproductive Rights and the School of Public Health of the Universidad del Valle (Colombia) published this Thursday an investigation that shows how the exposure of people to glyphosate can have negative impacts on reproductive health. Glyphosate aerial sprays are used against illicit coca leaf crops.
  - El Tiempo, 02 September 2020

• Spraying with glyphosate, for eradication of the coca leaf, will not arrive in Colombia as soon and as easy as the Government says FNR
  - La Silla Vacia, 01 September 2020

• Colombia's defense minister, Carlos Holmes Trujillo may have to tell the US government he screwed up the involvement of American soldiers in counternarcotics operations for the second time in three months, because he failed to receive formal approval from Congress
  - Colombia Reports, 01 September 2020

• Ayahuasca, a vomit-inducing hallucinogenic brew, draws thousands of people each year — including former soldiers — to ágle retreats in Latin America that have become an unlicensed and unregulated mental health marketplace
  - New York Times, 30 August 2020

• Spokeswomen for coca growers in Cauca, Nariño and Putumayo assure that aerial spraying is useless to face the spiral of violence in the regions. "Glyphosate would be our door to hell".
  - El Espectador, 30 August 2020

• Colombia wants to resume spraying its coca fields with glyphosate, a toxic carcinogenic chemical, but critics argue that it is dangerous to do so and ineffective
  - CNN, 28 August 2020

• Could glyphosate spraying prevent massacres, as the defense minister suggested? Two experts dispute the defense minister's theory raised a few days ago. María Victoria Llorente and Camilo González Posso point out that it cannot be generalized that the 43 massacres committed so far in 2020 are exclusively related to drug trafficking.
  - El Espectador, 27 August 2020

• The governments of Colombia and the United States want to resume aerial fumigation and continue the forced eradication of coca that cost $20 billion between 2005 and 2014 without any significant result. Under questioning by opposition politicians, the government admitted that voluntary crop substitution, which is opposed by both Bogota and Washington DC, is both cheaper and more effective.
  - Colombia Reports, 26 August 2020

• The U.S. state of Oregon may soon decriminalize the low-level possession of all drugs, with such possession reclassified from a misdemeanor to a violation that is punishable by a $100 fine or a health assessment
  - The Mind Unleashed, 22 August 2020

• An administrative tribunal in Cauca, a province in southwest Colombia, ordered the National Army to halt the forced eradication of illicit coca crops and prioritize crop substitution on Thursday after farmers from a war-torn area filed a lawsuit.
  - Colombia Reports, 21 August 2020

• The Administrative Tribunal of Cauca province (Colombia) ordered the Territory Renewal Agency, as well as the National Army, to immediately halt the forced eradication of illegal coca crops in the municipalities of Caloto, Cajibío and Piedmont
  - Semana, 20 August 2020

• Colombia and US talk big hot air but offer no specifics in announcing a joing rural development plan "worth billions" - funded projects in the past begin for oil fields and toll roads, not for rural development
  - Colombia Reports, 19 August 2020

• Jaime Monge, an environmental leader, was murdered this Tuesday in the village of Villacarmelo (it is located in the southwest of the city of Cali)
  - El Pais, 19 August 2020

• Jhon Rojas, governor of Nariño, spoke with EL TIEMPO after the massacre of eight young people in Samaniego. "Drug trafficking is to blame for the deaths in Nariño."
  - El Tiempo, 19 August 2020

• Another massacre in Nariño, Colombia: three Awá indigenous people were killed in Ricaurte. The incident occurred in the community of Aguacate, in the Awá reservation of Pialapi Pueblo Viejo. The community in the area speaks of other missing indigenous community members.
  - El Espectador, 19 August 2020

• U.S. states are asking for around $26.4 billion from major pharmaceutical industry players - companies little different from drug traffickers - to help pay for damage wrought by the opioid crisis, the latest demand in yearslong litigation seeking to hold companies accountable for widespread drug addiction
  - Wall Street Journal, 19 August 2020

• Massacre of eight boys between 16 and 25 years old, last Saturday in the village of Santa Catalina, in Samaniego (Nariño) - drug trafficking is the main problem, but much more than that, for example, other illegal income such as illegal mining
  - La Silla Vacia, 18 August 2020

• Marijuana vending machine debuts in Colorado with more to be installed
  - Denver Post, 17 August 2020

• The control of illicit crops, production and illegal drug trafficking routes in Nariño, which until 2018 was the department with the most coca crops in the country - 36,964 hectares, is one of the reasons that makes this region remaining troubled by the dispute of different armed groups
  - El Tiempo, 17 August 2020

• US National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien announced "the new growth initiative between the US and Colombia to catalyze up to 5 billion dollars of private investment in rural areas" of the country and explained that this money seeks to "support economic opportunity, stability and security"
  - El Tiempo, 16 August 2020

• Colombia's leading weekly magazine, Semana, and one of its journalists, Vicky Davila, is conspiring with a convicted drug trafficker, Juan Carlos "El Tuse" Sierra, to discredit the Supreme Court for a second time, this time because the Supreme Court has charged former president Uribe with crimes
  - Colombia Reports, 14 August 2020

• Mallinckrodt, which manufactures cocaine using coca leaves from Peru, files for bankruptcy due to financial liabilities for its role, along with Purdue Pharmaceuticals, in creating and exploiting the opioid epidemic in the United States, for which both companies earned tens of billions of dollar, legally, for being little more than drug traffickers with lawyers
  - ValueWalk, 06 August 2020

• Coca cultivation increased from 23,100 hectares to 25,500 in Bolivia. An international report also detected the presence of coca crops in 6 of the 22 protected areas nationwide. The Yungas regions of La Paz, the Tropic of Cochabamba and the North of La Paz represented 64, 34 and 2 percent of the coca cultivated areas in the country.
  - El Diario, 30 July 2020

• Legal drug trafficking - how a pharma giant, drug distributor McKesson, legally flooded the Standing Rock Sioux reservation with opioids, and also legally trafficked the vast majority of painkillers to Native American communities across the U.S. during the opioid epidemic
  - Vice, 30 July 2020

• Coca cultivation increased from 23,100 hectares to 25,500 in Bolivia. An international report also detected the presence of coca crops in 6 of the 22 protected areas nationwide. The Yungas regions of La Paz, the Tropic of Cochabamba and the North of La Paz represented 64, 34 and 2 percent of the coca cultivated areas in the country.
  - La Razon, 30 July 2020

• Coca cultivation increased from 23,100 hectares to 25,500 in Bolivia. An international report also detected the presence of coca crops in 6 of the 22 protected areas nationwide. The Yungas regions of La Paz, the Tropic of Cochabamba and the North of La Paz represented 64, 34 and 2 percent of the coca cultivated areas in the country.
  - Pagina Siete, 30 July 2020

• The deputy of Democrats party in Bolivia, Tomás Monasterio, said that processes will be initiated against people guilty of the increase in coca leaf cultivation in national parks during 2019 and assured that this is a way of being "functional to drug trafficking", he also condemned the absence of state policies from the previous government around this issue.
  - Pagina Siete, 29 July 2020

• Sandra Ramirez: from FARC guerrilla in Colombia to being the second vice-president of the Senate of Colombia
  - Colombia Reports, 22 July 2020

• The hostility between milk producers and buyers in Colombia flared up again, after the former accused the latter of manipulating the market in order to reduce milk prices amid the current crisis unleashed by the covid-19 pandemic, a fact that it is on the verge of bankruptcy the more than 300,000 families who live on the sale of milk to the big industry.
  - El Tiempo, 21 July 2020

• The Joint Task Force (FTC) began yesterday the eradication of coca crops in prohibited areas in Bolivia, such as national parks - the law states that it is prohibited to grow the leaf in protected areas.
  - Pagina Siete, 21 July 2020

• Opposition political parties in Colombia decided to make politics interesting by introducing a bill that seeks to end the war on drugs by decriminalizing cocaine and regulating its production
  - Colombia Reports, 20 July 2020

• Drug trafficking Big Tobacco finds new way to traffick nicotine - they hope that new oral nicotine pouches will fill the vaping void
  - Business Week, 17 July 2020

• In the midst of disbelief, President Ivan Duqu bets on a new coca substitution strategy in Colombia for the 100,000 coca grower families that are not within the National Comprehensive Substitution Program
  - La Silla Vacia, 17 July 2020

• Colombia's defense minister, Carlos Holmes Trujillo, said Monday the government is ready to resume the aerial fumigation of coca after local media reported that forced eradication statistics were inflated
  - Colombia Reports, 14 July 2020

• Colombia’s defense ministry has been reporting inflated statistics on the forced eradication of coca, the base ingredient of cocaine, multiple counternarcotics officials told weekly Semana. Eight civilian eradicators and counternarcotics officials confirmed the fraud that reportedly has been going on for at least 10 years and is known by the United States embassy.
  - Colombia Reports, 13 July 2020

• Coca eradication lies: reports of coca eradication efforts by the Public Force could be altered. SEMANA obtained testimonies and evidence from state officials and contractors that could show that the statistics for the forced manual eradication of coca are exaggerated by up to 30 percent.
  - Semana, 12 July 2020

• How the CIA made Afghanistan safe for the opium trade in the 1980s - even though Islamabad houses one of the largest DEA offices in Asia, no action was ever taken by the DEA agents against any of these opium operations
  - Counterpunch, 10 July 2020

• How Noticias RCN, one of Colombia's leading television channels, falsely reported that dissident FARC guerrillas’ alleged increased cultivation of coca was the main cause of deforestation in the central Meta province. The claim is contradicted by environmental authorities that say that cattle farming and peasants’ need for land are the main causes of deforestation in the area.
  - Colombia Reports, 10 July 2020

• Colombia's gamble on the oil industry could end in disaster, with oil prices collapsing as the country's oil reserves are depleted
  - OilPrice.com, 08 July 2020

• NGO denounces the death of two peasants after forced eradication operations against coca in Putumayo. The Minga Association assures that the members of the Public Force involved in these events, which took place in Puerto Asís, also injured three other peasants, two of them injured by a firearm.
  - El Espectador, 03 July 2020

• Futures prices for cocoa drop to a one-year low, as the coronavirus pandemic depresses global consumption of chocolate, a drop in prices similar to the drop in prices in coffee beans - both falsely proposed as alternatives to coca farming
  - ZeroHedge, 30 June 2020

• How former president of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe, allegedly help launch the Medellin drug cartel when he was head of the country's civil aviation agency from 1980 to 1982
  - Colombia Reports, 29 June 2020

• A global surplus of coffee beans and deteriorating demand due to the coronavirus pushes coffee commodity prices to 15-year lows, which makes coffee less attractive as an alternative to coca farming
  - Zero Hedge, 28 June 2020

• Coca leaf cultivation, as well as cocaine production and global seizures, are at all-time highs in Colombia
  - El Pais, 25 June 2020

• How to create your own bank in Colombia [for coca growers too!]: we explain everything you need to know to create a bank in Colombia: from what these entities do, to how the interest rate is determined
  - El Espectador, 24 June 2020

• An appeals court in the U.S. rejected Johnson & Johnson's request to void a jury verdict in favor of women who blamed their ovarian cancers on baby powder and other talc products sold by Johnson, but the court did reduce its damages award to $2.12 billion from $4.69 billion. A warning to the soda industry, since the there are stronger links that sugar causes cancer than does the potential contamination of talc by asbestos.
  - Reuters, 23 June 2020

• Hightimes Holding, the company which is the owner of the 45-year-old marijuana magainze, "High Times", is buying 13 marijuana dispensaries in a stock deal worth over $60 million
  - Globe Newswire, 23 June 2020

• GUILTY GLYPHOSATE: Bayer offers to pay US $10 billion to close all cancer court cases. The settlements, which have yet to be signed and cover between 50,000 and 85,000 lawsuits, are part of a $10 billion plan by Bayer to end an expensive legal battle the company inherited when it acquired Monsanto in 2018.
  - Ecoportal.net, 23 June 2020

• Vicky Davila is arguably one of Colombia's worst journalists and one of the most powerful mafia infiltrators into the media, with her competence having been questioned. So the majority owners of Semana (a magazine unsupportive of coca industrialization) - the Gilinksi family that owns a part of the country's largest bank, Bancolombia - made Davila head of their Semana TV
  - Colombia Reports, 23 June 2020

• Juanita Leon, the owner of La Silla Vacia (which opposes the industrialization of coca), the media godmother who is killing press freedom in Colombia
  - Colombia Reports, 21 June 2020

• The United Nations offers to audit the process to restart aerial spraying. The representative in Colombia of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Pierre Lapaque, says that Colombia needs both forced and voluntary eradication.
  - El Tiempo, 21 June 2020

• The United States is offering rewards of up to $ 10 million for information about two former leaders of the now extinct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Jesús Santrich and Iván Márquez. In the past, they announced that they were taking up arms again, citing "treason of the State" with the Peace Agreement agreed to with the government of former President Juan Manuel Santos.
  - El Tiempo, 19 June 2020

• Coca cultivation and harvesting does not stop in Colombia despite global paralysis
  - El Pais, 19 June 2020

• The United States is offering rewards of up to $ 10 million for information about two former leaders of the now extinct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Jesús Santrich and Iván Márquez. In the past, they announced that they were taking up arms again, citing "treason of the State" with the Peace Agreement agreed to with the government of former President Juan Manuel Santos.
  - El Pais, 19 June 2020

• Many small farmers in Colombia would like to grow cannabis legally, but a rigid bureaucracy and stiff financial requirements are denying them an opportunity to profit as are the big cannabis companies
  - Cannabis Wire, 17 June 2020

• Potential cocaine production in Colombia rose 1.5% in 2019, while coca cultivation dropped 9% to 154,000 hectares (maybe!)
  - Colombia Reports, 17 June 2020

• Potential cocaine production in Colombia rose 1.5% in 2019, while coca cultivation dropped 9% to 154,000 hectares (maybe!)
  - El Tiempo, 17 June 2020

• Potential cocaine production in Colombia rose 1.5% in 2019, while coca cultivation dropped 9% to 154,000 hectares (maybe!)
  - El Pais, 17 June 2020

• Colombia to resume aerieal fumigation of its coca fields with glyphosate, which environmentalists say will wreak devastating health and ecological havoc on the vulnerable communities it targets, and on delicate ecosystems across the country
  - Sierra Club News, 17 June 2020

• To the news of the assassinations of reinstated members of the old Farc (the now-party says that there are 200 since the Peace Agreement was signed with the Government) or their families, as in Ituango, Antioquia, and in Mesetas, Meta, now adds the massive displacement against ex-guerrillas. The same that thousands of victims of the conflict have suffered.
  - La Silla Vacia, 16 June 2020

• Annual sales of the world's deadliest, mildly addictive, drug - sugar - has declined for the first time in 40 years, with less demand due to perceived threats to health
  - Bloomberg, 13 June 2020

• European companies are earning huge profits from the guerrilla war in Colombia - as the current Colombian government undermines the Peace Accord and restart fumigation of coca crops while no providing alternatives for coca farmers
  - The Brussels Times, 13 June 2020

• The future of drug trafficking is synthetic - to the extent that technological advances allow the creation of increasingly perfect synthetic drugs, the notion of producer countries or production areas will begin to disappear and those organizations will begin to lose relevance that are focused on territorial control of production areas
  - La Silla Vacia, 14 June 2020

• The counternarcotics policy in Colombia is failing - the security forces in Colombia forcibly eradicated 30% less coca in the first four months of 2020, not exactly the 40% increase promised to the US government
  - Colombia Reports, 14 June 2020

• The acting director of the Carrasco National Park in Bolivia, Roberto Portuguez, reported that a recent intervention confirmed the opening of more than 10 main and secondary paths for the forest clearing, planting of seedlings, and farming of coca plants.
  - Pagina Siete, 13 June 2020

• Police in Colombia have known since last year that the drug lord whose organization conspired with Colombia's ruling party to rig the 2018 elections in favor of President Ivan Duque, drug trafficker Marquitos Figueroa, sought to jail policemen, according to an internal memo
  - Colombia Reports, 12 June 2020

• Joanna Hoffman, a former key advisor to Apple's Steve Jobs, says Facebook is peddling an addictive drug called anger to earn tens of billions of dollars every year - "You know it is just like tobacco, it is no different than the opioids or cocaine.”, she added. “We know anger is addictive - producing the same dopamine as drugs, we know we can attract people to our platform and get engagement if we get them pissed off enough. So therefore what, we should capitalize on that each and every time?"
  - CNBC, 12 June 2020

• How the drug cartels of Mexico helped drug traffickers in Colombia frustrate the peace process to prevent the disruption of coca farming and cocaine production and exports, exploiting the demobilization of FARC.
  - Colombia Reports, 11 June 2020

• Ex-DEA spokesman admits posing as covert CIA agent to defraud a dozen companies of more than $4 million.
  - CNN, 11 June 2020

• A wave of violence has struck Colombia’s southwestern Cauca department, in the form of targeted killings and armed groups battling for control of coca crops and trafficking routes — a deadly mix.
  - InSight Crime, 10 June 2020

• How can the renewed aerial spraying of fields of coca with glyphosate in Colombia be stopped? It is proposed to review the institutional arguments in this regard, the implications of this judicial ruling; as well as the main arguments under discussion.
  - La Silla Vacia, 10 June 2020

• How the YouTube series "Matarife" is linking more and more of the inner circle of former president Alvaro Uribe to drug trafficking and paramilitary death squads FNR
  - Colombia Reports, 09 June 2020

• Social leaders and researchers insist on the importance of not forgetting the guidelines of the Peace Agreement to implement measures to reduce hectares of illicit coca and cannabis cultivation in Colombia
  - El Espectador, 08 June 2020

• The coronavirus outbreak in Colombia did not stop the war in Bajo Cauca and southern Córdoba - one hundred and fifty people, including 11 social leaders, have been killed in the 11 municipalities of Bajo Cauca and southern Córdoba so far this year. All this has undermined the confidence of the peasants who increasingly see delays in the replacement of their coca crops with licit productive projects, and who already confirming that the program failed.
  - La Silla Vacia, 08 June 2020

• The Association of Representatives of Cauca (Colombia) denounced through a statement that death threats against public officials and social leaders have increased. For security reasons, the names of the municipalities where, according to various representatives, the social war has intensified were reserved; especially in places where there are crops of marijuana and coca.
  - El Pais, 07 June 2020

• The leader of the Six Federations of the Tropic of Cochabamba (Bolivia), Leonardo Loza, affirmed this Sunday that the decision of the current central government to isolate the Chapare due to the increase in cases of Covid-19, is a "revenge and a political attack" against the coca growing region.
  - Pagina Siete, 07 June 2020

• The leader of the Six Federations of the Tropic of Cochabamba (Bolivia), Leonardo Loza, affirmed this Sunday that the decision of the current central government to isolate the Chapare due to the increase in cases of Covid-19, is a "revenge and a political attack" against the coca growing region.
  - El Diario, 06 June 2020

• "Substitution must prevail over forced eradication in Colombia," says Mateo Gómez, director of the Early Warning System of the Ombudsman's Office. He asks that the Government attend to families who lose their crops and to implement the Comprehensive Program for the Substitution of Illicit Crops.
  - El Espectador, 02 June 2020

• [VIDEO]: Clashes between peasants and the Army increase due to the forced eradication of coca in Colombia. In Catatumbo, Caquetá, Nariño, Meta and Guaviare, among other areas of the country, peasant organizations have denounced excessive use of force by the Army and Police in eradication efforts.
  - El Espectador, 01 June 2020

• Colombian Defense Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo: "The government will not stop coca eradication in quarantine" - he defended his strategy against drug trafficking, despite calls by social organizations to suspend forced eradication
  - El Espectador, 01 June 2020

• The US military providing counternarcotics support to Colombia's government despite its evident ties to drug traffickers is beyond absurd, yet no surprise. US soldiers will be running after farmers like headless chickens, while nobody will be going after the money launderers.
  - Colombia Reports, 01 June 2020

• The sale of "machucada" coca leaf (packet of chewable coca leaf) also hopes to recover in Bolivia
  - Pagina Siete, 31 May 2020

• Peru's war on drugs based on forced eradication is an abject failure – here is what it can learn from Bolivia. Coca production has not shrunk overall in Peru, merely shifting its location, often through extensive replanting, which aggravates deforestation.
  - The Conversation, 30 May 2020

• FARC dissidents have doubled their membership in just 12 months. They are already in 138 municipalities in Colombia. "With all the money they are making from coca and illegal mining, they are making a new colonization, winning over the peasants with cattle and land."
  - El Tiempo, 30 May 2020

• The mission of the elite brigade of the United States Army that will support the fight against drug trafficking in Colombia, and that sparked controversy in Colombia.
  - El Tiempo, 30 May 2020

• Since the national quarantine began in Colombia, forced coca eradication operations have been making headlines and gaining notoriety. But contrary to what one might think, the figures show that during the pandemic forced eradication has not increased. But cultivators are having a hard time.
  - La Silla Vacia, 29 May 2020

• A consortium of Facebook insiders and critics filed a confidential whistleblower’s complaint to the Securities and Exchange Commission late Tuesday, claiming the social media giant is aware of illegal activity on its platform, such as the sale of opioids, and has failed to properly police it.
  - Washington Post, 27 May 2020

• Two U.S. counties in Ohio file lawsuit against major pharmacy chains - including CVS, Rite Aid and Walgreens - accusing them of drug trafficking by having sold millions of opioid pills in small towns while rarely flagging suspicious orders to authorities
  - New York Times, 27 May 2020

• Copy of the lawsuit filed by two U.S. counties in Ohio file lawsuit against major pharmacy chains - including CVS, Rite Aid and Walgreens - accusing them of drug trafficking
  - Lake County Ohio, 27 May 2020

• The United States is preparing to charge Cilia Flores, wife of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, in coming months with crimes that could include cocaine drug trafficking and corruption
  - Reuters, 27 May 2020

• Club El Nogal - where allegedly, former president Uribe's former Medellin Cartel associates (including people from the Ochoa and Cifuentes families) were facilitating secret meetings between the former president's administration (including former Interior Minister Fernando Londono), the business elite (including RCN Television owner Carlos Ardila Lulle) and alleged paramilitary chiefs (including AUC military commander Salvatore Mancuso).
  - Colombia Reports, 25 May 2020

• With the use of facemasks, disinfection tunnels and other biosecurity measures, the commercialization of the coca leaf in La Paz, Bolivia was reactivated. The market of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) in Villa Fatima has returned to activity.
  - Pagina Siete, 22 May 2020

• Police seize 59 bags of pressed coca and detain eight people in Oruro, Bolivia - in total, the bags are valued at 59,000 Bolivianos (about US $8800)
  - Pagina Siete, 21 May 2020

• Clara Luz Roldán, Governor of Valle del Cauca (Colombia), announced on Wednesday night that she is offering $50 million as a reward to anyone who provides information that would allow the assassins of Jorge Enrique Oramas to be identified, Oramas a victim of homicide last Saturday, in the Villacarmelo district. Environmental leader Jorge Enrique Oramas, 70, was recognized for his work on organic food and plant crops (important information for the industrialization of the coca leaf).
  - El Pais, 20 May 2020

• Alicia Arango, the Interior Minister of Colombia, put the son of extradited paramilitary warlord "Jorge 40", one of the country's most blood-thirsty war criminals, in charge of victim coordination - a son who "always thought of his father as a hero", according to one Senator
  - Colombia Reports, 20 May 2020

• Many of Colombia's ex-rebel fighters, former members of the FARC, rearm and turn to illegal coca farming and drug trafficking, complaining that the government failed to help former fighters transition to civilian life and that many have been killed in civilian life
  - NPR, 19 May 2020

• The commercialization of the coca leaf was restarted in Bolivia, for which the producers implemented biosecurity measures and new strategies for its distribution, said the former president of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) of the Yungas of La Paz, Hernán Justo
  - Pagina Siete, 19 May 2020

• Two days ago, a Pasto judge suspended a virtual hearing that was scheduled for May 27, which would discuss the return of aerial sprays with glyphosate in Colombia for coca fumigation. Is it constitutional that prior consultation is virtual?
  - El Tiempo, 19 May 2020

• In the latest attempt to resume areal fumigation against coca in Colombia, the National Environmental Licensing Agency (ANLA) tried to obtain the compulsory approval of coca farming communities through online consultations in areas on lockdown and without internet. Not to be outsmarted, a group of coca farmers from the southwestern Nariño province successfully sued the ANLA, which was ordered to suspend the consultations while the judge considers their legality.
  - Colombia Reports, 19 May 2020

• Colombia's Supreme Court magistrate Cristina Lombana seems to have a special gift to accidentally get her allegedly criminal former army buddies in legal trouble. Having spent years securing impunity for members of the military, the magistrate is now getting them in trouble while doing everything she can to frustrate the case against former President Alvaro Uribe.
  - Colombia Reports, 17 May 2020

• Operation Baton was meant to purge the military from its criminal elements after Colombia entered NATO in 2017, until President Ivan Duque came to power in 2018. Instead of purging the military, the president put those accused of corruption in charge of the army, causing a crisis that is putting US military assistance and Duque's credibility at risk. Two generals so accused of corruption, now fired, are Eduardo Quiros and Gonzalo Garcia.
  - Colombia Reports, 17 May 2020

• At least 12 groups linked to drug trafficking are vying in Nariño for control of the 42,000 hectares planted with coca plants, whose annual production is between 300 and 350 metric tons of cocaine, in addition to laboratories and export routes through Ecuador and the Pacific Ocean to Central America and the United States. In the midst of this chess match there are two networks, made up of dissidents from the former FARC guerrilla, who have been waging a war to the death for territorial control since the end of last year.
  - El Tiempo, 13 May 2020

• Farmers' organizations in Colombia argue that an emergency decree lifting import tariffs on corn and soy is threatening domestic food production - that some 390,000 households depend on the production of these basic food products and could be run out of business by the import of subsidized agricultural produce - which will drive some of them in the business of coca farming
  - Colombia Reports, 12 May 2020

• A new struggle between farmers and authorities for eradication of coca leaf in Córdoba (Caribbean region of Colombia), growers oppose manual eradication of coca leaf without a social component to help them find alternatives
  - El Tiempo, 11 May 2020

• Tensions rise in the Chapare region of Bolivia as the government escalates anti-drug operations in the coca farming communities around Cochabamba
  - InSight Crime, 08 May 2020

• Bad publicity for Colombia: a New York Times editorial on news that a Colombian army unit used American surveillance equipment, provided to fight Marxist guerrillas and drug traffickers both linked to illicit coca cultivation - instead used the equipment to once again spy on journalists, political opponents and public figures
  - New York Times, 08 May 2020

• One hundred thousand cannabis seeds will arrive in Denver, Colorado, in the United States, from Colombia, after the Ministry of Justice of Colombia approved their shipment. The process was accomplished with the support of the Single Window for Foreign Trade of the Ministry of Commerce and has been classified as an important one for the medicinal industry due to its possible uses in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
  - El Pais, 07 May 2020

• Former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos: "We have been fighting drugs for 45 years and we are worse than before" - Santos, who took office in 2019 as a member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, presents a report in which he raises the urgency to take money from the drug trafficking business from the mafias.
  - El Espectador, 07 May 2020

• Sheltered in the context of the coronavirus emergency, the mayor of Tumaco - Emilsen Angulo (Conservative Party) - handed over a US$24,400 contract to a Healthcare Institution whose legal representative is the cousin of the political godfather who brought Angulo to office: the dismissed former liberal representative and former mayor of the port, Neftalí Correa Díaz
  - La Silla Vacia, 06 May 2020

• How the Caribbean police force of Colombia got involved in marijuana trafficking business in 1970s
  - Colombia Reports, 04 May 2020

• This is how the Peace Agreement in Colombia is progressing: still far from overcoming the problem of illicit drugs. Efforts in the fourth point of the Agreement have focused on the coca crop replacement program, which still has grave delays. The structural transformation of the coca growing territories and the differential criminal treatment of small growers are some of the debts.
  - El Espectador, 04 May 2020

• From 2006 to March 2020 in Colombia, 457 eradicators were victims of antipersonnel mines, including 417 civilians. The United Nations has already rejected that Colombia use civilians to pluck the coca bushes. So far this year, a peasant and an Awá indigenous man were killed by the police in clashes over the eradication of their coca crops.
  - El Espectador, 04 May 2020

• The drug trafficking business in times of coronavirus - while in Peru the price of coca leaves has plummeted, in Colombia they are supplied with cocaine. Mexican cartels do not get chemicals from China. For example, in Peru, a kilo of pasta base cost about $1200 dollars before quarantine. Now, it trades for less than $300.
  - El Comercio, 03 May 2020

• The United States implicates the president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, in drug trafficking, while it seeks his help on immigration
  - Yahoo News, 30 April 2020

• The former chief of police of Honduras, Juan Carlos Bonilla, is accused by US prosecutors of trafficking drugs to the United States on behalf of the president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández - the brother of Hernández was convicted of similar charges in October
  - The Guardian, 30 April 2020

• Prosecutor General Franciso Barbosa could be the saddest excuse for a chief prosecutor ever in Colombia, whose duties enforcing Colombia's coca laws - being implicated in the 2018 election rigging plot and now turning a civil fine against the opposition mayor of Bogota into a crime
  - Colombia Reports, 28 April 2020

• From coca growers in Peru to drug dealers in Paris, the coronavirus has upended the global trade in drugs - and the coca growers in Peru want subsidies just the same as other businesses, since prices for coca leaves sold to drug traffickers are down 70%.
  - Business Insider, 25 April 2020

• Lebanon passes legislation legalizing the cultivation of medical marijuana for export for medicinal and industrial purposes, in order to raise more tax revenues for the government
  - Newsweek, 21 April 2020

• Municipal authorities and coca growers from the tropics of Cochabamba denounced the Government to the United Nations and the Organization of American States for the "criminalization of quarantine" and the extreme violation of human rights of the inhabitants from that region of Bolivia
  - La Razon, 21 April 2020

• Cocoleros del Chapare, affiliated with the MAS political party, announced that they will send a complaint to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for the alleged violation of their rights during the quarantine due to the choroanvirus in Bolivia
  - Pagina Siete, 21 April 2020

• Three days after the expulsion of police from the municipality of Shinahota (Bolivia), the uniformed officers are still safely in the facilities of the Mobile Rural Patrol Unit (Umopar) located in Chimoré; meanwhile, the coca producers seek a dialogue with authorities so that the work of the police force is reestablished
  - Los Tiempos, 19 April 2020

• The Bolivian Minister of Government, Arturo Murillo, warned this Sunday of the encapsulation of the Chapare - to contain the spread of the coronavirus and allow banks to return to operate in that region - if the coca growers leaders of that sector continue with "provocations"
  - La Razon, 19 April 2020

• The Bolivian government announced on Sunday that it will encapsulate the Chapare, where "no one leaves and no one enters", and demanded the coca growers to apologize to the National Police for the physical, verbal, and expulsion suffered by the soldiers on Thursday night
  - Pagina Siete, 19 April 2020

• Opinion: conflicts with the state, the coca farmers of the Chapare region of Bolivia, drug production and the coronavirus
  - Pagina Siete, 19 April 2020

• During the national quarantine in Colombia to contain COVID-19, the Public Force has uprooted and fumigated coca plants in Putumayo, Caquetá, southern Córdoba, Chocó, Catatumbo and Nariño. The clashes with the peasants are increasing and they have already claimed the life of a 22-year-old.
  - El Espectador, 18 April 2020

• Colombia's government acts like a doormat for the United States, and its people do not support this policy, for example the people opposing eradication with glyphosate
  - AlterNet, 10 April 2020

• How a drug trafficker, "Memo Fantasma", sold property in the "zona rosa" of Bogota to a company owned by the family of the vide president, Marta Lucía Ramírez, because Ramírez received bad/false advice from the-then chief of police, óscar Naranjo
  - InSight Crime,, 10 April 2020

• Caffeinated conservation: Colombian farmers in the San Lucas mountains switch from growing coca to growing coffee to protect wildlife
  - New York Times, 09 April 2020

• Colombia’s vice-president, Marta Lucia Ramire, broke down in tears on Wednesday during an interview over her businesses ties to a drug trafficker in a real estate deal, relying on the word of former National Police Chief Oscar Naranho - himself linked to drug traffickers
  - Colombia Reports, 09 April 2020

• The chief prosecutor for Colombia, Francisco Barbosa, stated on Sunday that the government's ambassador in Uruguay, Fernando Sanclemente, has been formally included in a drug trafficking investigation, and he stated that he ambassador will have to explain how a cocaine lab is producing at least one ton of cocaine per month from coca leaves on his family's property without his knowledge
  - Colombia Reports, 06 April 2020

• For much of its 500-year history, coffee was viewed with confusion, suspicion and disgust [same past for coca tea]. Coffee has since become a necessity we rely on to meet the everyday demands of modern capitalism [same future for coca tea?]
  - Wall Street Journal, 04 April 2020

• A new murder of an ex-combatant of the Farc - Carlos Alberto Castaño, this time in Tolima (central Colombia) - the ex-combatant was carrying out his reincorporation process in the Cooperativa Multiactiva Agropecuaria por la Paz (Cooagropaz)
  - El Espectador, 03 April 2020

• Researchers report that each one-cup increase in daily tea consumption was associated with an average 2 percent decrease in any cardiovascular event, a 4 percent decrease in death from cardiovascular disease, a 4 percent lower risk of stroke and a 1.5 percent lower risk of death from any cause - this needs to be verified for coca tea
  - New York Times, 02 April 2020

• Colombia's weekly magazine, Semana, not known for balanced coverage of the problems of coca farmers, continues purge of journalists exposing crimes and corruption, while hiring journalists who are fierce apologists of former president Uribe
  - Colombia Reports, 02 April 2020

• Chemists at some of the biggest, and legal, cannabis companies in the United States and Canada are trying to develop a predictable, reliable method to modulate the stimulation of cannabis drug products
  - New York Times, 01 April 2020

• The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday asked companies to stop selling all forms of the heartburn drug Zantac, after concluding that a potential cancer-causing contaminant, N-nitrosodimethylamine, can build up in the drug when stored for long periods (soda in sugar is a potential cancer-causing contaminant)
  - New York Times, 01 April 2020

• The US agriculture giant Monsanto and the German chemical giant BASF were aware for years that their plan to introduce a new agricultural seed and chemical system, based on the chemical dicamba to replace the increasingly useless but cancer-causing glyphosate, would probably lead to damage on many US farms. Risks were downplayed even while they planned how to profit off farmers who would buy Monsanto’s new seeds just to avoid damage, according to documents unearthed during a recent successful $265m lawsuit brought against both firms by a Missouri farmer.
  - The Guardian, 30 March 2020

• Businesspeople in North Macedonia are prepared to become the "cannabis superpower" of Europe, but are waiting for a slow government to change the laws
  - New York Times, 29 March 2020

• National parks in Colombia are being destroyed as land conflicts intensify, partly due to struggles over cattle farming and coca farming
  - Monga Bay, 24 March 2020

• Francisco Barbosa, Colombia's chief prosecutor, closed his Twitter account on Sunday after photographstied him to a cocaine mafia conspiracy to rig the 2018 elections in favor of his friend, President Ivan Duque
  - Colombia Reports, 23 March 2020

• Marco Rivadeneira, leader of peasant communities, promoter of peace agreements and defender of crop substitution (not coca) in the Putumayo department, was assassinated this Thursday afternoon in the municipality of Puerto Asís. The Colombia Europe United States Coordination (CCEEU), an organization of which Rivadeneira was a leader in the southern department of the country, regretted and condemned the murder.
  - El Tiempo, 20 March 2020

• In a property of 103,000 square meters, located in the El Balcón sector, in Suesca, Cundinamarca (Colombia), the Police Dijin dismantled a narco-laboratory that nurtured at least 53 small drug cartels in Colombia and in Europe. Although the operation was managed under reserve, EL TIEMPO established that Dijín intelligence officers had been tracking it for months, and they knew that the coca was coming from there, which was then moved to France: at least 3 tons a month.
  - El Tiempo, 20 March 2020

• Burning coca leaves, spurning leavers - the United States pays for a pointless drug war in Colombia while spraying coca fields with carcinogenic herbicides such as glyphosate, but is less keen to help with a huge Venezeulan refugee crisis
  - Economist, 19 March 2020

• The illegal nature of coca cultivation is an incentive for its production to take place in the National Natural Parks of Colombia. For the coca growers, the priority is not the ownership of the land on which they grow coca, it is the great profits that its cultivation generates.
  - El Espectador, 18 March 2020

• Former President Alvaro Uribe was managing illicit funds to buy the 2018 election of President Ivan Duque in multiple parts of Colombia, his former personal assistant told their mafia associate - Semana on Monday published the full recording of the phone conversation between Uribe’s former personal assistant, Maria Claudia Daza, and mafia associate Jose Guillermo Hernandez, who was murdered in Brazil in May last year
  - Colombia Reports, 17 March 2020

• Wiretap recordings made public on Sunday proved that President Ivan Duque's party conspired with an alleged drug money launderer to rig Colombia's 2018 presidential election - the bombshell recording proved that the then-assistant of former President Alvaro Uribe, Maria Claudia Daza, was conspiring to rig the election with Jose Guillermo Hernandez, the alleged money launderer and "political arm" of the cocaine trafficking organization of Marquitos Figueroa.
  - Colombia Reports, 16 March 2020

• Jorge Pretelt, Colombia's former constitutional court president, isn't just any criminal; he was sentenced over land theft while already in prison for corruption - now he is serving a six-year prison sentence for bribery and facing questions why he and his wife took part in one of Colombia’s biggest land heists since the Spanish colonization while already owning large swaths of land in Cordoba - teaming up with notorious paramilitary land their "El Burro"
  - Colombia Reports, 16 March 2020

• Colombia's former President Alvaro Uribe and his provincial party (with the help of the AUC paramilitary group and its politicians) have never won a presidential election without the admitted help of drug traffickers, mostly the Medellin cartel - Juan Manuel Santos, from Bogota's elite, got his voting money from Odebrecht and Grupo Aval
  - Colombia Reports, 11 March 2020

• Colombia's coca farmers want viable business alternatives and more sustainable development, not militarization - they would like to stop growing coca but says it’s the only product with enough demand for buyers to come directly to collect it
  - Amnesty International, 10 March 2020

• DEA is ordered to return $15,000 it seized from a woman falsely charged with dealing with cocaine, but refuses to pay $5,000 for her attorney's fees
  - Miami Herald, 10 March 2020

• Nearly 7,000 peasants living in the Tinigua and Picachos national parks in Colombia replaced coca farming with cattle raising (where any agricultural activity is prohibited) - the inhabitants of Tinigua and Picachos allege that the government does not comply with the crop substitution - "We receive food assistance payments, but the productive projects, which had to occur simultaneously, did not start."
  - El Tiempo, 10 March 2020

• As cocaine production rises, Donald Trump is increasing the pressure to curb it and insisting Colombia should spray its fields with glyphosate again. In remote communities, this revives memories of a dark chapter.
  - Deutsche Welle, 09 March 2020

• Conflicts over indigenous land grow more violent in Central and South America, including peaceful Costa Rica
  - New York Times, 09 March 2020

• An article recently published in the journal PlosOne, "Tracking extinction risk trends and patterns in a diverse country: A Red list index for birds in Colombia" (2020), written by Luis Miguel Renjifo, Vice Chancellor for Research at the Javeriana University, and ángela María Amaya-Villarreal, a researcher from the Department of Ecology at the same University, identifies coca crops as the greatest threat to the survival of birds, and one of their conclusions is that fumigation -- far from attacking the problem -- can accentuate the extinction of the birds
  - La Silla Vacia, 08 March 2020

• Coca leaf crops increased in Colombia in 2019 to 212,000 hectares, while cocaine production reached 951 tons, record numbers according to estimates published Thursday by the US Government
  - El Espectador, 06 March 2020

• Tilray was the first marijuana company to go public on Nasdaq, but the industry has too many greenhouses growing too much marijuana, depressing prices, and as a result, investors are abandoning the marijuana sector - with Tilray's stock price down 90%
  - Wall Street Journal, 06 March 2020

• Through resolution 315 of 2 March 2020, the Ministry of Health of Colombia updated the list of narcotic drugs, psychotropics, precursors and substances under control and special control, and included medicinal cannabis
  - El Tiempo, 05 March 2020

• Stock prices for cannabis companies are having a lousy week, compounding sharp losses over the past year for the once-hot sector as investors low interest in a growingly commodity-like business
  - Wall Street Journal, 04 March 2020

• The cocalero leader of the six federations of the Tropic of Cochabamba of Bolivia, Leonardo Loza, expressed his dissatisfaction and rejection of what was said by President Jeanine Añez, who declared that Law 906 on the extension of coca crops should be modified - she said "it is clear" that 90% of Chapare's coca goes to drug trafficking. The cocalero leader said that this decision has more political interest.
  - Pagina Siete, 04 March 2020

• The Supreme Court of Colombia sentenced a former prosecutor to five years and four months in prison for bribery after she agreed to testify against several other justice officials - Hilda Niño Farfán was convicted of taking US$70 000 and two cars in exchange for settling the cases of two drug traffickers by illegally classifying them as former guerillas
  - OCCRP News, 03 March 2020

• Mexican and paramilitary cartels, are likely factors in the increase of coca farming in Colombia - illegal groups dedicated to drug trafficking control seaports and use light aircraft with which they carry out illegal flights
  - El Espectador, 03 March 2020

• Gato Dumas, the haute cuisine experts that want to invent recipes to vindicate the name of the coca leaf in Colombia
  - La Republica, 02 March 2020

• President Trump 'orders' President Duque to restart the eradication of coca leaves by spraying glyphosate
  - U.S. White House, 02 March 2020

• Former coca farmers from Colombia's "Peace Laboratory" -- the 8000 people of Briceño, fear a return to war if the government doesn't support the coca substitution program that is a vital part of the peace process
  - Colombia Reports, 02 March 2020

• On February 21, in the municipality of Briceño, considered an example for the country because its peasants replaced 99% of the coca with other crops, hundreds of them peacefully protested against the government's failure to comply with the coca replacement program
  - El Espectador, 29 February 2020

• Mind Medicine, a psychedelics-based medicine startup backed by Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary, closed a $24.2 million funding round ahead of plans to go public next week
  - Wall Street Journal, 27 February 2020

• Eduardo Díaz Uribe, the former director of the National Program for the Substitution of Crops for Illicit Use (PNIS) in Colombia, explained the seriousness of President Iván Duque breaking the agreement with the UN to verify the progress of the program. He also criticizes the way in which the current government has managed crop substitution and highlights that it is part of the rural reform, which has serious delays.
  - El Espectador, 27 February 2020

• A guerilla-to-entrepreneur plan in Colombia leaves some new businesswomen isolated and at risk - the Colombian government’s reliance on entrepreneurship may make female ex-insurgents financial situation even more precarious than it would otherwise be because they lack the safety net of formal employment
  - The Conversation, 26 February 2020

• The Tenth Criminal Investigation Court of La Paz, Bolivia, requests that Adepcoca de Gutiérrez and the MAS reconcile - the leader of Adepcoca reiterates that the Yungas coca growers request a sanction for those responsible for theft of objects and the damage caused to the building of their hospital
  - Pagina Siete, 25 February 2020

• A federal judicial ruling in Argentina determined that in that country transporting coca leaves does not constitute the crime of transporting narcotics, punishable by drug law. "The truth is that it is proven that in its natural state coca leaves do not produce physical or psychic dependence, thus not qualifying as narcotic drugs," Federal Judge Luciano Lauría noted in his ruling, Aire de Santa Fe reported.
  - El Diario, 25 February 2020

• A massive logging of forests of the wax palm tree, a species declared in 1985 as Colombia's flagship tree, was recently detected in Toche, a municipality in the municipality of Ibagué on the border with Cajamarca, Tolima. Glyphosate was used to weaken the plant, in order to expand the agricultural frontier and gain space for planting arracacha, a product desired by Colombians.
  - El Tiempo, 24 February 2020

• The four Colombian men - "powers behind the throne" of President Ivan Duque: Luis Carlos Sarmiento (the richest man in the country, owner of El Tiempo and Grupo Aval), German Vargas (powerful conservative political clan leader), Alvaro Uribe (far-right former president) and Andres Pastrana (conservative former president)
  - Colombia Reports, 24 February 2020

• Colombia ends coca crop substitution monitoring deal with the United Nations’ Office on Drugs and Crime - the UN appears to be a nuisance as its regular reports on progress of the PNIS program demonstrate how ineffective the repressive policy backed by the US is compared to crop substitution
  - Colombia Reports, 24 February 2020

• The women of Putumayo, Colombia, seek a life without coca - the coca economy allows them to achieve some financial independence, but also exposes them to risks such as labor slavery, sexual violence, law enforcement and threats from armed groups
  - El Espectador, 24 February 2020

• Vice President Marta Lucía Ramírez said that a fire in the Sierra de la Macarena, near the Caño Cristales River (in the Tinigua Natural National Park), was produced by illegal armed groups and drug traffickers in the area - "they intend to exploit these territories by sowing coca"
  - El Pais, 24 February 2020

• Two soldiers were killed, one was taken hostage and a major forest fire broke out in the Colombian Amazon after military efforts to try to evict communities living in the Tinigua Nature Reserve who were deforesting the reserve to grow coca leaf
  - Colombia Reports, 23 February 2020

• Park are forced out of 10 protected areas of the Amazon of Colombia due to the threat of FARC dissidence - a phenomenon that has been occurring in greater proportions in the La Macarena, Tinigua and Picachos parks, by those would are behind the deforestation for coca planting.
  - El Tiempo, 23 February 2020

• Two companies in Colombia compete for the glyphosate supply contract for the eradication of coca crops: one which has been almost the exclusive supplier in recent years; the other, a new competitor which reports possible failures in the process
  - El Espectador, 23 February 2020

• Jose Irizarry, a former DEA agent in Colombia, charged with laundering money for Colombian drug cartels, and charged with stealing money from the DEA
  - New York Times, 23 February 2020

• China's strong push into Colombia - companies from China are buying gold mines in Colombia, and are building Bogota's new metro system and much more
  - Al Jazeera, 22 February 2020

• Peasants from Bolívar, Colombia, who exchanged coca for cocoa and sprayed them with glyphosate, seek repair - Asocazul (their association) planted 725 hectares of cocoa trees, but the police then sprinkled them with glyphosate - in their claim they claim that, without crops, they had no way to pay the loan they requested in Bancolombia for more than $ 3,000 million Colombian pesos to start the replacement project
  - El Espectador, 21 February 2020

• Farmers will protest for failures in crop substitution program in Briceño - according to leaders of the municipality of Antioquia, the government has not fully developed short-term and long-term production projects
  - El Espectador, 20 February 2020

• In July 2019, the Constitutional Court of Colombia maintained the suspension of using the herbicide to sprinkle crops for illicit use and reiterated a series of conditions to be able to resume it. However, the final order in this regard was signed only until Thursday. El Espectator explains eight points where there were differences.
  - El Espectador, 20 February 2020

• The ELN, Colombia’s cocaine-funded rebels, are back in action big-time, carrying out more than 100 separate attacks in the last week and its ranks have been growing
  - Daily Beast, 20 February 2020

• Colombia launches a $64 million fund to steady coffee prices and protect the country's farmers - the country's producers receive about $272 per 125 kilograms of coffee beans, which is a little less than $1/pound, as of this week, Colombian coffee in international markets was priced at $1.06/pound; the country produced about 15 million 60-kiogram bags of coffee in 2019
  - Reuters, 19 February 2020

• The eradication of surplus coca in the Chapare is running smoothly - more than 1,300 troops have been in 14 areas of that region of the Cochabamba tropics for more than a week in order to eradicate 8,575 hectares, a goal set by the Government of Bolivia
  - La Razon, 18 February 2020

• Cochabamba: more than 1,300 troops carry out surplus coca eradication tasks in the tropics - the Minister of Defense of Bolivia announced that the goal for this 2020 management is to eradicate more than 8,500 hectares of coca planted in prohibited places, such as natural parks
  - Pagina Siete, 18 February 2020

• Silicon Valley investors and big tech companies are awakening to the many investment opportunities into psychedelic drugs for use in mental health care - a journey inside an industry preparing to emerge from darkness
  - Fortune, 17 February 2020

• A vending machine for powerful opioids has opened in Canada as part of a project to help fight the Canadian city’s overdose crisis - the MySafe project, a dispenser which resembles a cash machine, gives addicts access to a prescribed amount of medical quality hydromorphone, a drug about twice as powerful as heroin
  - The Guardian, 17 February 2020

• How the next investment wave in legalized drugs will be psychedelic drugs such as LSD and psilocybin
  - Fortune, 17 February 2020

• Three members of the Nasa indigenous nation were assassinated in Buenos Aires and Miranda, in the Cauca province of Colombia - all three were members of the community guard
  - Colombia Reports, 17 February 2020

• Many public marijuana companies in the United States and Canada have only a few months of cash left as the business becomes more difficult
  - Zero Hedge, 16 February 2020

• Book review: "The War Without End" - Why in Colombia is more coca being farmed than ever?
  - El Tiempo, 14 February 2020

• National Police in Colombia find a cocaine laboratory on a farm owned by the family of Fernando Sanclamente Alzate, the Colombian ambassador in Uruguay (located in the municipality of Guasca, Cundinamarca)
  - El Tiempo, 13 February 2020

• National Police in Colombia find a cocaine laboratory on a farm owned by the family of Fernando Sanclamente Alzate, the Colombian ambassador in Uruguay (located in the municipality of Guasca, Cundinamarca)
  - El Pais, 13 February 2020

• Colombia vows to eradicate a record 130,000 hectares of coca this year, though the UN says 80% or more will be replanted, promising to hire and train an extra 2,000 policemen to cut the estimated production of 1000 tons of cocaine before 2023
  - Colombia Reports, 11 February 2020

• Uncertain future: overview of medical cannabis in Colombia - the Colombian Government seeks to control it with its little experience; international entities do their best to measure demand without sufficient scientific evidence to prove its benefits, while patients seek to make their disease symptoms more bearable
  - El Espectador, 11 February 2020

• How to use the coca leaf for ceremony, altitude sickness, chewing and drinking
  - Traveling and Living in Peru, 10 February 2020

• [Completely absurd]: glyphosate is the only eradication option against coca and cannabis
  - El Pais, 09 February 2020

• How Colombia's government officials, members of Uribe's Democratic Center party, led a political warfare campaign against journalists
  - Colombia Reports, 08 February 2020

• Opinion: the importance of drug trafficking in the Bolivian economy is more than 1.4% of GDP, especially when banana producer Miguel Zambrana estimates that the yield of one hectare of coca in Chapare is $66,000 a year - without entering the industrialization stage; no other crop can compete with coca, not even African palm
  - El Deber, 03 February 2020

• The soldiers of the Special Force to Combat Drug Trafficking (FELCN) of Bolivia destroyed 19 cocaine factories, seized 700 liters of precursor chemicals, and found 78,000 doses of drugs in operations carried out in the department of Cochabamba
  - El Diario, 03 February 2020

• Santa Cruz, California, decriminalizes magic mushrooms and other natural psychelics at the personal, making it the third US city to take such a step
  - CNN, 03 February 2020

• The ELN has influence in seven of the ten municipalities of Colombia with more coca - these areas are Tarazá (Antioquia), Tambo (Cauca), Barbacoas, El Charco (Nariño), El Tarra, Sardinata and Tibú (North of Santander) - the ELN is the largest armed criminal group in the country
  - El Tiempo, 30 January 2020

• Coca farmers in Colombia prepare mass protests as Colombia abandons counternarcotics strategy - the government claiming its doesn't have the promised $1 billion to help farmers substitute their crops, while those who did agree to substitute are starving
  - Colombia Reports, 30 January 202O

• Evidence contradicts Colombian national police claims that two ex-FARC members, one a coca substitution advocate, were killed by police when traveling to assassinate an ex-FARC leader, Rodrigo Londoño - new evidence suggests the two ex-FARC members were killed by police
  - Colombia Reports, 29 January 2020

• 76% of the cocaine factories destroyed in 2019 in Bolivia were in the Chapare region. Of 841 factories found, 640 were found in the Chapare. FELCN, the anti-drug force, also detected the rest of the factories in Santa Cruz (152), 45 in La Paz and 4 in Tarija.
  - Pagina Siete, 29 January 2020

• While the air fumigation has at least six months before it can become a reality, the replacement of coca has just received a blow that can delay it further and add more gasoline to the mobilizations that are planned for March. Yesterday the National Coordinator of Cultivators of Coca, Poppy and Marijuana, Coccam, released a statement calling for the resignation of Hernando Londoño, head of the National Program for Substitution of Crops for Illicit Use, Pnis, and Presidency official.
  - La Silla Vacia, 28 January 2020

• A single dose of psilocybin - the psychedelic drug found in magic mushrooms - eased cancer patients' anxiety and depression for many years
  - NBC News, 28 January 2020

• Arnobis Zapata, national spokesman for the National Coordinator of Cultivators of Coca, Poppy and Marijuana (Coccam) in Colombia responded to the statements of the director of the crop substitution program, Hernando Londoño, who said that no replacement leaders have been killed. According to Zapata, this Government has no will to support the program.
  - El Espectador, 28 January 2020

• Kellogg's pledges to end use of the weedkiller glyphosate to dry oats and wheat before harvest
  - Environmental Working Group, 27 January 2020

• Southern Colombian province of Putumayo living in terror as turf war over drug trade escalates, with government security forces nowhere to be seen, as drug traffickers fight efforts to substitute the farming of coca for other products.
  - Colombia Reports, 27 January 2020

• The more than one thousand hectares planted with coca in the rural area of Jamundí will be able to generate for drug traffickers and illegal armed groups, profits of more than US $700 million in the international market this year. This is the loot that organized crime pursues and that has turned into deadly disputes for the towns of Villa Colombia, San Antonio, La Liberia, San Vicente and La Meseta, where days ago five people were killed and two vehicles were cremated; the third massacre committed by armed groups in recent months.
  - El Pais, 26 January 2020

• Fumigation with glyphosate in Colombia - a new year with old policies with almost no public debate, and many analysts have criticized the fumigation for several reasons - neither this government nor the previous ones have offered strong arguments against these three problems of fumigation
  - El Espectador, 26 January 2020

• Hernando Londoño (director of the PNIS - Integrated National Program of Crops for Illicit Use in Colombia) ensures that, despite budgetary difficulties, the 99,000 families enrolled in the PNIS are complying. Despite the fact that peasant organizations have documented the murder of 59 coca growers leaders, the official maintains that they have not registered any cases.
  - El Espectador, 24 January 2020

• The Minister of Government of Bolivia, Arturo Murillo, announced Thursday that the eradication of surplus coca crops will begin in the National Parks, which, according to his information, are "plagued" by illegal green leaf crops
  - El Deber, 24 January 2020

• London to Lima Gin Distillery, based in Lima (Peru), will be introducing a Mulberry & Coca Gin liqueur into the UK Market.
  - Just-Drinks.com, 23 January 2020

• I wish Colombians could quickly investigate and innovate in legitimate uses of one of our flagship plants - coca, perhaps the most promising for our own bioeconomy, as recommended by the Mission of Wise Men
  - El Espectador, 23 January 2020

• The Bolivian government says there is no date to eradicate coca in Chapare - the tasks of eradicating the surplus coca leaf in the Chapare sector in Cochabamba have no start date, said Deputy Minister of Public Security, Wilson Santamaría
  - Pagina Siete, 23 January 2020

• Adepcoca denounces theft of material from the cocalero hospital in Bolivia - stationery, bathroom accessories and stretchers from the Adepcoca Integral Care Specialization Center were stolen and dismantled by coca growers related to the Movement to Socialism (MAS - the party of former president Morales), denounced the cocalero leader of the Yungas, Sergio Pampa
  - Pagina Siete, 23 January 2020

• Kratom - America's new semi-legal drug culture, which many use to quit opioids while others use it to get high (in 2016 the DEA had tried to make it schedule I, but backed off under pressure).
  - Wired, 22 January 2020

• More than likely the far-right group "Aquilas Negras", known to attack/kill community activists in coca growing regions, are members of military and police intelligence agencies
  - Colombia Reports, 21 January 2020

• After more than 10 days of the forced displacement of almost 4,000 people in rural areas of Tumaco (Nariño, Colombia), the Mayor's Office, headed by María Emilsen Angulo, declared in the last hours a humanitarian emergency in the municipality. The inhabitants of the Unión Río Chagüí Community Council had to leave their territory as a result of clashes between the Oliver Sinisterra Front, Comandante Alfonso Cano Western Bloc and the criminal structure of paramilitary origin called Los Contadores.
  - El Espectador, 20 January 2020

• After 14 years of the so-called "nationalization of the fight against drug trafficking" in the government of Evo Morales, the Joint Task Forces of Bolivia, based in the Tropic of Cochabamba, confront the challenge of initiating the eradication of illegal coca crops in the face of the opposition of the coca producers loyal to Evo Morales
  - Pagina Siete, 20 January 2020

• The Deputy Minister of Citizen Security of Bolivia, Wilson Santamaría, informed La Razón on Sunday that this Tuesday will begin the eradication of surplus coca. On Wednesday, Defense Minister Fernando López said that operations would begin today. On Wednesday, the Minister of Defense said that as of January 20, the eradication of surplus coca for the 2020 management plan in the country would begin. He announced that he intends to enter the tropics area of Cochabamba to start this activity.
  - La Razon, 20 January 2020

• The Bolivian government supports concerted eradication and will respect the cato - respect for the coca market and concerted eradication, are the two axes of the Government for the task in the surplus areas of coca crops, according to Luis Fernando López, minister of Defense, a few hours after starting the coca rationalization tasks that should begin today
  - El Deber, 20 January 2020

• The Six Coca Federations of the Tropic of Cochabamba and other social organizations, were summoned to participate in the community meeting this Wednesday, January 22, within the framework of the Plurinational State Day, as confirmed by their leader, Andronic Rodriguez. It was anticipated that a massive presence is expected on the Pan American Prolongation Avenue, in the capital of Cochabamba, to hear the message of the former president, Evo Morales, who will give a speech from Argentina, a country in which he is a refugee after the events of October last year.
  - El Deber, 20 January 2020

• Investigators determine that a popular "all natural" pain reliever in Colombia, Dololed - produced by the drug company Pronabell, has high levels of an artificial pain reliever, diclofen - a nonsteriodal anti-inflammatory drug
  - El Espectador, 18 January 2020

• The number of Americans drinking themselves to death with a legal, addictive drug - alcohol - doubled from 1999 to 2017, with over 72,000 deaths due to alcohol in 2017, at least five times as many deaths due to alcohol as due to cocaine use
  - MarketWatch, 18 January 2020

• Bolivia's Special Anti-Drug Trafficking police force finds 15 cocaine factories in the Chapare region after a 7-hour raid
  - Pagina Siete, 18 January 2020

• The newly formed, Washington-based, International Development Finance Corporation will fund US $5 billion in investment and cooperation in territories affected by illicit crops and drug trafficking in Colombia
  - The City Paper Bogota, 17 January 2020

• The cocoa cartel of Ghana and the Ivory Coast is forcing up the prices of cocoa, giving a pay rise to West African cocoa farmers that will increase costs for global confectioners Lindt, Nestlé and Hershey
  - Wall Street Journal, 17 January 2020

• The United States government will invest "billions of dollars" in rural development as part of its counternarcotics strategy in Colombia, a top official said Thursday - crop substitution and rural development are more effective to curb the cultivation of illicit crops like coca
  - Colombia Reports, 17 January 2020

• The organizations that make up the Unity Pact, a platform of the social sectors that sustains the Movement To Socialism in Bolivia, unanimously decided to support the candidacy of the binomial David Choquehuanca (the former chancellor) Andrónico Rodríguez (the cocalero leader) for next Sunday's elections May 3, as candidates for President and Vice President
  - Los Tiempos, 17 January 2020

• The organizations that make up the Unity Pact, a platform of the social sectors that sustains the Movement To Socialism in Bolivia, unanimously decided to support the candidacy of the binomial David Choquehuanca (the former chancellor) Andrónico Rodríguez (the cocalero leader) for next Sunday's elections May 3, as candidates for President and Vice President
  - Pagina Siete, 17 January 2020

• The organizations that make up the Unity Pact, a platform of the social sectors that sustains the Movement To Socialism in Bolivia, unanimously decided to support the candidacy of the binomial David Choquehuanca (the former chancellor) Andrónico Rodríguez (the cocalero leader) for next Sunday's elections May 3, as candidates for President and Vice President
  - La Razon, 17 January 2020

• "We do not need anyone's permission to enter the Chapare.", Bolivian Defense Minister Fernando López responded, in regard to questions raised by coca growers about the presence of a large military contingent in that region of Cochabamba, Evo Morales's political stronghold and where until now the Police did not reactivate their presence.
  - La Razon, 16 January 2020

• The draft decree of the Government of Iván Duque to resume the aerial fumigation in Colombia lit the wick so that the coca growers get more excited about the national strike, which has cited a mobilization next Tuesday - although the loud protests have already been felt in municipalities such as Tumaco, in the Pacific; Maicao, in La Guajira; or Barrancabermeja, in Santander; with this it can resonate in more remote areas, because it adds to the incomplete promises of the Government with the replacement of coca
  - La Silla Vacia, 16 January 2020

• The president of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) of the Yungas of La Paz, Franclin Gutiérrez, announced on Wednesday that he will not stand as a candidate for the Presidency in the elections of May 3, so as not to disperse the vote - he has the goal of consolidating the unification of the vote to prevent the Socialism Movement (MAS) from returning to the Government of Bolivia; on the contrary, he said he will support a candidacy for unity that respects human rights
  - La Razon, 15 January 2020

• The US FDA approves the sale of a topical 4% cocaine anesthetic delivered as a nasal spray, manufactured by Lannett Company of Philadelphia
  - Philadelphia Inquirer, 14 January 2020

• The Netherlands, birthplace of semi-legal cannabis, risks losing billions of dollars in profits because it is less competitive than Canada and the United States
  - Business Week, 13 January 2020

• Opinion: I do not rule out that there are officials who believe, full of good faith, that fumigation with glyphosate will end drug trafficking in Colombia, but it is necessary to assert that, according to the experience of continuous failures for several tens of years, it is a solvable situation only solvable through drastic modifications of some social, environmental and economic policies.
  - El Espectador, 10 January 2020

• The representatives of civil society in the National Commission of Security Guarantees in Colombia formulated a six-axis document that marks the horizon to finally dismantle paramilitary groups. Far from being extinct, paramilitarism seems to have strengthened after the FARC left the territories it controlled. President Duque has been aware of the proposal since August 2019 but has not advanced in his discussion, and he has refused to act on the recommendations.
  - El Espectador, 09 January 2020

• The governors of the provinces where most of Colombia’s coca is grown have rejected the national government’s intentions to resume the aerial fumigation of coca, the base ingredient for cocaine - the new governors of Antioquia, Nariño, Cauca, Putumayo and Norte de Santander all have expressed their support to use rural development and voluntary crop substitution to curb cocaine production
  - Colombia Reports, 09 January 2020

• The president of Colombia, Ivan Duque, is informed that the Colombian military's collusion (the Army's 7th division) with the country's largest trafficking crime group is undermining the government's legitimacy, in a letter from a representative of victims of violence, Leyner Palacios
  - Colombia Reports, 09 January 2020

• THE LETTER: the president of Colombia, Ivan Duque, is informed that the Colombian military's collusion (the Army's 7th division) with the country's largest trafficking crime group is undermining the government's legitimacy, in a letter from a representative of victims of violence, Leyner Palacios
  - Leyner Palacios, CIVP - Bojaya, 09 January 2020

• Coca farming leader Franklin Gutierrez denounced the theft of hospital supplies and hospital administrative folders, and damages to the headquarters of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) in La Paz, Bolivia, when in the hands of coca growers related to the Movement A Socialism (MAS) during the presidency of Evo Morales. For this reason, Gutierrez filed a complaint with the Public Ministry against the former Minister of Rural Development, César Cocarico, and other ex-authorities of the MAS.
  - El Diario, 08 January 2020

• Coca farming leader Franklin Gutierrez denounced the theft of hospital supplies and hospital administrative folders, and damages to the headquarters of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) in La Paz, Bolivia, when in the hands of coca growers related to the Movement A Socialism (MAS) during the presidency of Evo Morales. For this reason, Gutierrez filed a complaint with the Public Ministry against the former Minister of Rural Development, César Cocarico, and other ex-authorities of the MAS.
  - Pagina Siete, 08 January 2020

• Activist Gloria Ocampo, 37, was killed along with another person in a rural area of Putumayo, a case that constitutes the first homicide of a social leader this year in Colombia - she was an activist in favor of replacing illegal crops in the La Estrella village, municipality of Puerto Guzmán, Putumayo
  - El Pais, 08 January 2020

• Activist Gloria Ocampo, 37, was killed along with another person in a rural area of Putumayo, a case that constitutes the first homicide of a social leader this year in Colombia - she was an activist in favor of replacing illegal crops in the La Estrella village, municipality of Puerto Guzmán, Putumayo
  - El Espectador, 08 January 2020

• Activist Gloria Ocampo, 37, was killed along with another person in a rural area of Putumayo, a case that constitutes the first homicide of a social leader this year in Colombia - she was an activist in favor of replacing illegal crops in the La Estrella village, municipality of Puerto Guzmán, Putumayo
  - El Tiempo, 08 January 2020

• Established at the beginning of last year, the Peruvian startup Futura Farms plans to invest between US $1 million and US $2 million between this year and next in medical and industrial cannabis research projects
  - El Comercio, 08 January 2020

• The active ingredient in "magic mushrooms", psilocybin, is getting closer to obtaining FDA approval as a treatment for particularly tough cases of depression
  - Business Week, 07 January 2020

• The Government of Bolivia condemned the warning made by the vice president of the six coca federations of the Tropic of Cochabamba, Andrónico Rodríguez, about the beginning of pressure measures as of January 22, when the constitutional period for which Evo Morales was elected concludes chief leader, who resigned as president of the country on November 10 - Defense Minister Fernando López recalled that the Armed Forces remain in that territory and said they will act based on their constitutional powers, while the head of Government, Arturo Murillo, suggested that the coca grower move away from radicalism because only pushes away voters
  - La Razon, 06 January 2020

• The vice president of the Six Federations of Coca Producers of the Tropic of Cochabamba (Bolivia), Andrónico Rodríguez, announced this Sunday that the peaceful struggle opposing the management of interim president Jeanine Añez ends on January 22 - the cocalero leader said that after the January 11 meeting, measures will be taken to continue the "process of change".
  - Pagina Siete, 06 January 2020

• Cocaleros of the Chapare region of Bolivia warn that they will take action after January 22, when the constitutional mandate period of the Executive expires, now in the hands of interim president Jeanine áñez, and the Legislative; the actions will be defined by the Unity Pact on Saturday 11th. "We are not putting down our hands, but we are in a moment of peaceful resistance against fascism."
  - La Razon, 06 January 2020

• The West African nations of Ivory Coast and Ghana, which combined produce more than 60% of the world's cocoa, have banded together to form their own chocolate-coated version of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
  - Wall Street Journal, 06 January 2020

• Cocaleros of the Yungas, Bolivia, are considering a rule to repeal the General Law of Coca (906) that benefits Chapare producers, whose leaf is not sold for traditional consumption, but has other purposes, presumably for drug trafficking - "The government (de Morales) has not encouraged the industrialization of coca, has not done anything for that area."
  - Pagina Siete, 05 January 2020

• Jaime Zurita, the provincial commander of the police in Cochabamba, Bolivia, said yesterday that residents of the Tropic of Cochabamba refuse the return of uniformed police, because they would rather protect drug trafficking activities, especially in the Chapare province
  - El Diario, 05 January 2020

• Former security chief for Colombian airline Air Cargo Lines claims that the "Sinoloa Cartel paid former president Uriba $1 million to facilitate drug trafficking between Colombia and Mexico"
  - Colombia Reports, 03 January 2020

• Evo Morales supported the coca growers in Bolivia, but the coca growers now face a hostile new government with policies that could hurt their farming efforts - but the coca growers for decades have been a powerful political force
  - Wall Street Journal, 03 January 2020

• U-Haul to stop hiring people who use nicotine in any form, such as cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, vaping, etc.
  - Slate, 02 January 2020

• Brookings Institute report: Detoxifying Colombia's drug policy.
  - Brookings Institute, 02 January 2020

• The United States Department of State announced Tuesday that it supports the roadmap presented by the Colombian government to return to aerial fumigatio with glyphosate to eradicate the coca leaf
  - El Espectador, 31 December 2019

• The UN's International Narcotics Control Board allocates to Colombia a production quota of 56.5 tons of high-THC dry marijuana leaf - 22% of the worldwide allocation
  - Finance Colombia, 30 December 2019

• The Colombian government presents a decree to resume fumigation of coca in 2020 - the Ministry of Justice reported that the publication of this project does not imply the immediate resumption of this method to combat illegal crops, but is the first step to create the regulatory framework ordered by the Court Constitutional.
  - El Tiempo, 30 December 2019

• This is the decree with which the Government seeks to resume aerial spraying with glyphosate in Colombia - the draft decree seeks to resume the fumigation technique that was suspended in 2017 by the Constitutional Court, taking note of the recommendations made by that high court on contemplating risks for the health and environment of the use of the herbicide.
  - El Espectador, 30 December 2019

• The victims of violence in Colombia, after the peace agreement, expect more contrition from the FARC.
  - La Silla Vacia, 29 December 2019

• Former President Evo Morales, a refugee in Argentina, participated, by telephone contact, in the 7th ordinary congress of the Association of Producers of Regional Intercultural Organic Coca - Carrasco La Reserva, in the municipality of Caranavi. The ex-president assured his militants that they will win in the first round in the next general elections in Bolivia.
  - Los Tiempos, 28 December 2019

• Ajayo products (www.andescoca.com), made from organic coca leaf, are a natural energy and food supplement - what champions the initiative are the candies: each one is equivalent to a bolus of coca, says the general manager of Icori Laboratories, Juan Salvador Hurtado
  - Pagina Siete, 28 December 2019

• The Supreme Court of Italy rules that Italians can grow small amounts of marijuana in their homes for personal use
  - New York Times, 27 December 2019

• In Leiva, Nariño (Colombia), the victims of the conflict await reparation - in this municipality the lack of opportunities financially hurts its residents, who are forced to plant coca to live, and the people say that the government has breached the agreements that they signed
  - El Espectador, 26 December 2019

• Camilo Romero, governor of Nariño (Colombia), confirmed the death of Lucy Villareal, social leader who was part of the Indo-American Cultural Foundation, which participates in the Carnival celebrations in Pasto. According to the governor, the leader was "cultivator of Carnaval and a defender of life".
  - El Espectador, 25 December 2019

• Lucy Villareal, social leader of Tumaco, Colombia, is murdered - Lucy is known to be the mother of two young daughters and was part of the Indo-American Cultural Foundation in Pasto
  - El Tiempo, 25 December 2019

• Spanish authorities are sure that they have just dealt a great blow to the mafia, with the capture of a Colombian, Tatiana Peñuela Manrique, the 'queen' of cocaine trafficking in the Canary Islands, Toledo and other cities in the region of Galicia
  - El Tiempo, 24 December 2019

• Miguel Acosta Gonzalez, a former politician and former director of civil protection in the state of Campeche in Guatemala, is captured in Guatemala while smuggling two tons of coca leaves and 572 packages of cocaine in his private jet
  - The Yucatan Times, 23 December 2019

• The National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia launched its agenda until 2030 - the coffee growers set six goals for the next decade, and their agenda plans to continue support programs for the renewal of coffee plantations, as they encourage the maintenance of young coffee crops
  - El Tiempo, 22 December 2019

• Exactly one month ago in the Chimborazo town hall in Morales, Cauca, Colombia, the murder of Emiliano Chocué set off the alarms within the indigenous organizations of the region, due to a latent alert: the internal conflict over indigenous families that reject the eradication of illicit crops such as coca. Chocué was killed by another family who grew coca.
  - La Silla Vacia, 22 December 2019

• Illinois is about to become the 11th state in the nation to allow the sale of recreational marijuana - but some say only white men are set to profit.
  - USA Today, 21 December 2019

• A patrol of the Special Force to Combat Drug Trafficking (Felcn) found a cocaine crystallization laboratory - which produced more than 100 kilos of cocaine a day - in the vicinity of Aguas Claras, in the municipality of El Torno, located 32 kilometers away from the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia
  - El Deber, 20 December 2019

• Biodiversity en Colombia, an opportunity for reinstatement - 40% of ex-combatants have environmental conservation skills and 84% would like to work on the environmental restoration of lands and rivers
  - El Espectador, 18 December 2019

• According to the most recent analysis of the Rural Dialogue Group in Colombia, the precarious conditions of the municipalities with coca crops considerably limit the coverage in education, health, employment and quality of life of 298,000 rural youth
  - Semana Rural, 18 December 2019

• This year in Colombia the resumption of aerial spraying of illicit crops with glyphosate won't be approved, a tool in which the Government has insisted on using to fight against narcocultures in the country
  - El Tiempo, 17 December 2019

• In Australia, the National Health and Medical Research Council updates guidelines for drinking alcohol, and recommend that two standard alcoholic drinks a day, or more, are no longer safe for adults
  - The Guardian, 15 December 2019

• The routes and prices of cocaine-related drugs inside and outside of Peru - US $1000 per kilogram of basic cocaine paste, US $2000 per kilogram of cocaine hydrochloride, and US $ 3per kilogram of dried coca leaf
  - El Comercio, 17 December 2019

• Manuel Antonio González Buelvas, known as Yahir Cartagena, was shot in the immediate vicinity of the territorial space of reinstatement of the Santa Lucía path (Ituanfo, in the north of Antioquia, Colombia) - there, the ex-guerrilla worked in a collective livestock project, in which about 100 former FARC combatants raised the money stipulated in the Peace Agreement for each ex-guerrilla in order to implement productive projects
  - El Espectador, 13 December 2019

• President Jeanine áñez de Bolivia announced on Thursday the call for dialogue with the coca growers of Chapare in order to restore the presence of the State in that region with the presence of the Police
  - La Razon, 13 December 2019

• From arid, harsh lands in Peru came a superfood that attracted the world's attention. The root of the maca plant (Lepidium meyenii) was the subject of an economic boom but then vanished because genetic material was unlawfully taken out of the country, an act scientists call “biopiracy”.
  - China Dialogue, 12 December 2019

• The absence of the Police in Chapare could cause there to be no vote in the next elections, said the Bolivian Government Minister, Arturo Murillo, in the last few hours, due to a radical decision by some coca growers that "entry was prohibited from the institutions of the State to that region".
  - El Diario, 12 December 2019

• "There will be war" if they take our land, warn the Yungas coca growers in Bolivia - cocalero Luis Prudencial warns that "there will be war" if the transitional government of Jeanine Añez, or the one who wins the next elections, decides to take "even a little piece" of our land
  - Pagina Siete, 12 December 2019

• Bolivian yungueños coca growers rethink having opted for monoculture - for decades, coca has dominated agriculture in the Yungas. Today the environment and biodiversity are affected by these plantations, while producers begin to rethink their decisions.
  - Pagina Siete, 12 December 2019

• Anti-drug forces destroy two laboratories that produce more than 1 ton of cocaine per day in Roboré, Santa Cruz, Bolivia
  - Pagina Siete, 12 December 2019

• Anti-drug forces destroy two laboratories that produce more than 1 ton of cocaine per day in Roboré, Santa Cruz, Bolivia
  - Los Tiempos, 11 December 2019

• Coca farms in Peru close in on protected areas and isolated tribes, such as the Mashco-Piro, in the Amazon region.
  - Mongabay, 09 December 2019

• In Bolivia, the Minister of Justice and Institutional Transparency, álvaro Coimbra, and the Deputy Minister of Justice and Fundamental Rights, Huberth Vargas, yesterday received from the Yungas coca growers (members of Adepcoca) the first complaints about political persecution during the government of Evo Morales
  - Pagina Siete, 06 December 2019

• In Colombia, the ELN gains ground in Nariño and fights hegemony in Chocó with the Golfo Clan
  - La Silla Vacia, 06 December 2019

• In Colombia, 81,305 hectares of illicit crops were eradicated this year
  - El Pais, 04 December 2019

• Manuel Santos Yatacué Ramos, ex-combatant of the Farc, was killed in the municipality of Buenos Aires, north of Cauca - the victim was a member of a cooperative that works with the cultivation, collection and marketing of coffee, an initiative in Colombia that emerged from the peace agreements to employ former FARC combatants
  - El Pais, 04 December 2019

• The Minister of Justice of Bolivia, álvaro Coimbra, denounced yesterday to EL DEBER that the former ministers Carlos Romero, of the Government, and Juan Ramón Quintana, of the Presidency, fought an internal struggle because they belonged to two different factions in the Executive that had links with drug trafficking, pero the former director of Conaltid Hugo Siles, described the accusation as "not very serious"
  - El Deber, 04 December 2019

• While desperately trying to meet coca eradication targets, Colombia's government appears to be lying about the number of human casualties and lying about resowing statistics - the civilian eradicators get paid $17 a day while narcos and landmines kill or maim their colleagues every other day, just so politicians in Bogota and Washington can claim success without solving anything.
  - Colombia Reports, 03 December 2019

• The Spanish authorities have just revealed that they found and dismantled a drug laboratory in Casasbuenas, Toledo - the complex had the capacity to produce up to two tons of cocaine per month that were marketed by FARC dissidents
  - El Tiempo, 03 December 2019

• Groups linked to so-called "narcoterrorism" operated in Bolivia, which was denounced yesterday by the Minister of Government, Arturo Murillo, who also said that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and drug trafficking are currently managed from Venezuela and seek to destabilize the Governments of Colombia, Peru, Chile, Bolivia and others. He even pointed to the government of Nicolás Maduro as a financier of an attempt to destabilize Bolivia, through different links that involve foreigners, people related to the Movement towards Socialism (MAS) and former president Evo Morales.
  - El Diario, 03 December 2019

• The University of Los Andes published a study that shows the economic impact of the coca alkaloid in the economy of Colombia - one of the conclusions of the research was that, during the past year, the production of cocaine hydrochloride reached 18.3 billion Colombian pesos, equal to sales of US $5,631 million (at the average change of 2018 for $ 3,150). To understand that figure, in that same period the country's legal external sales were US $41,905 million, so the coca business represented almost the same as 14% of external sales.
  - AgroNegocios, 03 December 2019

• Coca production is worth 18.3 billion Colombia pesos and is double the GDP of coffee - this illicit business adds 1.88% of GDP in the economy, while coffee, 0.8%, according to study
  - El Tiempo, 01 December 2019

• Jorge Quiroga, former president of Bolivia: "30 years ago, Evo Morales 30 was president of the Chapare coca growers, with a potential for cocaine production that is easily over one hundred tons per year and which he has legalized. Coca de Yungas is legal, for the traditional mate, while Chapare's only serves to make cocaine ... He sold a fake indigenous image to the world, does not speak native language, has always been an Amazonian tropical coca grower. Bolivians know the reality."
  - El Pais, 01 December 2019

• Uribe's/Duque's 'ruling' Democratic Center party on a verge of a split, with extremist senators demanding more power or they will split, while their coalition partner, the Conservative Party, wants to share power with center-right parties in Congress
  - Colombia Reports, 01 December 2019

• Bolivian Government Minister Arturo Murillo said today that he ordered an investigation against the former national director of the Special Force for the Fight against Drug Trafficking (FELCN), Maximiliano Dávila, because he was denounced by the drug trafficker, Pedro Montenegro, for the alleged commission of crimes such as extortion
  - Pagina Siete, 30 November 2019

• The Bolivian Government Minister, Arturo Murillo, informed that he has instructed an investigation of the former national director of the Special Force for the Fight Against Drug Trafficking (Felcn), Maximiliano Dávila, following the assertions of Pedro Montenegro Paz who hinted at a link between the former police chief and the drug trafficking
  - El Deber, 30 November 2019

• The minority coalition of the president of Colombia, Ivan Duque, comprising the Conservative Party and former president Andres Pastrana who backs vice president Marta Lucia Ramirez -- and the far-right Democratic Center part of former president Alvaro Uribe that backs Duque, is fracturing, as the Conservatives support an ongoing peace process with demobilized FARC guerrillas that is fiercely opposed by the president's party and Uribe, though Pastana opposes former president Juan Manuel Santos who signed the peace agreement and Santos' peace treaty
  - Colombia Reports, 30 November 2019

• 'Wax', the marijuana-based wax that is raising alarms in Bucaramanga, Colombia - the inhalation of this substance is four times more potent than conventional marijuana
  - El Tiempo, 29 November 2019

• Oscar Serrate, the Bolivian ambassador to the United States, rules out the return of the DEA as a solution to drug trafficking in Bolivia
  - Los Tiempos, 29 November 2019

• Colombia's commercial television networks and leading newspapers are under fire over their almost incestuous ties to government and questionable approach to journalism - in some cases, like RCN, this conflict of interest went so far that it has been accused of apologizing for terrorism allegedly sponsored by it's sister company, Postobon, that is accused of financing paramilitary groups that murdered more than 100,000 people, most of whom innocent civilians
  - Colombia Reports, 29 November 2019

• "Evo Morales is like a father to us" - in the Chapare coca-growing region of Bolivia where the former president got his political start, coca farmers are loyal to him — and demanding his return
  - New York Times, 27 November 2019

• The head of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca), Franclin Gutierrez, insisted today on the repeal of the Coca Law of Bolivia approved by the previous government of the Movement to Socialism (MAS). Gutierrez said the current regulations were approved without consensus from La Paz producers and extended the production frontier for coca to the Chapare producers.
  - Pagina Siete, 27 November 2019

• Opinion: the secret of Chapare (Bolivia) - the product of Chapare is not the coca leaf but drug by-products that is obtained from the coca leaf, so that the sale of the leaf has nothing to do with honest business, something that may unravel this mystery
  - El Diario, 27 November 2019

• Cocaleros of the Six Federations of the Tropics determined yesterday, in a town hall, to establish a temporary recess in the blockades that they maintain in the highway that unites Cochabamba and Santa Cruz. They called for the "immediate" approval of a guarantee law for Evo Morales and ratified that he "remains the president of Bolivia".
  - Pagina Siete, 27 November 2019

• The vice president of the Six Federations of the Tropic of Cochabamba (Bolivia), Andrónico Rodríguez, reported Tuesday that this social organization determined the fourth recess in the blockade of the road to Santa Cruz, which began two weeks ago, while awaiting compliance with agreements by the Government with the social sectors
  - La Razon, 27 November 2019

• Cocaleros of the six Federations of the Tropic of Cochabamba, Bolivia, determined to support former president Evo Morales, during an extended meeting held today afternoon at his headquarters in the municipality of Sacaba. The leader of the Coordination of the six Federations of the Tropic of Cochabamba, Andrónico Rodríguez, demanded the approval of the Law of Guarantees.
  - Pagina Siete, 26 November 2019

• The Interim Ombudsman, Nadia Cruz, who yesterday participated in the council of the six federations of the Tropic of Cochabamba, together with Andronico Rodriguez leader, threw harangues at the Chapare coca growers who made them shout "neither forget nor forgive, justice!" about the clashes raised days ago where several farmers in the sector lost their lives. The presence and posture of Cruz was criticized by the citizens who assure that the official shows a clear political inclination in favor of the Movement To Socialism (MAS) besides that she never participated in councils in defense of democracy.
  - El Diario, 26 November 2019

• A marijuana variety nicknamed 'Creepy' is aggravating Colombia's drug trafficking wars - it is grown in Colombia's "Golden Triange" in the northern neck of Cauca state, centered on the towns of Toribio, Caloto and Miranda
  - Daily Beast, 24 November 2019

• Every day, $3 million worth of fuel is smuggled into Colombia from various neighbors who can’t seem to keep their borders under control, and even worse, this is the gas that fuels the mighty cocaine industry - it takes approximately 38 liters (or 10 gallons) of gasoline to manufacture just one kilogram of cocaine, Colombia’s cocaine manufacturing process each year consumes 9.21 million gallons of gasoline - a Colombian drug lab would have to pay $0.716 per liter of Colombian gasoline, if it weren't for Ecuador’s cheaper gasoline of $0.489 per liter
  - OilPrice.com, 20 November 2019

• At least 50 coca growers from Chapare, Bolivia - allied with former president Evo Morales - are being investigated for drug trafficking, as revealed yesterday by the national director of the Special Force to Combat Drug Trafficking (Felcn) Maximiliano Dávila. He also reported that 10 MAS councilors in municipalities of the Cochabamba tropics were sent to justice, so far this year, for the same crime.
  - El Diario, 22 November 2019

• At least 50 coca growers from Chapare, Bolivia - allied with former president Evo Morales - are being investigated for drug trafficking, as revealed yesterday by the national director of the Special Force to Combat Drug Trafficking (Felcn) Maximiliano Dávila. He also reported that 10 MAS councilors in municipalities of the Cochabamba tropics were sent to justice, so far this year, for the same crime.
  - Pagina Siete, 22 November 2019

• Protests in support of coca growers provoke tension in Cochabamba, Bolivia - marches in the southern zone to support the people of Chapare who try to enter the city center - aa Police had to use tear gas
  - El Deber, 19 November 2019

• Another day of clashes between coca growers and law enforcement in Cochabamba, Bolivia - a police and military security fence prevented the passage of coca leaf producers from Chapare, affiliated with Evo Morales, to the city of Cochabamba, to demand the resignation of President áñez
  - La Razon, 18 November 2019

• Football, emeralds and coca, which plunges Horacio Triana into the U.S. - ‘indictment’ reveals links of emeralds with the former drug leader who bought shares of Santa Fe soccer club and with AUC
  - El Tiempo, 18 November 2019

• President Trump reportedly shelved a ban on flavored e-cigarettes to avoid angering nicotine-addicted voters
  - Business Insider, 18 November 2019

• Cacao exports from Colombia reach over 40 countries, with $80 million in export sales
  - Finance Colombia, 18 November 2019

• "The problem in Colombia was not the FARC, it was coca": presidential security Aaviser - Rafael Guarín explains, in dialogue with this newspaper, that the biggest challenge in terms of security is for the State to reach the most neglected regions
  - El Espectador, 17 November 2019

• The producers of coca leaf of the Chapare, Bolivia, last night held a town hall in which they gave a time period of 48 hours for President Jeanine áñez to resign, otherwise they will carry out a national and indefinite blockade of roads until their requests are heard
  - El Deber, 17 November 2019

• The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) posted a video circulating on social networks, which shows the five victims who lie on a blanket on the floor - condemned the "excessive use" of force and reminded "the State of its obligation to ensure the right to life and physical integrity of those who protest peacefully in Bolivia".
  - La Razon, 17 November 2019

• Cali, "the center of operations" from where drug traffickers control coca and cocaine in southern Colombia
  - El Pais, 17 November 2019

• Military and police use tear gas on coca growers loyal to Evo Morales who march to Cochabamba - coca producers from the Six Federations of the Tropic of Cochabamba, Bolivia, left again this Saturday in a march that departed from the municipality of Sacaba towards the city, to protest for the massacre allegedly perpetrated by security forces that left at least 9 dead and more than 100 injured
  - El Comercio, 17 November 2019

• The march of the MAS party (aligned with foremer president Morales) ended yesterday in blood in the city of Cochabamba, Bolivia. The crossfire between the coca growers of the Tropic and the security forces - Armed Forces and Police - left at least six dead on the part of MASistas, and dozens injured and hundreds apprehended
  - Pagina Siete, 16 November 2019

• The death toll rose to eight from Friday's clashes in Sacaba, Cochabamba (Bolivia), between coca growers and the contigent of police and military
  - La Razon, 16 November 2019

• The representative of the Ombudsman's Office in Cochabamba (Bolivia), Nelson Cox, confirmed on Friday afternoon the death from gunshot wounds of five coca growers in Sacaba, in the middle of clashes with police and military. Another 26 producers were injured and transferred to the hospitals of Sacaba and Cochabamba, while the security operation arrested about 169 coca growers trying to reach the city of Cochabamba and then continue on to La Paz in support of former president Evo Morales
  - La Razon, 15 November 2019

• There are reports that violent clashes in Sacaba, Bolivia, have left at least 5 dead - the police and military initiated an operation on the strategic Huayllani connection bridge so that Chapare coca growers could not enter the city of Cochabamba
  - La Razon, 15 November 2019

• Ethnic rifts in Bolivia burst into view with the fall of Evo Morales - as the country's first Indigenous president has tumbled from power, Indigenous Bolivians (many of whom use and grow the coca leaf) fear the loss of their hard-won political gains, and say a racially tinged backlash has begun
  - New York Times, 15 November 2019

• A group of police from the Joint Task Force (FTC) of Bolivia were surrounded by coca growers, in the town of Chimoré (Tropic of Cochabamba) - according to the complaint of an officer, who asked not to be identified - at least 50 police officers from the FTC were surrounded by coca leaf producers who cut off access to water and food
  - El Deber, 14 November 2019

• The coca grower Franclin Gutiérrez leaves jail in Bolivia after more than a year of detention - the president of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) was imprisoned preventively in August 2018 in the San Pedro prison and since then he had tried, without success and for even administrative reasons, secure his release
  - La Razon, 14 November 2019

• The vice president of the Coordination of the Six Federations of the Tropic of Cochabamba (Bolivia) of coca growers, Andrónico Rodríguez, summoned all social organizations related to the Movement To Socialism (MAS) to go out on the streets starting this Thursday in rejection of the "self-proclamation" of President Jeanine áñez - said they are in constant mobilization until Evo Morales returns to the country to fulfill his presidential mandate
  - Los Tiempos, 13 November 2019

• The coordinator of the six federations of coca growers of the Tropic of Cochabamba, Bolivia, called for a national mobilization, with special pressure in Cochabamba and La Paz, to reinstall in the Presidency, this next Monday, former president Evo Morales who recently resigned
  - La Razon, 13 November 2019

• Minutes after Senator Jeanine áñez assumed the constitutional presidency of Bolivia, the coca producers of Chapare, whose top leader is Evo Morales, spoke out and threatened with forceful mobilizations starting tomorrow - "In the Tropic of Cochabamba we will be on the streets until our brother Evo Morales returns to the presidency, because he is within the time of his constitutional mandate until January 22, 2020."
  - Pagina Siete, 13 November 2019

• Colombia and its coca growing neighbors, Peru and Bolivia, have an opportunity to transform coca into a path of licit sustainable development and even refocus part of the growing demand for cocaine, helping us to stop drug trafficking from the root
  - Semana Rural, 12 November 2019

• The beginning of the eradication of coca leaf in the hamlets of Mazamari (áín, Perú) has heightened the struggle of the guilds settled in that part of the central ágle that connects to the Vraem. These first days of conflict between coca growers and police have left 15 injured, but they also have been used by terrorism to show their presence.
  - El Comercio, 11 November 2019

• In Chimoré, Chapare, Bolivia, where President Evo Morales and Vice President álvaro García Linera arrived yesterday after submitting their resignations, the coca growers rejected the decision of the two presidents and, after a meeting, went out to burn police posts and the Command for the Tropic of Cochabamba, from where they stole documents of drug trafficking investigations, calling for a civil war
  - Pagina Siete, 11 November 2019

• Interview with María Eugenia Lloreda Piedrahita, president of the Association of Sugar Cane Growers in Colombia, who lies about the dangers of sugar to human health
  - El Pais, 10 November 2019

• Coca growing regions, areas of FARC dissidents, and the plan of Colombian president Iván Duque to stop the violence in the Cauca province
  - La Silla Vacia, 10 November 2019

• Medical cannabis: is a new industry born in Peru? - Although the regulation is not yet in force at one hundred percent, companies have already established and structured plans for business operations in the a short, medium and long term
  - El Comercio, 09 November 2019

• The clans of coca and cocaine in the Vraem of Peru: the five families in charge of sending drugs from Palmapampa (Ayacucho) to Bolivia
  - El Comercio, 06 November 2019

• Coca growers march in the streets of Cochabamba, Bolivia, and had a confrontation with anti-government protestors in front of the headquarters of the goovernment ruling party - the mobilization of the coca growers was demanding that the results of the recent first-round re-election, on October 20th, of President Morales be respected
  - Pagina Siete, 06 November 2019

• Coca growers march in the streets of Cochabamba, Bolivia, and had a confrontation with anti-government protestors in front of the headquarters of the goovernment ruling party - the mobilization of the coca growers was demanding that the results of the recent first-round re-election, on October 20th, of President Morales be respected
  - El Deber, 06 November 2019

• Women affiliated with the Movement To Socialism (MAS - the ruling party in Bolivia)), of the National Confederation of Indigenous Peasant Women Originally from Bolivia Bartolina Sisa, marched through the city of Cochabamba to support the president, Evo Morales, requesting respect for the vote of the rural area and denounce acts of discrimination against him
  - Los Tiempos, 06 November 2019

• Colombia’s Senate was shocked on Tuesday when hearing that at least seven minors were killed in a bombardment that President Ivan Duque had falsely presented as an "impeccable operation" against dissident FARC rebels that he labelled as "carco-terrorist criminals"
  - Colombia Reports, 06 November 2019

• Colombia’s Senate was shocked on Tuesday when hearing that at least seven minors were killed in a bombardment that President Ivan Duque had falsely presented as an "impeccable operation" against dissident FARC rebels that he labelled as "carco-terrorist criminals"
  - El Tiempo, 05 November 2019

• The national organization of indigenous people in Colombia propose "A Pilot Plan for Erradication and Substitution of Illegal Crops" (such as coca) to stop assassinations in the north part of Cauca province
  - Organizacion Nacional Indigena de Colombia, 05 November 2019

• Survey in Colombia reports that 45% of the people think that assassinations of social leaders in Cauca province are due to stealing land from indigenous people (such as the Nasa indigenous group - one of the few people making legal coca products), while only 14% of the people think that the killings are due to coca cultivation (25% for marijuana) - raising the question of the intent of President Duque's plan to send 2500 soldiers to Cauca - which he argues will fight the cocaine drug cartels but for which others argue is to help his right-wing allies steal more land
  - Colombia Reports, 03 November 2019

• The Colombian government affliated newspaper, El Tiempo, also blames assassinations of indigenous people in Cauca on drug trafficking, but does not report on assassinations due to stealing land from the people there
  - El Tiempo, 03 November 2019

• Colombia's indigenous Nasa people reiterate that they will not allow any armed group, legal or illegal, into their autonomous territory, rejecting government claims that the military could protect the Nasa people
  - Colombia Reports, 03 November 2019

• Confrontation with coca growers leaves 3 people wounded by gunshot in the Vraem of Peru - agents of the National Police and coca growers confronted each other yesterday during the eradication day of the Special Project for the Reduction and Control of Illegal Crops in Alto Huallaga (Corah), in the surrounding area of the La Florida sector, in the Coviriali district, province of Satipo (áín)
  - El Comercio, 02 November 2019

• VIDEO: Colombia's indigenous people risk their lives to remove illegal coca and marijuana crops
  - Al Jazeera, 02 November 2019

• Profits from sales of rooibos tea will be shared with San and Khoi Indigenous communities in southern Africa
  - Nature, 02 November 2019

• Colombia wants to create an economy based on its biodiversity, after 50 years of civil war, taking advantage of over 300 different ecological zones (article is silent about the legal economics of coca agriculture
  - Scientific American, 01 November 2019

• New murder of indigenous leader in Colombia, Gilbert Domicó Domicó, this time in Antioquia - several criminal organizations have listed indigenous leaders as targets because of their opposition to activities such as the production of coca and cocaine near their communities and the recruiting of members of the indigenous community
  - El Espectador, 01 November 2019

• Four victims of the new massacre in Cauca, Colombia, were members of a team of engineers and surveyors who carried out reconnaissance work in the Corinth area, in the north of the province - the technicians were conducting topographic work, supported by drones, in an area where there are coca crops
  - El Tiempo, 31 October 2019

• Nicotine drug trafficker, Juul, knowingly sold one million mint-flavored nicotine pods that were contaminated - and refused to call them
  - New York Times, 31 October 2019

• Why are they killing many indigenous people in the norte of Cauca, Colombia - the region where coca is grown and processed?
  - El Espectador, 30 October 2019

• Over 42,000 people have sued Bayer/Monsanto over its Roundup herbicides, with the people claiming that the glyphosate in Roundup causes cancer.
  - Wall Street Journal, 30 October 2019

• Colombia's authorities are under extraordinary pressure to investigate who murdered the FARC member who was at the heart of the former guerrillas' reintegration program
  - Colombia Reports, 26 October 2019

• Letter from a doctor: "I see patients every day who have had their lives destroyed by tobacco.", due to heart attacks and cancer - which coca tea does not cause.
  - Wall Street Journal, 23 October 2019

• Obesity causes losses of $13.7 billion in Colombia's labor market (about 4.3% of GDP), one solution is to achieve a 20 percent reduction in the calories provided by the food and beverage groups that most produce overweight.
  - El Tiempo, 21 October 2019

• A new initiative sponsored by congressmen of the FARC party in Colombia, and accompanied by a group of legislators who have supported the peace agreements, seeks to develop a part of the final agreement and give priority to the criminal prosecution of drug traffickers and financers of that illegal business and not to small growers who have no other way of life in the regions or who under pressure to grow the coca leaf
  - El Tiempo, 19 October 2019

• Although President Iván Duque is determined to resume spraying with glyphosate to coca crops in Colombia and accelerate efforts, next year he will find that the governors of the three departments with more coca are openly against that strategy. In Nariño, Norte de Santander and Putumayo, which last December accounted for 61 percent of the hectares (according to UNODC figures), all candidates for governorates are against fumigation, including those endorsed by parties that are part of the Government coalition (Democratic Center, Conservative, Fair Colombia and Free, the U and Mira).
  - La Silla Vacia, 13 October 2019

• More than 500,000 doses of cocaine each consumed each day in London, about 8 tons per year
  - SKY News, 12 October 2019

• The successes of the 2016 peace deal in Colombia are slipping away
  - Foreign Affairs, 11 October 2019

• The Trump administration is moving to restart aerial fumigation in Colombia - the move further endangers the country's already-fragile peace accord
  - The Progressive, 10 October 2019

• The U.S. will donate about US $123 million for anti-narcotics activities in Colombia - they are in addition to the nearly US $420 million that Washington approved to spend in the country throughout 2019 - also provide mobility for the groups of eradicators that will be displaced to these areas - under the agreement, both countries also pledged to promote economic development programs for cococa growing parts of the country.
  - El Tiempo, 10 October 2019

• Just a week after the D.C. Council put an additional 2% sales tax on soft drinks, it is considering a substitute plan to place a 1.5 cent-per-ounce excise tax on soda and other sweetened beverages
  - FoodDive, 09 October 2019

• Powers of the earth: the coca leaf has been used for more than 4,000 years by indigenous people from the Amazon and the Andean region
  - Caracol TV, 09 October 2019

• Investors who have invested over $400 million in the legal marijuana industry in Colombia are frustrated with regulations and roadblocks to exports, as other countries (Uruguay, Peru, Mexico, maybe Brazil) expand more quickly
  - Reuters, 07 October 2019

• Amid Trump's trade war with Zhōngguó, farmers start growing more hemp, now that hemp is no longer classified a controlled substance, with 13 states now growing hemp for a total of 285,000 hectares
  - New York Times, 07 October 2019

• Nir Eyal, who taught Silicon Valley on how to addict consumers to their apps and cellphones, now is teaching consumers how to break free but is still blaming concusmers for their addiction - the classic drug traffickers defense
  - New York Times, 07 October 2019

• Researchers find that electronic cigarettes can cause lung cancer in mice, the first study tying vaping to cancer
  - CNBC, 07 October 2019

• Kushy Punch, a vape maker based in California, is caught making illegal products using a petro-solvent extraction process to obtain THC, which can have the effect of concentrating pesticides
  - Leafly, 04 October 2019

• A lawsuit filed in Canada argues that videogames are similar to cocaine in that they are designed to addict children by increasing levels of dopamine generated in the brain while playing the games.
  - CBC News, 04 October 2019

• Coca crops surge amid security vacuum on Peru-Bolivia border, with some 600 hectares of coca being grown at the Bahuaja Sonene National Park in southeastern Peru.
  - Insight Crime, 03 October 2019

• Guatemala has destroyed nearly 1.5 million coca plants
  - Reuters, 03 October 2019

• How Evo Morales in Bolivia away from traditional uses of the coca leaf, towards the greater production of coca paste and cocaine - the coca dictatorship of the Chapare, expansion of coca into Tipnis, and even cocaine production into the Yungas
  - Pagina Siete, 02 October 2019

• The Ministry of Health of Colombia considers that for those who vape, electronic cigarettes and Nicotine Administration Systems (Sean) are harmful, "do not stop smoking traditional tobacco", "it is not true that they are safer" and may "cause addiction and increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases"
  - El Tiempo, 01 October 2019

• The Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Justice reports that the Drug Enforcement Agency authorized large increases in the production of opioid painkillers even as drug-related deaths soared - the agency increased production quotas for oxycodone production by about 400 percent from 2002 to 2013, despite evidence that opioids were being overprescribed and misused.
  - New York Times, 01 October 2019

• Three pharmacy chains - Walgreens, Rite Aid and CVS - are pulling the heartburn medication, Zantac, from their stores' shelves after the Food and Drug Administration warned that it had detected low levels of a cancer-causing chemical in samples of the drug.
  - New York Times, 30 September 2019

• Víctor Hugo Cárdenas, former vicepresident of Bolivia: "Coca and cannabis can be used for medical purposes"
  - El Diario, 29 September 2019

• There have been several clashes between the police and residents of Puerto Valdivia (north of Medellin, Colombia) concerning coca - while the Army ensures that the population is "instrumentalized" by those with arms, coca cultivators say they will not eradicate until the Government fulfills its word
  - El Espectador, 27 September 2019

• Nestle steps up testing after finding high levels of a dangerous weedkiller, glyphosate, in coffee beans
  - Zero Hedge, 27 September 2019

• Google's YouTube is experimenting with ways to make its algorithms even more addictive
  - Technology Review, 27 September 2019

• In Bolivia, the president of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca), Franclin Gutiérrez, through his lawyer, Eusebio Vera, filed a criminal lawsuit yesterday for the crime of breach of obligations against the three prosecutors are prosecuting him
  - El Diario, 27 September 2019

• The government of Colombia identified 32 obstacles for the industrialization of medicinal cannabis
  - La Republica, 26 September 2019

• How the Blel family is a political dynasty that controls Cartagena, with the family patriarch, Vicente Blel, being recorded explaining how to get rich through rigging elections
  - Colombia Reports, 26 September 2019

• The acting commissionar of the FDA says that the agency acted too slowly to avoid the vaping crisis.
  - Wall Street Journal, 25 September 2019

• VIDEO: Peru's coca farmers are encouraged to switch to growing cacao
  - EuroNews, 24 September 2019

• The military and police forces of Colombia should closely coordinate activities to combat the threat of Mexican cartels - they monopolize 100,000 hectares of coca crops in Colombia
  - Portafolio, 24 September 2019

• The Institute of Therapy and Research on the Aftermath of Torture and State Violence (ITEI) of Bolivia found evidence of disorders, depression and traumas in the two daughters of the president of Adepcoca, Franclin Gutierrez, following the poor application of precautionary measures against the leader of coca growers - one daughter no longer eats and has the same symptoms as her younger brother, who died in November 2018
  - Pagina Siete, 25 September 2019

• More than a year after the death of the two coca growers who lost their lives in La Asunta, Eliseo Choque and Carlos Vega, leaders and friends demand justice because the Public Ministry of Bolivia has not yet initiated investigations
  - El Diario, 24 September 2019

• Members of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) denounced on Monday that a woman was attacked by officials of the General Directorate of Marketing and Industrialization of the Coca Leaf (Digcoin), when she took coca from the legal market of Villa Fátima (La Paz, Bolivia).
  - Pagina Siete, 23 September 2019

• Nicotine drug trafficker, Juul Labs, is under criminal investigation by federal prosecutors amid investigations by the FTC and FDA
  - ZeroHedge, 23 September 2019

• The Colombian Government pledged on Thursday to expedite the procedures to grant licenses for the manufacture of cannabis-derived medicines with the aim of growing the industry and having more exports
  - El Pais, 20 September 2019

• INVIMA (National Institute for Food and Drug Surveillance - the FDA of Colombia) confirmed that before the end of September the roadmap for pharmaceutical laboratories will be published
  - Portafolio, 20 September 2019

• Purdue Pharma let its opioid rivals in the (legal?) trafficking opioid pills that were more addictive
  - Wall Street Journal, 20 September 2019

• Too many students in American high schools are addicted to nicotine, thanks to their widespread use of electronic cigarettes, and teachers and parents are very worried about the addiction
  - New York Times, 20 September 2019

• India plans to ban the nicotine-based electronic cigarettes as the global backlash intensifies (against this form of drug trafficking)
  - New York Times, 20 September 2919

• Guatemala joins ranks of cocaine producers as coca plantations and cocaine processing laboratories are discovered by security officials
  - Reuters, 19 September 2019

• Humberto de la Calle (former peace negotiator in Colombia) writes about the (negtive) influence of álvaro Uribe on the peace agreement - "Illicit Crops: the truth about the Colon Theater Agreement"
  - El Tiempo, 19 September 2019

• Revenues of US $99 million this year for medical cannabis in Colombia - among the results is that on average the industry generates about 16 formal jobs for each hectare planted with cannabis
  - El Tiempo, 19 September 2019

• Up to 40 mayors in small towns in France defy the French State and ban pesticides such as glyphosate being used by farmers
  - New York Times, 18 September 2019

• Cundinamarca (province for Bogotá) is the protagonist of medical cannabis in Colombia - the department has the most licenses for the development of this industry in the country
  - El Espectador, 18 September 2019

• New York state joins California in banning most flavors of nicotine drug delivery devices known as e-cigarettes, allowing only tobacco and menthol - due in part to 40% of 12th-grade students addicted to this form of nicotine
  - CNN, 18 September 2019

• This is PAZarela, the fashion line from former FARC combatants, made by the Tejiendo Paz cooperative
  - El Espectador, 18 September 2019

• Sales of cannabis in Latin America by 2023 will reach over $500 million
  - Portafolio, 17 September 2019

• People addicted to nicotine due to using e-cigarettes and vaping, and now turning to tobacco cigarettes for relief from their addiction - "Juul made my nicotine addiction worse"
  - NBC News, 15 September 2019

• Illicit crops in indigenous territories of Colombia: an alley with exit - there are cases that show that voluntary crop substitution is possible
  - El Tiempo, 14 September 2019

• Sacha inchi: a superfood of peace in Colombia - more than 1,500 families in Putumayo have chosen to work with this nut to replace coca
  - El Tiempo, 14 September 2019

• Coca eradication in Guaviare to combat deforestation - Colombian soldiers have eradicated 1,900 hectares of illicit crops in this area
  - El Tiempo, 14 September 2019

• After the recent protests of the communities in Valdivia (Antioquia, Colombia) for breaches in the program of eradication of coca crops by the government, the Public Force decided to temporarily suspend these activities
  - El Espectador, 13 September 2019

• There are about 400 productive projects benefitting the ex-Farc in Colombia - the projects range from coffee and handicraft producers, to extreme athletics
  - El Tiempo, 13 September 2019

• Pressured by the U.S., Colombian soldiers destroy coca plants while be careful not to be killed by landmines, while civilian workers earn $530/month to work with the soldiers - all funded by hundreds of millions of dollars from the U.S>
  - Reuters, 13 September 2019

• Peru to start uprooting coca plants in the Vraem, a top drug-trafficking region of the country, a 45-day operation starting November 1 will aim to destroy 750 hectares (1,853 acres) of coca plants
  - Reuters, 12 September 2019

• The goal of coca eradication in Colombia has been met by 70% - there are 56,239 hectares of narco-crops that have been uprooted during the year
  - El Tiempo, 11 September 2019

• European Union encourages the substitution of crops in Nariño (Colombia) - 200 families belonging to 7 community councils, which today are responsible for the cocoa production chain
  - Diario del Sur, 09 September 2019

• The U.S. FDA issue warning letter to Juul Labs, slamming the e-cigarette maker for claims that its highly addictive nicotine-delivery products were a safer alternative to smoking and ordered the company to stop making unproven claims for its products
  - Fox News, 09 September 2019

• The principal cause of violence in the Cauca province is the expansion of coca farming - since 2016, the year that the Peace Agreement was signed, in this region the amount of coca farming increased by 4,500 hectares
  - El Pais, 09 September 2019

• While more than seven thousand peasants from the Jamundí mountain range insist on opposing the forced eradication of coca crops by the Public Force, Mexican and Colombian drug traffickers continue to use that corridor to do their drug transactions
  - El Espectador, 09 September 2019

• Suárez (in the mountains west of Santander de Quilichao): the last "toll road" of drug trafficking towards the Pacific
  - El Espectador, 08 September 2019

• As teen vaping of highly-addictive nicotine, and federally-illegal THC, reaches epidemic proportions in the United States, experts fear future social costs
  - Salon, 08 September 2019

• Bajo Cauca has traditionally been a land of illicit crops such as coca - but despite the majority of the inhabitants of Tarazá and Cáceres being receptive to a voluntary crop substitution programs, the peasants denounce government failures that are pushing them back to be the first link in the drug trafficking chain
  - El Espectador, 06 September 2019

• The eternal return of coca crops to Bajo Cauca - despite the major reception of the inhabitants of Tarazá and Cáceres to the voluntary crop substitution programs, the peasants denounce that the failures of the Colombian Government are pushing them back to be the first link in the drug trafficking chain
  - El Espectador, 06 September 2019

• Peruvian products included in the FDA's 'red list' - the list includes Health Inca Tea, manufactured by the Enaco company for Inca Coca Tea Peruana, based in Lima - according to the FDA, this product contains cocaine, but the product label indicates that it contains only "decocainized coca leaves"
  - El Comercio, 06 September 2019

• John Hopkins University opens new center for medical research into psychedelic drugs and plants
  - New York Times, 04 September 2019

• Germany will ban the use of the controversial glyphosate herbicide from the end of 2023, the government decided on Wednesday - the first limitations on the use of the herbicide will be launched next year
  - Wall Street Journal, 04 September 2019

• Next for investors after marijuana are psychedlic drugs, with a few entrepreneurs and investors see opportunity for novel mental-health treatments using LSD and psychedelic mushrooms
  - Wall Street Journal, 03 September 2019

• Germany will ban the use of the controversial glyphosate herbicide from the end of 2023, the government decided on Wednesday - the first limitations on the use of the herbicide will be launched next year
  - El Espectador, 04 September 2019

• The Government has proposed to give the private sector a leading role in the country's development agenda. However, when reviewing the Peace with Legality policy, which aims to be the roadmap for the implementation of the Peace Agreement, the role assigned to the business sector is rather secondary; which is worrying, if Iván Márquez's recent statements are taken into account about the lack of progress, because today, more than ever, this policy deserves to be a robust and far-reaching joint responsibility project
  - La Silla Vacia, 31 August 2019

• Prof. Luis Fernando Trejos: "The Márquez's announcement is directed more towards Bogota than the regions of Colombia"
  - La Silla Vacia, 30 August 2019

• The commander of the Military Forces of Colombia, General Luis Fernando Navarro, told EL TIEMPO that the return to war announced this Thursday by former FARC negotiator Iván Márquez is classified as a 'residual organized armed group', so it will be faced with all the power of the state, including shelling by the military
  - El Tiempo, 30 August 2019

• With the announcement of Iván Márquez to create a new guerrilla group, arguing that the Colombian government did not comply with the Peace Agreement, it comes to light how the now political party of the FARC, which has ten seats in the Congress of the Republic, started - Rodrigo Londoño and Iván Márquez are protagonists, but not the only ones
  - El Espectador, 30 August 2019

• A brief introduction to the 14 new commanders of the reconstituted FARC guerilla group in Colombia
  - Colombia Reports, 30 August 2019

• Missing FARC leaders rearm, announce ‘new phase’ in Colombia’s armed conflict
  - Colombia Reports, 29 August 2019

• While the Colombian Ministry of Justice is about to take the key step to re-fumigate with glyphosate, the crop substitution policy, the carrot for the coca growers to voluntarily end coca farming, advances slowly, has funding problems and the unions and entrepreneurs will gain prominence, typical of Duque's vision of recharging the private sector
  - La Silla Vacia, 29 August 2019

• The video of Iván Márquez, Jesús Santrich, ‘El Paisa’ and Romaña with rifles on their shoulders not only confirms the rumor that we have reported that the Farc would reform its forces - it is also a lunge at the Peace Agreement, with the guerrilla chief negotiator announcing his return to arms, and it is bad news for Colombia because until now they had said they were not going to rearm
  - La Silla Vacia, 29 August 2019

• Colombia's former FARC guerilla leader, Luciano Marin alias Ivan Marquez, calls for a return to war because of what he called the government's violations of the peace agreement, a complaint shared by many former FARC members
  - New York Times, 29 August 2019

• Collective land ownership (Law 70 of 1993), under which 60% of Colombia's Pacific coastland is communally owned, is keeping the country's Pacific peoples poor most of whom are Afro-Caribbean (coca is grown in many places in their region of the country).
  - Economist, 29 August 2019

• Dissidents of demobilized guerrilla group FARC and drug trafficking group La Constru appear to have gone to war in southern Colombia after years of cooperation - according to the United Nations, some 1,600 people from rural communities near Puerto Asis (Putumayo province) have been unable to move around freely - the military, which is stationed in Puerto Asis, appears to stay out of the conflict - OCHA called on the security forces to protect the civilian population, and in particular the farmers who are taking part in a program that allowed them to replace coca for legal crops
  - Colombia Reports, 27 August 2019

• Between 9,222 and 17,422 tons of coca leaf are sold outside the legal markets of Bolivia, according to the Government, which means that between 28 and 42 percent of the leaf passes to the illegal markets, which caught the attention even of President Evo Morales, who regretted this fact
  - El Deber, 23 August 2019

• President Evo Morales of Bolivia acknowledges that the cocaine market regulates the price of coca - the president said that a part of the coca leaf harvest of the Tropic of Cochabamba and the Yungas of La Paz is diverted to the illegal market for other purposes
  - Pagina Siee, 23 August 2019

• After 2 years, Bolivia reduces coca crops by 6% - the cultivated area was reduced by 1,400 hectares (Ha), from 24,500 Ha in 2017 to 23,100 Ha in 2018
  - Los Tiempos, 23 August 2019

• For the coca crops in the Caribbean region of Colombia - unlike what happened elsewhere in the country, in the Caribbean region the crop harvests did not decrease
  - La Silla Vacia, 22 August 2019

• Bolivia reduced coca crops by 6% and calls for equal effort from cocaine consuming countries
  - La Razon, 22 August 2019

• In Tumaco, where cocoa has been cultivated for a long time, of very good quality, the illicit coca crops are being replaced by cocoa crops associated with aromatic herbs
  - El Pais, 20 August 2019

• The construction of a new deep-water port in Ecuador, near Guayaquil, which will be able to handle post-Panamax ships, will take business away from the Colombian Pacific port of Buenaventura
  - El Espectador, 17 August 2019

• While President Ivan Duque's former speechwriter is set to run the economic magazine of Colombia's largest newspaper, El Tiempo, the newspaper’s former politics editor is joining the presidential propaganda team
  - Colombia Reports, 16 August 2019

• The FDA's new graphical warning labels for cigarette packages are very distrubing - as they should be
  - New York Times, 16 August 2019

• The representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Thierry Rostan, said that his entity will not validate a third market parallel to that of Villa Fatima, since the law only recognizes two, that of Sacaba, Cochabamba and Adepcoca, La Paz, conditioned that if the central government of Bolivia recognizes the third market, it could proceed in the same way
  - El Diario, 15 August 2019

• The representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Thierry Rostan, said that his entity will not validate a third market parallel to that of Villa Fatima, since the law only recognizes two, that of Sacaba, Cochabamba and Adepcoca, La Paz, conditioned that if the central government of Bolivia recognizes the third market, it could proceed in the same way
  - Los Tiempos, 15 August 2019

• The Gaviria family from Medellin: prolific land thieves - with or having had aliances with paramilitaries, and with Alvaro Uribe (the most powerful politician in Antioquia) - now after Colombia's 2nd largest economy - that of Antioquia province
  - Colombia Reports, 15 August 2019

• Nicotine drug traffickers are flooding retail stores with sweet, teen-friendly nicotine pods to addict as many children as possible (unlike the coca alkaloid, nicotine is extremely addictive)
  - New York Times, 13 August 2019

• Many companies are advertising CBD as a cure-all for everything, but many health claims are unproven, many contain THC, and many contain synthetic addictive drugs
  - New York Times, 13 August 2019

• Emerging evidence that armed conflict and coca cultivation influence deforestation patterns - a study in Colombia
  - Biological Conservation, 12 August 2019

• The Colombian government promised to invest in rural areas as part of the country's peace process - but the elite-friendly projects it's pushing (such as the scandal-ridden Hidroituango dam) are undermining the livelihoods of local residents, and threatening the peace process itself - for example, more than two years after pulling out their coca plants, and more than a year since subsidy payments ended, only a small minority of families have received the second level of short-term projects, which were supposed to be generating profits within the first year, so sadly, the result across all of Briceño has been economic collapse
  - Jacobin, 12 August 2019

• Regional authorities took the decision on Monday to provisionally suspend the manual eradication of illegal coca crops in the upper area of Jamundí (Colombia) - a decision was made known by the Governor of Cauca, Dilian Francisca Toro, and the commander of the Metropolitan Police of Cali, General Hugo Casas
  - El Pais, 12 August 2019

• The presidential adviser for Stabilization and Consolidation, Emilio Archila, highlighted the results of the Government of Iván Duque on progress with the Peace Agreement - but Pastor Alape, ex-guerrilla delegate to the National Reincorporation Council, made several caveats to what was said by the official
  - El Espectador, 12 August 2019

• The takeover by Big Pharma of the medical cannabis industry, with patents as weapons
  - Visual Capitalist, 12 August 2019

• The plan to end the growing of coca in eight provinces of Colombia - the UN argues that in one year this goal can be achieved in 8 regions that have less than 100 hectares of coca farming
  - El Tiempo, 12 August 2019

• Lieutenant Colonel Cesar Augusto Martinez, chief of the Colombian Army's anti-kidnapping unit, and nephew of controversial Army chief Nicasio Martinez, is implicated in crimes of ... kidnapping
  - Colombia Reports, 12 August 2019

• Armed men open fire on indigenous community in southwest Colombia after assassinating two guards - the escalation of violence comes a week after a group calling themselves the Sinaloa Cartel vowed to kill anyone associated with local indigenous authorities - the local indigenous historically used coca leaf to chew on or for tea, but are fiercely opposed to drug trafficking or outsiders invading their territory
  - Colombia Reports, 10 August 2019

• Mexican drug traffickers that are terrorizing the south of Colombia - they negotiate for coca with 'all-inclusive' plans offered by criminal gangs in Cauca, Valle and Nariño - Mexican capos want top quality goose planted in at least 60,000 narco-hectares
  - El Tiempo, 10 August 2019

• President Trump urged Colombia’s government to resume the aerial fumigation of coca on Thursday as he certified the country as cooperative with Washington’s counternarcotics efforts
  - Colombia Reports, 09 August 2019

• President Trump urged Colombia’s government to resume the aerial fumigation of coca on Thursday as he certified the country as cooperative with Washington’s counternarcotics efforts
  - El Pais, 09 August 2019

• President Trump urged Colombia’s government to resume the aerial fumigation of coca on Thursday as he certified the country as cooperative with Washington’s counternarcotics efforts
  - El Tiempo, 09 August 2019

• The misguided effort of Colombian president Duque to restart aerial spraying of coca in Colombia with the cancer-causing glyphosate herbicide.
  - World Political Review, 08 August 2019

• Five Valle del Cauca journalists who have covered the problem of illicit coca and marijuana crops in the Colombian province have received death threats from groups outside the law, threats denounced by press freedom organizations on Tuesday
  - El Pais, 06 August 2019

• Luis Carlos Sarmiento, Colombia's richest man and a backer of Uribe and Duque, loses a $60 million tax lawsuit with the government over a debt that never existed
  - Colombia Reports, 06 August 2019

• Three major opioid drug traffickers - McKesson, Cardnial Health, Amerisource Bergen - have offered to pay $10 billion to settle all claims that the helped fuel the ongoing US opioid epidemic, while the ational Association of Attorneys General countered with a demand for $45 billion paid over decades to cover the costs of the public health crisis brought on by opioid abuse, addiction and overdoses
  - Zero Hedge, 06 August 2019

• The two groups of coca growers fighting for control of the Departmental Association of Coca Leaf Producers (Adepcoca) in La Paz completed on Monday their fifth day of vigils in the middle of a police alert, which has decided to keep the area under observation until the tension goes down.
  - La Razon, 05 August 2019

• UN warns that coca plantations in the Llanos region of Colombia give five crops a year - report explains why although crops fell in 2018, sowing productivity increased
  - El Tiempo, 05 August 2019

• Six reasons why the growth of coca crops in Colombia has slowed
  - La Silla Vacia, 05 August 2019

• The inhabitants of the rural area of Jamundí (Colombia) are frightened by clashes between the Army and armed groups that seek to control illicit coca crops in the region
  - El Pais, 05 August 2019

• Although during 2018 coca crops were reduced by 2,000 hectares in Colombia, reaching 169,000 hectares across the country, breaking the growth trend they had been several years ago, the value of the kilo of cocaine hydrochloride rose, and was paid in the country at 4,970,600 pesos, an increase of 11.7% compared to the price of 2018, of 4,449,500 pesos (about US $1400)
  - El Tiempo, 05 August 2019

• Hectares of coca crops fall, but potential for coca production in Colombia rises - UN report highlights that last year there was a reduction of 2000 hectares of coca leaf plantings
  - El Tiempo, 05 August 2019

• An elder of a native Colombian people in southwest Colombia (Toribio, between Cali and Popayan) was assassinated on Sunday, days after the appearance of a pamphlet signed by Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel threatening indigenous authorities - the area has seen an increase in concentrated coca cultivation by drug traffickers
  - Colombia Reports, 05 August 2019

• Colombia journalist Vicky Davila is married to Jose Emiro Gnecco, a physician whose family, the Gneccos, are allegedly a crime family that run the non-coastal Caribbean province of Cesar bordering Venezuela, with links to drug trafficking and paramilitary groups
  - Colombia Reports, 04 August 2019

• According to the Cauca Regional Indigenous Council (CRIC), two different death threats from a group claiming to be the "New Generation Sinaloa Cartel" have been circulating in the northern Cauca region since Thursday - filling a power vacuum created by the demobilization of FARC - where the indigenous people have long used coca leaf to chew on or for tea but fiercely oppose drug trafficking
  - Colombia Reports, 04 August 2019

• The leadership of the Coca Growers Association (Adepcoca), evaluates a possible meeting with the National Committee for the Defense of Democracy (Conade) in Bolivia to assess the situation in this sector and possible defense actions, said leader Alex Quisbert yesterday
  - El Diario, 03 August 2019

• Yungas coca producers affiliated with the MAS (the government ruling party) took the premises of the Coca Growers Association (Adepcoca) hospital where they installed a new market for the commercialization of the leaf - the governor of La Paz, Felix Patzi, announced that he will sue criminally those responsible for this event, being that this center was executed with a portion of money from the Government
  - El Diario, 03 August 2019

• This Friday the Yungas coca growers who defend the leaders of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) - Franclin Gutiérrez and Sergio Pampa, celebrate their second day of vigil at the doors of that organization, where there is one of the only two markets for the commercialization of coca leaf authorized by law - the other front, which on Wednesday elected Elena Flores as leader of the sector, is entrenched in dependencies of the Center of Specialties of Integral Care of Adepcoca, which has now become a center of gathering
  - La Razon, 02 August 2019

• The taking of the Adepcoca Integral Care Specialties Center, located in the Villa El Carmen neighborhood, to turn it into a coca market parallel to that of Villa Fátima, was questioned by the governor of La Paz, Felix Patzi, who warned with a process criminal against those who are part of this action
  - La Razon, 02 August 2019

• The Departmental Association of Coca Producers of La Paz (Adepcoca) that manages the legal sale of the product in this province, last night was entrenched in its headquarters located in Villa Fatima, before the attempt of coca growers of the Movement To Socialism (MAS) to take that headquarters - the leader of Adepcoca Alex Quisbert assured that the president of the sector Franclin Gutiérrez and Sergio Pampa (second man of the Association) are "political prisoners" and that the Government wants to seize "by force" of the entity - also accused the Minister of Rural Development and Land, César Cocarico, of organizing a parallel leadership "functional to the interests of the MAS" (the ruling party of Bolivia).
  - El Diario, 02 August 2019

• The struggle for the leadership of the coca-producing region in the Yungas affiliated with the Coca Growers Association (Adepcoca), generated strong clashes between its affiliates and police officers when a faction group related to the ruling party (MAS) tried to intervene the premises of the market of Villa Fátima - by about 6.40 pm yesterday a group of coca growers members of the parallel leadership formed in an assembly held last Wednesday, in the midst of a strong police displacement tried to forcefully take the premises of the legal market
  - El Diario, 02 August 2019

• The group of coca growers related to the Government, grouped around the National Confederation of Producers with Folder to Detail (Conalprodc), formed a directory, at the head of Elena Flores, and unable to settle in the offices of Adepcoca, decided to take the Adepcoca Comprehensive Care Specialties Center, a second level hospital where they installed the new illegal coca market - the health center is located on 10th Street of Villa El Carmen
  - Pagina Siete, 02 August 2019

• The group of coca growers related to the Government, grouped around the National Confederation of Producers with Folder to Detail (Conalprodc), formed a directory, at the head of Elena Flores, and unable to settle in the offices of Adepcoca, decided to take the Adepcoca Comprehensive Care Specialties Center, a second level hospital where they installed the new illegal coca market - the health center is located on 10th Street of Villa El Carmen
  - El Deber, 02 August 2019

• Tension persists in Villa Fátima, a La Paz neighborhood, home of the legal coca market of the Yungas and has been the cause of clashes between two blocks after the election of Elena Flores as the new president of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers of La Paz (Adepcoca) - her detractors installed a vigil with bonfires - the controversial election was rejected by the sector that supports the arrested leader Franclin Gutiérrez who denounced interference from people affiliated with the Government to take control of the legal market of coca leaf that is located in Villa Fatima
  - La Razon, 02 August 2019

• Colombia will buy glyphosate from China to fumigate coca plants
  - Dialogo Chino, 01 August 2019

• The parallel leadership (affiliated with the government) of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca), which maintains the seizure and monitoring of the health center of that organization, announced on Thursday a march to demand the ownership of the headquarters of the coca growers
  - Pagina Siete, 01 August 2019

• The long-time Yungas coca producers affiliated with Adepcoca are rejecting the directive conformed by the MAS (affiliated with the government) and ratify the re-election of Franclin Gutiérrez as their maximum representative for an indefinite period; the lawyer of his defense, Ever Vera, said that the only body with legitimacy to call elections is its president in office, Gutiérrez
  - El Diario, 01 August 2019

• In a massive concentration, the Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) of the Yungas organic rejected the election of the board related to the Government, held yesterday, and declared itself in permanent vigil. However, the Ministry of Rural Development supported Irene Elena Flores as the new executive of the organization - Adepcoca is determined to ratify Franclin Gutiérrez and Sergio Pampa, currently detained, as its leadership
  - Los Tiempos, 01 August 2019

• Cocaleros of the Yungas related to the leadership of the jailed leader Franclin Gutiérrez mobilized today in the city of La Paz to denounce the desire to fracture this sector with the holding of parallel elections for the Coca Growers Association (Adepcoca), a process that is being promoted by a group close to the Government
  - La Razon, 31 July 2019

• Colombia's national ombudsman, Carlos Negret, couldn’t possibly be more grim when he, governors and community leaders tried to describe the consequences of the chronic government abandonment in the Choco, Valle del Cauca, Cauca and Nariño provinces - allowing 17 illegal armed groups to form
  - Colombia Reports, 31 July 2019

• The Minister of Rural Development and Land in Bolivia, César Cocarico, justified the authorization of the former Said factory to sell coca, although this is illegal - he said he is waiting for a quickly-passed bill that coca growers affiliated with the MAS ruling party will present so that its parallel market has the backing of the Government
  - Pagina Siete, 31 July 2019

• Peru's crackdown on coca pushes illegal growers toward protected areas in southeastern Peru
  - Monga Bay, 30 July 2019

• Camilo Romero, the governor of Nariño (a province of Colombia) who declares himself in rebellion against Duque's crazy plan to bathe the coca fields in glyphosate, with a serious risk to the health of man and the environment
  - El Espectador, 30 July 2019

• Vanilla, one of the most popular spices, which sold in 2015 for about $100 per kilogram, rose to $600 last year, surpassing silver and going through a period of maximum prices, qualified by experts as "crisis". Vanilla production is quite scarce and is essentially concentrated in only one country, Madagascar, which is responsible for about 80% of the world market
  - El Diario, 29 July 2019

• Coca growers in Bolivia affiliated with the MAS (the government ruling part) will make the former Said market its illegal market - through a quick law, the leaders parallel to those of Adepcoca seek the endorsement of the Ministry of Rural Development and Lands in order to authorize the new space under a ministerial resolution
  - Pagina Siete, 27 July 2019

• Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere of the United States, Kevin Michael O'Reilly, stressed yesterday in La Paz the virtues of the democratic system and expressed the desire of his government to reduce the production of illegal coca in Bolivia
  - Pagina Siete, 27 July 2019

• Luis Eladio Pérez, the Nariñense politician, who remained kidnapped in the ágle for seven years, explained his reasons for accepting the political support of those who held him illegally so he can be elected the next governor of Nariño
  - El Espectador, 26 July 2019

• Protesters expelled Colombia’s President Ivan Duque from one of many marches that were organized throughout the world on Friday to protest the ongoing mass killing of human rights defenders and community leaders - Duque has refused to endorse the mass marches of Defendamos La Paz and has neglected to implement a 2016 peace deal, in particular an element that would protect social leaders
  - Colombia Reports, 26 July 2019

• The Sugarcane Research Center of Colombia, Cenicaña, warned sugarcane growers that the plague called Aeneolamia Varia, commonly known as 'salivazo', has been spreading in the region and it is urgent to implement prevention measures and control to avoid economic losses
  - El Pais, 26 July 2019

• The government of Colombia is not complying with any of the five court-imposed conditions to resume fumigation of coca plantations with glyphosate
  - Colombia Report, 26 July 2019

• The second in command of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) of the Yungas, Sergio Pampa, was apprehended at noon yesterday by police in the vicinity of Riosinio Square, said his lawyer Omar Durán - the leader is accused of leading acts of violence, destruction to buildings and vehicles of La Calzada in events that occurred on February 14
  - El Diario, 25 July 2019

• Uncertainty surrounds the protection plan in Colombia for leaders of efforts to help farmers substitute other food plants for their current coca crops
  - InSight Crime, 24 July 2019

• Police are investigating the death of a leader of coca farmers, Miguel Espeo Vargas, who was found hanging from a tree in the Yungas (Bolivia)
  - La Razon, 23 July 2019

• Coca growers will protest delays in the plan to replace coca crops in Valle del Cauca, Colombia - through the National Coordinator of Coca Growers, Marijuana and Amapola (Coccam) the growers also rejected the eventual return of fumigation with glyphosate
  - El Pais, 23 July 2019

• These are the five conflicts that exist in the Colombian territory, according to the ICRC - Nariño/Cauca/Choco (Eln), Antioqua (Clan Golfo), Catatumbo (Eln/Epl), Putamayo/Guaviare/Meta (Farc dissidents)
  - El Elspectador, 23 July 2019

• For a protest against the use of glyphosate prepared by communities in rural areas in Jamundí (Colombia) on Tuesday, July 23, the City Hall of that municipality decreed a temporary dry law, and prohibition of motorcycle grills, among other restrictions
  - El Pais, 22 July 2019

• Even in the current sea of prohibitionism, substitution experiences that provide new and better opportunities to agricultural producers of coca, poppy or marijuana, become refreshing news. The case of Caldas (Colombia) is one of them. What allowed the communities to overcome their dependence on the income they got from coca?
  - El Espectador, 21 July 2019

• The 'thorns' in the way of the renewed use of glyphosate in Colombia after the decision of the Constitutional Court
  - El Pais, 21 July 2019

• The decisions of the Constitutional Court of Colombia only mask a political decision: that of not attacking illicit crops, protecting Santos' policy, and pleasing the FARC - this Court has a very clear Santista and pro-Pact majority with the FARC, and has given unequivocal signs of politicization
  - El Pais, 21 July 2019

• At the end of this year, Colombia could be carrying out its first commercial export of medical marijuana, after two years of having approved the regulation for the cultivation of this product - in 2016 Law 1787 was passed on access to medical and scientific use of cannabis and its derivatives, but was only regulated in April 2017 with decree 613
  - El Tiempo, 21 July 2019

• Franclin Gutiérrez, the political prisoner of the Evo Morales regime - there is no evidence against Gutiérrez - he is in jail for having opposed the legalization of the coca farms of the Chapare (most of which goes to cocaine production)
  - Pagina Siete, 21 July 2019

• The Regional Indigenous Counsel of Cauca (CRIC in Spanish) denounced on Friday that some of its leaders have received death threat from members of the Sinaloa drug cartel, which has alliances with FARC dissidents and ELN guerillas
  - El Espectador, 20 July 2019

• Colombia's Constitutional Court rejected President Ivan Duque's request to loosen the conditions to resume the aerial spraying of coca with glyphosate, but left a tiny loophole - to complicate matters, the Constitutional Court added to the existing five conditions that Duque must comply with the counternarcotics strategy agreed in a 2016 peace deal with FARC rebels he has all but abandoned - the loophole left by the court allows the National Narcotics Council (CNE) "in good faith" to oversee if the government complies with the court’s 2017 conditions and the peace deal, though the Ombudsman's Office and the Inspector General's Office, who oppose aerial fumigation, were also appointed to oversee government compliance with the law
  - Colombia Reports, 18 July 2019

• Government of Colombia insists on restarting aerial fumigation of coca despite court ruling - Justice Minister Margarita Cabello told press that she believes the government meets the conditions imposed by the court in 2017 that would allow the National Narcotics Council (CNE) to approve and oversee the lawful resumption of glyphosate spraying, though how Cabello plans to comply with the conditions imposed by the court is a mystery; the government never revealed a protocol proposal if there even exists one and has virtually halted the implementation of the crop substitution that is elementary in the peace deal’s counternarcotics chapter.
  - Colombia Reports, 18 July 2019

• The Constitutional Court of Colombia (eight votes in favor) maintained the six conditions that it imposed in 2017 before the National Council of Narcotic Drugs can resume the use of glyphosate in the country, an organization that must monitor compliance "in good faith"
  - El Espectador, 18 July 2019

• The Constitutional Court of Colombia (eight votes in favor) maintained the six conditions that it imposed in 2017 before the National Council of Narcotic Drugs can resume the use of glyphosate in the country, an organization that must monitor compliance "in good faith"
  - La Silla Vacia, 18 July 2019

• Three points to understanding the Court's ruling on glyphosate - the ruling by the Constitutional Court on glyphosate made several clarifications about the requirements that had been established to re-fumigate with the herbicide
  - El Tiempo, 18 July 2019

• Why does the ruling of the Constitutional Court of Colombia pave the way to return to glyphosate? - in its ruling, the Court clarifies that it that the Government doesn't have to demonstrated an absolute absence of risks and damages due to use of the herbicide
  - El Tiempo, 18 July 2019

• How the booming farming of coca and trafficking of cocaine is threatening democracy in Colombia
  - Colombia Reports, 18 July 2019

• Farmers with small palm tree plantations in Tumaco: caught between coca and their debt with the national Agricultural Bank
  - El Tiempo, 18 July 2019

• The Constitutional Court of Colombia remains 'split', and failed to decide on the government's request to loosen its ban on the aerial spraying of the cancer-causing glyphosate in coca-growing regions
  - Colombia Reports, 18 July 2019

• The Cauca province of Colombia is where they kill more social activists and ex-guerillas - the drug trafficking, illegal mining and disputes between armed groups for control of this region puts at risk the defenders of human rights
  - El Espectador, 18 July 2019

• Sugary-sodas are still killing more Americans each year than any one illegal drug
  - New York Times, 17 July 2019

• The International Regional Organization for Agricultural Health warned of the presence of the fungus Fusarium oxysporum - the spread of this pest would cause innumerable economic losses in the regional banana industry - member states such as Mexico, Central America and the Dominican Republic should increase controls to prevent the spread, and the Organization warns that in Colombia the presence of the plague is suspected
  - El Diario, 16 July 2019

• The provincial prosecutor of La Paz (Bolivia), William Alave, admitted yesterday that there is no "conclusive" evidence in the investigative stage of the case against the coca grower leader Franclin Gutiérrez, who is accused of being the intellectual author of the death of the lieutenant of the Daynor Sandoval Police, which occurred in August 2018
  - Pagina Siete, 16 July 2019

• The silenced life of women coca growers. They are not drug dealers. They are peasants, poor and victims of great violence, who are struggling to survive in Colombia.
  - El Pais, 14 July 2019

• They ask for a plan to substitute coca crops in Jamundí, Colombia - the approximately 1,500 families living in the upper area of Jamundí, where armed groups wage a war for the control of illicit crops and drug trafficking routes
  - El Pais, 14 July 2019

• Colombia's last-standing rebel group, the ELN, has embarked on an ambitious expansion plan across the northern coca and cocaine region of Colombia, from the Pacific coast through Antioquia to the Venezuelan border
  - Colombia Reports, 14 July 2019

• The substitution laws confirm the failure of post-conflict policies in southern Córdoba - in addition to the war that is being experienced in the south of the department, the program of crop substitution, whose objective was to transform the areas most affected by the conflict, has delays and peasants losing faith
  - La Silla Vacia, 14 July 2019

• The leader of Adepcoca in Bolivia, Sergio Pampa, is wanted throughout the Yungas region with an arrest warrant, issued by the prosecutor of the matter, to give his informative statement in the case of the death of the leader of Cofecay, Eduardo Apaza, as reported yesterday by the national director of the Felcc, Colonel William Cordero
  - El Diario, 13 July 2019

• The leader of Adepcoca in Bolivia, Sergio Pampa, is wanted throughout the Yungas region with an arrest warrant, issued by the prosecutor of the matter, to give his informative statement in the case of the death of the leader of Cofecay, Eduardo Apaza, as reported yesterday by the national director of the Felcc, Colonel William Cordero
  - Pagina Siete, 13 July 2019

• Editorial: Any independent observer already knew what has been confirmed by an audio broadcast by this newspaper: that the ex-leader of the coca growers of Yungas (Bolivia), Franclin Gutiérrez, is innocent and is being detained as a way of punishment for his anti-government positions
  - Pagina Siete, 13 July 2019

• Resurgence of coca in Putumayo reflects Colombia's failed strategy
  - Insight Crime, 12 July 2019

• Colombia's plans to resume aerial fumigation of coca just got less likely, after a key court magistrate advised against it
  - Colombia Reports, 11 July 2019

• Squadrons of forced eradication are halfway through their goal in Colombia - in priority areas about 40,000 hectares planted with coca have been eliminated - they do not guarantee that "in the next measurement there will not be another 80,000 hectares more, because one thing is to remove the bushes and another process is to avoid a reseeding or a relocation of those crops"
  - El Tiempo, 10 July 2019

• Illicit coca crops and illegal mining, behind threats to elections in Colombia - the multiplication of coca and the illegal extraction of minerals multiplies by four the capacity of the mafias to buy elections and intimidate citizens
  - El Tiempo, 10 July 2019

• World's coffee growers seek to set minimum price to help poor farmers - growers from Brazil, Colombia and more than two dozen other countries will meet in Brazil to talk about how to get more money to farmers suffering from the lowest prices on world markets in more than a decade
  - Wall Street Journal, 10 July 2019

• Coca, the illicit plan that funded Colombia's civil war, is flourishing again - Preident Duque's plan to destroy it is drawing opposition
  - Washington Post, 09 July 2019

• Since noon on Tuesday, a group of affiliates of the Departmental Association of Producers of Coca (Adepcoca) in Bolivia arrived in protest march to the coca collection center, located in the neighborhood of Chuquiaguillo, in La Paz, to initiate a encirclement of that market and prevent it from continuing to operate since it would be illegal - in numeral II, article 24, of the General Law of Coca, recognizes that the markets authorized to commercialize the coca leaf are in the department of La Paz ADEPCOCA and in Cochabamba, at the Sacaba market
  - La Razon, 09 July 2019

• The president of the Permanent Assembly of Human Rights of Bolivia (Apdhb), Amparo Carvajal, assured that there will be no peace in the Yungas while their maximum leader for the coca growers, Franclin Gutiérrez, does not return to occupy the position that belongs to him
  - Pagina Siete, 09 July 2019

• Franclin will be prosecuted by prosecutors; the government will demand 30 years in jail for the coca grower - Adepcoca leader's defense will denounce the investigators, after they revealed the audio in which ex-prosecutor Mariaca assures that there is no evidence to accuse Gutiérrez of the death of a policeman
  - Pagina Siete, 09 July 2019

• Based on the "material evidence", the Ministry of Government defended the process activated in the Prosecutor's Office against the president of the Departmental Association of Coca Leaf Producers of Yungas of La Paz (Adepcoca), Franclin Gutiérrez, for the case of the ambush in which Lieutenant Daynor Sandoval lost his life, on August 25, 2018 in La Asunta, La Paz, in the middle of the eradication of illegal coca
  - La Razon, 08 July 2019

• Government of Colombia insists that it is complying with the substitution of coca crops - Emilio Archila, high councilor for Stabilization, reiterated that the Duque government is committed to make effective the substitution of illicit crops such as coca
  - El Espectador, 08 July 2019

• Cocaleros in Bolivia plan to close all accesses to the Yungas - producers report constant abuses by police officers who arrived in the region
  - El Diario, 08 July 2019

• Gentil Duarte went from being in the FARC, a guerrilla who imposed environmental manuals with ceilings and fines for the cutting of trees in many territories, to being the leader of the largest dissident group in the country, which leaves deforestation in a region that in 2017 was the biggest focus of logging, and surely he will keep that sad crown in the figures of 2018 that the Ideam will publish in the coming days
  - La Silla Vacia, 08 July 2019

• In an audio, ex-prosecutor Carlos Mariaca revealed that there is no evidence to formally accuse the leader of the Departmental Association of Producers of Coca (Adepcoca), Franclin Gutiérrez, imprisoned since August 28, 2018, with a view to the oral trial - the former official was removed from the investigation in February of this year in a surprising way
  - Pagina Siete, 08 July 2019

• Cultivating sacha inchi, FARC ex-combatants remain living in Arauca, Colombia
  - El Espectador, 08 July 2019

• Mexican opium prices plummet 90 percent over the past two years (due to rising fentanyl supplies, and heroin production elsewhere), driving poppy farmers to migrate
  - New York Times, 08 July 2019

• Guido Echeverri, governor of Caldas (Colombia) - "It is possible to eradicate coca crops without spraying glyphosate".
  - El Espectador, 07 July 2019

• The transmission of Arenavirus, which causes hemorrhagic fever, is not due to the consumption of coca or fruits from the Yungas of Bolivia
  - El Deber, 07 July 2019

• [Photos]: One of the main consequences of cocaine production is the destruction of biodiversity - thousands of hectares are burned by the coca farmers, affecting the fauna and flora of the region of Guaviare, Colombia
  - El Espectador, 07 July 2019

• Colombia’s intelligence agency accused of plotting political warfare against peace advocates
  - Colombia Reports, 07 July 2019

• Cannabis oil can reduce seizures in children experiencing severe and drug-resistant epilepsy, University of Saskatchewan study suggests
  - CBC, 06 July 2019

• Coca leaf and cocaine production in Colombia is at historic highs, risking a new confrontation between soldiers and coca leaf farmers
  - Economist, 06 July 2019

• La Constru’s focus on alliances means that it’s likely to remain a major player in Putumayo (Colombia), where the group controls coca crops, processing labs and drug trafficking routes into Ecuador
  - InSight Crime, 05 July 2019

• Inconsistencies in official figures of Colombia on eradication of illicit crops? Data from the Ministry of Defense indicate that crops are eradicated at a much slower pace than President Ivan Duque has publicly maintained.
  - El Espectador, 05 July 2019

• Colombia's challenges in the legal cannabis trade - while 46 countries have already legalized production and sale, domestic industry expects more regulation
  - El Tiempo, 05 July 2019

• Cocaleros block the route to South Yungas (Bolivia) - according to a police report, the blockade of the affiliates of the Departmental Association of Producers of Coca (Adepcoca) was reactivated at the height of the Yerbani sector, on the way to South Yungas
  - La Razon, 05 July 2019

• At least 50,000 coca growers in the tropic of Cochabamba will contribute one pound of coca (at a cost of 15 and 18 bolivianos - about $2.50), each to finance the MAS campaign - the contribution is equivalent, according to a calculation, to more than half a million bolivianos (about $70,000)
  - Pagina Siete, 04 July 2019

• The governor of the Valle province, Dilian Francisca Toro, calls for celerity in the eradication of illicit crops in Jamundí (Colombia), where recent figures indicate that the land planted exceeds 1,400 hectares of coca
  - El Pais, 02 July 2019

• Austria votes to ban the use of glyphosate, the first country in Europe to do so, with other European countries proposing gradual phasing out of the use of glyphosate
  - Wall Street Journal, 03 July 2019

• The leaders of the coca growers of the Yungas of La Paz announced that they will be organized in the 16 regional groups that are affiliated with the Departmental Association of Producers of Coca (Adepcoca) to avoid irregularities and fraud in the general elections of 20 October in Bolivia - the leader also said that 95 percent of coca growers will not vote for the pro-government binomial of Evo Morales and álvaro García in the upcoming elections
  - El Diario, 02 July 2019

• The Government of Bolivia closed yesterday any possibility of dialogue with the current leaders of the Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca), while a judge sent to prison four cocaleros accused of illegal use of explosives in their protests<
  - El Diario, 02 July 2019

• The Government of Bolivia closed yesterday any possibility of dialogue with the current leaders of the Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca), while a judge sent to prison four cocaleros accused of illegal use of explosives in their protests
  - La Razon, 02 July 2019

• Policia send to prison the 4 cocaleros detained with dynamite; protest continues - although it was reported that the roads were clear, there are blockades in the El Dorado community. According to the police, an elderly person died due to a detonation.
  - El Deber, 01 July 2019

• Colombian government denounces planting of anti-personnel landmines to protect coca crops
  - Latin America Reports, 02 July 2019

• Six coca growers from the Departmental Association of Producers of Coca (Adepcoca) were detained for the use of explosives during the blockade of roads on the route to Los Yungas, according to the report of the Police Commander, Yuri Calderón
  - Los Tiempos, 01 July 2019

• Government of Bolivia rejects dialogue and says that there are 100 coca growers that generate violence - the organizations affiliated with Adepcoca, since last Wednesday, maintain a road blockade demanding the government dialogue to resolve a work agenda, likewise, they demand respect for their legally constituted institutions
  - Pagina Siete, 01 July 2019

• Adepcoca has been besieged by the MAS (the ruling party in Bolivia) since 2017
  - El Diario, 01 July 2019

• Colombian tobacco farmers are studying chaning their plantings to medicinal marijuana
  - El Tiempo, 30 June 2019

• Political fights for economic control for the four legal coca leaf markets in Bolivia, a multi-million dollar business based on 50-pound sacks of dried coca leaves
  - El Deber, 30 June 2019

• The vice president of the self-defense committee of the municipality of Coroico (where many coca growers live), Reymundo Pucho, denounced that troops arrived with dogs at the point of blockade on the Santa Bárbara bridge, on the Nor Yungas highway, to pursue them, but the police denied doing so and reported that the routes were cleared
  - Pagina Siete, 30 June 2019

• Again yesterday there was a violent day on the road to the Yungas of La Paz, when at least 1,000 police officers intervened against the blockade and cleared the road, and later detained four coca growers, who allegedly used dynamite to deal with the forces of state order
  - El Diario, 30 June 2019

• The president of Colombia, Iván Duque: "Aerial aspersion using glyphosate is a necessary tool" - for the reduction of the 200,000+ hectares of coca plants in the country
  - El Tiempo, 30 June 2019

• One of Colombia's most wanted drug lords was "protected by the military for month" (his brother-in-law is an Army colonel in charge of recruitment).
  - Colombia Reports, 30 June 2019

• The challenge to maintain reductions in the illegal cultivations of coca in Colombia
  - El Tiempo, 29 June 2019

• Opinion: drug trafficking has poisoned the governing party of Bolivia, the MAS
  - Pagina Siete, 29 June 2019

• In Bolivia, the coca growers of the Yungas maintain their measure of pressure on the road to the Yungas - increasing the number of blockades on the highway, and a new blockade was installed in the sector called Velo de la Novia
  - El Diario, 29 June 2019

• Police partially reopen vehicular traffic to the Yungas, and they denounce violence committed by the protesting coca growers of Bolivia
  - La Razon, 29 June 2019

• The apathy of the OAS, and the secretary of the OAS - Luis Almagro, concerning the murders of social community leaders in Colombia
  - El Espectador, 28 June 2019

• Two more social community leaders are assassinated in Colombia, including Manuel Gregorio Gonzalez - a promoter of a UN-supported program to substitutecoca for legal crops
  - Colombia Reports, 28 June 2019

• Labels on foods high in sugar did not happen in Congress, so should we insist? - In Colombia, the Congress of the Republic is transforming three laws aimed at "establishing public health measures aimed at the control of obesity and other noncommunicable diseases, seeking legislation to prevent these diseases, save millions of lives and improve the level of guarantee of the rights to health, to adequate food, and to information related to goods and services" - however, the proposals did not have complete hearings and it is expected that in the next legislature they will be studied and the real ones will be taken into account needs of consumers
  - El Pais, 28 June 2019

• Bolivian police warn with arrests and prosecutions of the coca growers blocking the roadways in Yungas who are using dynamite
  - La Razon, 28 June 2019

• Carlos Mesa proposes to rethink the anti-drug policy of Bolivia - the presidential candidate considers that there is an overproduction of coca, and proposes to carry out a study in collaboration with international organizations to know how much coca is necessary for legal consumption in Bolivia
  - El Deber, 28 June 2019

• Bolivian police arrest two coca growers in the midst of clashes due to the blockage of the highway to the Yungas
  - La Razon, 28 June 2019

• Four police chiefs in Bolivia are denounced for raiding the Adepcoca headquarters
  - La Razon, 28 June 2019

• Roadblock in Yungas results in people being wounded and detained - Adepcoca coca growers add support
  - Los Tiempos, 28 June 2019

• Removing the blockade on the highway to the Yungas leaves two people injured
  - Pagina Siete, 28 June 2019

• Report from the Global Commission on Drug Policy (14 former heads of state advocating for rational drug policies) has issued a blockbuster finding about the global system of illegal drug classification - it should be scrapped entirely and replaced with a new system that's rooted in science
  - Zero Hedge, 27 June 2019

• Colombia's glyphosate debate: the opposition of the UN and the Catholic Church versus the support of the U.S. and President Duque's alma mater (Sergio Arboleda University)
  - Colombia Reports, 27 June 2019

• OAS summit in Colombia marred by controversy over OAS President Luis Almagro;s praise for Colombia’s President Ivan Duque‘s implementation of a peace deal made with former FARC rebels, depsite many critics pointing out the failures of Duque including the failure to implement coca crop subtitution and rural development projects
  - Colombia Reports, 27 June 2019

• The coca harvest can have a gross income of more than $ 6 billion [numbers may be in pesos - about 3000 pesos to 1 US dollar, and billion here could be trillion - so total is US$ 2 billion] within Colombian territory - according to the figures in the report, the average price in the local market for cocaine hydrochloride is $ 4.4 million per kilo, so this production of 1,379 tons (1.3 million kilos) could result in the aforementioned $ 6 billion - the UN investigation also reveals that the coca leaf is a crop that has an average yield of 5.6 tons of hectare per year
  - La Republica, 27 June 2019

• Science that never came to the drug debate - the annual report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy pointed out the enormous inconsistencies that have existed between science and the way in which psychoactive substances are classified in the world
  - El Espectador, 26 June 2019

• In Bolivia, the coca producers activated blockades at the Santa Bárbara, Mururata and Elena bridges, which prevent the passage to the towns of Caranavi, Guanay and Palo Blancos - the route to Sud Yungas is clear
  - La Razon, 28 June 2019

• Adepcoca maintains two blockades on the highway to Los Yungas
  - Los Tiempos, 28 June 2019

• Producers related to MAS ask to convert Enatex into a coca leaf market.
  - Los Tiempos, 28 June 2019

• Adepcoca reorganizes the highway blockade and closes the roadway to the Yungas
  - Pagina Siete, 28 June 2019

• Tension in the Yungas due to the coca grower's highway blockake - reports on confrontations in Unduavi
  - El Diario, 28 June 2019

• The new statistics of the United States on illicit crops in Colombia have undoubtedly removed the specter of a possible decertification for non-compliance in the fight against drugs.
  - El Tiempo, 28 June 2019

• With voluntary coca eradication in Colombia, reseeding is only 6 percent
  - El Tiempo, 27 June 2019

• Coca crops stabilize in Colombia, says US government report
  - El Tiempo, 26 June 2019

• The US government says production of coca and cocaine is levelling off in Colombia
  - El Espectador, 26 June 2019

• The Departmental Association of Producers of Coca leaf (Adepcoca) today begins the indefinite blockade of roads on the road to the Yungas as a measure of pressure, demanding the Government security in the region, after the last acts of violence occurred, including the assassination of the leader Miguel Coico
  - El Diario, 26 June 2019

• Bolivian government considers that the threat of the Adepcoca blockade of roads has failed - intelligence units of the Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking (FELCN) operates at the moment in Coroico, Caranavi and La Asunta and reported that the transit is normal.
  - La Razon, 26 June 2019

• Adepcoca confirms the beginning of blockades and asks the Catholic Church to mediate the conflict in Yungas - the leader of Adepcoca, Gerardo Ríos, confirmed the measure of pressure and demanded that the Government guarantee security in the Yungas before the events that ended with the death of the leader Miguel Coico
  - La Razon, 25 June 2019

• The electoral committee of the parallel leadership of the Departmental Association of Producers of Coca (Adepcoca) of the Yungas affiliated with the Government plans to call elections to elect the new board of that organization in 45 days, while the third illegal coca market will remain operating that moved from Chuquiaguillo to the area of Villa Fátima
  - El Diario, 25 June 2019

• The third (illegal) market for coca was moved from Chuquiaguillo to the Villa Fátima area, according to EL DIARIO, in the midst of tension due to the intervention of the Departmental Association of Coca Leaf Producers (Adepcoca) and the confrontation arising in the Yungas - coca growers who identify with the political line of the ruling party Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) assured that it is a point of "temporary" storage.
  - El Diario, 25 June 2019

• The Minister of Rural Development of Bolivia, César Cocarico, revealed yesterday that the confrontation in Trinidad Pampa was produced by quarrels between coca growers belonging to Adepcoca, which is opposed to the Government, and coca growers related to the ruling MAS party, grouped in Conalprodc who traveled on Saturday to La Paz to participate in an assembly where elections were approved in the parent entity of the cocaleros
  - El Deber, 25 June 2019

• Adepcoca confirms blockade of routes and that Bolivia police have besieged Trinidad Pampa - at least 25 police cars are on the road between El Choro Grande and Trinidad Pampa
  - Pagina Siete, 25 June 2019

• Cutting the electric power of four municipalities of Cauca in the fight against drug trafficking could be a social bomb in one of the hearts of the conflict in Colombia
  - La Silla Vacia, 23 June 2019

• The Brazilian geographer Carlos Walter Porto-Gonçalves, like other Latin American intellectuals, had put his hope in the government of Evo Morales, but, with the events of the Tipnis in Bolivia - he said - he realized that Evo Morales and Alvaro García Linera broke a pact they had made from below with the Indians, to stay with the cocaleros
  - Pagina Siete, 23 June 2019

• According to the general secretary of the agrarian center of Trinidad Pampa (Bolivia), Gabriel Escobar, the incident occurred at approximately 7:00 p.m. in the vicinity of the town, when three young people who would be part of the Departmental Association of Producers of Coca (Adepcoca) the regional Trinidad Pampa were attacked by several individuals, one of them with a knife. As a result of the attack, the young Miguel Coico died, while Tatiana Coico and Héctor Coico were injured, said the leader Escobar.
  - Los Tiempos, 23 June 2019

• María del Pilar Hurtado, leader of a displaced community in Tierralta (one of Colombia's northern coca growing regions) is murdered
  - Colombia Reports, 22 June 2019

• María del Pilar Hurtado, threatened in a phamplet of the right-wing militia the AGC in Córdoba (northern Colombia), is assassinated
  - Colombia Reports, 22 June 2019

• In another measure against the Departmental Association of Producers of Coca (Adepcoca) of La Paz, a contingent of Bolivian police raided the headquarters of the organization yesterday without a judicial order - a leader of the coca growers denounced this intimidation by the government of Bolivia
  - El Diario, 22 June 2019

• In another measure against the Departmental Association of Producers of Coca (Adepcoca) of La Paz, a contingent of Bolivian police raided the headquarters of the organization yesterday without a judicial order - a leader of the coca growers denounced this intimidation by the government of Bolivia
  - Pagina Siete, 22 June 2019

• In another measure against the Departmental Association of Producers of Coca (Adepcoca) of La Paz, a contingent of Bolivian police raided the headquarters of the organization yesterday without a judicial order - a leader of the coca growers denounced this intimidation by the government of Bolivia
  - El Deber, 22 June 2019

• In another measure against the Departmental Association of Producers of Coca (Adepcoca) of La Paz, a contingent of Bolivian police raided the headquarters of the organization yesterday without a judicial order - a leader of the coca growers denounced this intimidation by the government of Bolivia
  - La Razon, 22 June 2019

• In another measure against the Departmental Association of Producers of Coca (Adepcoca) of La Paz, a contingent of Bolivian police raided the headquarters of the organization yesterday without a judicial order - a leader of the coca growers denounced this intimidation by the government of Bolivia
  - Los Tiempos, 22 June 2019

• The coca grower leader Sergio Pampa, second in command of the Departmental Association of Producers of Coca (Adepcoca), declared himself in hiding and denounced the Bolivian Government's political persecution against Yungas producers in order to control the institution
  - El Diario, 21 June 2019

• The community of the population of Trinidad Pampa, municipality of Coripata (Bolivia), found on Wednesday a pool of drug maceration, which supposedly belonged to leaders related to the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS - the government ruling party) - a police chief said there was a coca crusher, precursors and other tools that drug traffickers use for the maceration of cocaine base paste
  - La Razon, 21 June 2019

• The community of the population of Trinidad Pampa, municipality of Coripata (Bolivia), found on Wednesday a pool of drug maceration, which supposedly belonged to leaders related to the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS - the government ruling party) - a police chief said there was a coca crusher, precursors and other tools that drug traffickers use for the maceration of cocaine base paste
  - El Diario, 21 June 2019

• The community of the population of Trinidad Pampa, municipality of Coripata (Bolivia), found on Wednesday a pool of drug maceration, which supposedly belonged to leaders related to the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS - the government ruling party) - a police chief said there was a coca crusher, precursors and other tools that drug traffickers use for the maceration of cocaine base paste
  - Los Tiempos, 21 June 2019

• Skyrocketing coca production could see President Trump cut aid to Colombia - production has more than tripled since 2013
  - Zero Hedge, 20 June 2019

• Why Colombia should legalize coca and leave cocaine to others
  - WorldCrunch, 19 June 2019

• The illegal coca market authorized by the Government of Bolivia was small, but now it has been expanded and occupies a whole block of the Las Americas Avenue, in the area of Chuquiaguillo. Faced with this situation, the leadership of the Departmental Association of Coca Leaf Producers (Adepcoca) threatens to block roads if this sales center is not closed.
  - Pagina Siete, 19 June 2019

• Colombia's Prosecutor General's Office has ordered all power to be cut in a largely lawless area in the southwest of the country in an attempt to disrupt marijuana cultivation, ordering the Western Energy Company, or CEO, to cut power supplies in four municipalities in the Cauca province known for their large number of illegal marijuana plantations - but Cauca Governor Oscar Campo said he opposed the measure on the grounds that it unjustifiably impacts those not involved in illegal cultivation
  - Colombia Reports, 18 June 2019

• Government of Colombia plans to resume spraying with glyphosate in "a matter of weeks" - President Ivan Duque and Defense Minister Guillermo Botero, referred from London to the use of the herbicide in the eradication of illicit crops of coca leaf
  - El Espectador, 18 June 2019

• Dissident mid-level rebel commanders who were expelled from the FARC in 2016 have reportedly retaken control of territory abandoned by the group’s demobilized leaders in 2017 - under the leadership of "Gentil Duarte", FARC 2.0 has successfully consolidated control over many of the territories and fighters who have turned their back on the FARC’s leaders who formed a political party as part of a peace process - experts have long warned that the government’s aggressive approach against coca farmers could seek protection from the FARC or other illegal armed groups
  - Colombia Reports, 18 June 2019

• Dissident mid-level rebel commanders who were expelled from the FARC in 2016 have reportedly retaken control of territory abandoned by the group’s demobilized leaders in 2017 - under the leadership of "Gentil Duarte", FARC 2.0 has successfully consolidated control over many of the territories and fighters who have turned their back on the FARC’s leaders who formed a political party as part of a peace process - experts have long warned that the government’s aggressive approach against coca farmers could seek protection from the FARC or other illegal armed groups
  - La Silla Vacia, 18 June 2019

• The Adepcoca coca grower Sergio Pampa was linked to the shooting death of a firearm by Eduardo Apaza, a leader of Cofecay - the Prosecutor's Office initiated the investigation against Pampa - his lawyer, Omar Durán, said that Adepcoca, opposed to the ruling party, is being decapitated by the government of Bolivia
  - La Razon, 18 June 2019

• The Adepcoca coca grower Sergio Pampa was linked to the shooting death of a firearm by Eduardo Apaza, a leader of Cofecay - the Prosecutor's Office initiated the investigation against Pampa - his lawyer, Omar Durán, said that Adepcoca, opposed to the ruling party, is being decapitated by the government of Bolivia
  - El Diario, 18 June 2019

• "Army in northeast Colombia is stigmatizing, threatening and even shooting at civilians" - the coca-rich region of Catatumbo has become a melting pot of armed groups of which it has become impossible to distinguish who is fighting who
  - Colombia Reports, 16 June 2019

• More than 20,000 coca growers participated in a massive march from the Chuquiaguillo area to the Gualberto Villarroel plaza in the Villa Fátima area of the city of La Paz, where it was decided to form the new Electoral Committee of the Departmental Association of Producers of Coca (ADEPCOCA).
  - El Diario, 16 June 2019

• The alleged killer of Eduardo Apaza, the coca grower leader of the Yungas (Bolivia), was apprehended in the vicinity of La Asunta, when he tried to escape capture
  - El Diario, 15 June 2019

• Indigenous Colombians fear losing supplies of ayahuasca, as "ayahuasca" tourism becomes more popular and and commercialiation leads to bad practices that hurt the reputation of traditional practices
  - Economist, 15 June 2019

• Drug trafficking and petrol: a quarter of Colombia's fuel goes to make cocaine - about 75 gallons of fuel are needed for each kilogram of coca paste
  - The Guardian, 14 June 2019

• How to seriously reduce coca crops in Colombia?
  - El Espectador, 14 June 2019

• With misgiving, authorities in Cauca (Colombia) received notification from the Western Energy Company (CEO) that they will cut electricity service in the areas of four municipalities where greenhouses have been detected with illegal marijuana crops.
  - El Tiempo, 14 June 2019

• Located in Chuquiaguillo, the illegal market for taques (50 lb sacks) of coca leaves sells for 2,100 to 2,300 bolivianos ($300 to $330) with the official seals of the Digcoin (the government coca industrialization agency in Bolivia).
  - Pagina Siete, 14 June 2019

• The Minister of Rural Development and Lands in Bolivia, César Cocarico, denied Thursday that another market has been set up in Chuquiaguillo to receive and market the coca leaf, and assured that the only one that operates in La Paz is the one that belongs to the Association of Coca Producers. of the Yungas (Adepcoca), in the area of Villa Fátima
  - La Razon, 13 June 2019

• Killers assassinate Eduardo Apaza, leader of the coca producers of La Asunta - he was killed with a firearm when he returned home
  - La Razon, 13 June 2019

• Killers assassinate Eduardo Apaza, leader of the coca producers of La Asunta - he was killed with a firearm when he returned home.
  - El Diario, 13 June 2019

• Killers assassinate Eduardo Apaza, leader of the coca producers of La Asunta - he was killed with a firearm when he returned home.
  - ErBol, 13 June 2019

• The government of Bolivia authorizes, in the Chuquiaguillo zone, a warehouse for coca leaves outside of the control of Adepcoca (the coca growers association mostly not affiliated with the government's ruling party)
  - Los Tiempos, 13 June 2019

• The government of Bolivia authorizes, in the Chuquiaguillo zone, a warehouse for coca leaves outside of the control of Adepcoca (the coca growers association mostly not affiliated with the government's ruling party)
  - Pagina Siete, 13 June 2019

• Suicide by soldiers due to Colombia's military's brutal training methods has caused more deaths than due to the FARC killing soldiers in Colombia
  - Colombia Reports, 13 June 2019

• US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo testifies before the US Congress that the US still strongly supports the resumption of aerial spraying of pesticide on Colombian coca fields with the cancer-causing pesticide glyphosate
  - Colombia Reports, 12 June 2019

• Coca growers from the Yungas region of northern Bolivia, affliated with the government ruling party (MAC), announced that they are forming committees to take control of the northern coca growers association, Adepcoca
  - El Diario, 12 June 2019

• The Colombian Superintendent for Industry and Commerce (SIC) has brought charges against one of the largest beverage companies in Colombia: Postobón. According to the document, known by El Espectador, Red PaPaz (a competitor) filed a complaint as a result of the "Hit" commercials (HIT is a sugar fruity tasty drink) encouraging, in their opinion, "in a deceptive way, the consumption of said beverage in children and adolescents". The foregoing, according to the corporation, would be to the detriment of the consumer's statute and the constitutional prevalence of children's rights over the rights of others.
  - El Espectador, 11 June 2019

• Lohas Beans is an export company specializing in certified coffees that has just bought 22 tons of coffee from former FARC combatants in Colombia
  - Semana, 11 June 2019

• Colombian Senator, and opposition leader, Gustavo Petro upsets Colombia's sugar plantation owners with a deadly statistic: sugar kills more people than cocaine
  - Colombia Reports, 11 June 2019

• Colombian Senator, and opposition leader, Gustavo Petro upsets Colombia's sugar plantation owners with a deadly statistic: sugar kills more people than cocaine
  - El Pais, 10 June 2019

• Colombia's ombudsman warns of presence of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel in Caqueta province (southern Colombia) where much coca is grown, the cartel possibly teaming with the Southeastern Block, the largest FARC dissident group
  - Colombia Reports, 10 June 2019

• Four members of the native Colombian Awa people have been murdered in the Nariño province (southwest Colombia) over the past week as the community is caught in the crossfire of a drug-fueled turf war
  - Colombia Reports, 10 June 2019

• Every day, 30 small planes fly out of the Beni region of Bolivia with upwards of 500 kilograms of cocaine each, most flying to Brazil
  - Pagina Siete, 09 June 2019

• In Bolivia, the global deflation in commodity prices weakens the local economy of soy, sugar cane, rice and corn producers
  - El Deber, 09 June 2019

• The clashes between peasants and the Public Force in Puerto Asis, Putumayo, for the forced eradication of coca, revived the concern about the effects of the stagnation of the substitution program and the breach of the agreements agreed with the communities in Colombia
  - El Espectador, 08 June 2019

• Former coca growers - 2,700 families - in northern Colombia are "starving" as Colombia fails to provide them with alternative crops to grow and access to farmer's markets to sell their produce
  - Colombia Reports, 03 June 2019

• After ten months of the new government of Iván Duque, in Antioquia, disappointing changes are felt to the program of substitution of illicit crops, the backbone of the drug aspects of the Peace Agreement with the Farc, with Farc delegates and peasant associations alleging that the government is not complying with the Agreement
  - La Silla Vacia, 31 May 2019

• How Semana, Colombia's most influential magazine, became a threat to (coca) journalism
  - Colombia Reports, 31 May 2019

• Colombia's opposition parties reiterated their concern on Thursday after far-right group "Aguilas Negras" threatened to kill "all leftist followers of Senator Gustavo Petro", who lost last year's election to President Ivan Duque
  - Colombia Reports, 31 May 2019

• Coca growers march in protest for the third day in La Paz, including protesting at the doors of the Vice Ministry of Coca, demanding attention for three of their demands, including the liberation of their leader, Franclin Gutiérrez
  - La Razon, 30 May 2019

• Two days after Colombia's leading "liberal" weekly magazine, the Santos-family controlled "Semana", claims it defends freedom of expression for its reporters, it fires one of its reporters for his recent expressions
  - Colombia Reports, 29 May 2019

• The increasing dangers facing Latin America's national park rangers due to coca farming and drug trafficking
  - Insight Crime, 29 May 2019

• A charitable initiative iby Nespresso will help farmers in Colombia's southwestern mountains (El Rosario, Narino) trade nearly 400 hectares of coca for coffee
  - Reuters, 28 May 2019

• Colombian coffee growers are in crisis due to the lower global price of coffee
  - El Espectador, 28 May 2019

• The soy producers of Yapacaní (Bolivia) announce that if the government refuses to attend to their losses, they will switch to growing coca, because they are tired of seeing their neighbors, the coca growers of the Chapare, getting rich while the soy producers are only getting poorer
  - Eju.tv, 27 May 2019

• Leaders and producers of the Association of Producers of Coca (Adepcoca) of Los Yungas de La Paz (Bolivia) on Monday restarted permanent mobilizations, in protest against the seizures of coca of their members at the La Rinconada checkpoint. and the continued prosecution of the leader Franclin Gutiérrez, informed Sergio Pampa, representative of this organization
  - La Razon, 27 May 2019

• Senator Julián Gallo, known as Carlos Antonio Lozada of the FARC political party, summoned several officials of the Colombian Government at 3 o'clock on Monday afternoon to explain the protection actions that the State has taken regarding the risks for social leaders and ex-combatants
  - El Espectador, 27 May 2019

• Authorities in Colombia have the magnifying glass on 33 gas stations that due to their abnormal sales, and their location in remote regions and where the illicit coca crop phenomenon is strong, that would be related to the production of cocaine, for example, the gas stations of Nariño and Putumayo - the departments that concentrate 47 percent of the coca crops
  - El Tiempo, 26 May 2019

• Luis Almagro, Carlos Romero, coca and cocaine in Bolivia
  - Los Tiempos, 24 May 2019

• From January to April in Peru, government forces in Peru capture 564 tons of chemical supplies used to convert coca to cocaine in the VRAEM
  - El Comercio, 20 May 2019

• Days after the US embassy called Colombia's former chief prosecutor a "great patriot", a special prosecutor is reportedly close to asking congress to consider a criminal investigation against him - former chief prosecutor Nestor Humberto Martinez resigned and left the country last week after the country's war crimes tribunal ordered investigations into apparent gross misconduct by Martinez, the prosecution and the DEA
  - Colombia Reports, 22 May 2019

• Study finds CBD effective in treating heroin addiction, reducing cravings for the drug as well as levels of anxiety
  - CNN, 21 May 2019

• Instead of informing the public, Colombia’s leading weekly (Revista Semana, along with La Tiempo, controlled by the Santos family) informed Duque about army controversy against civilians that was eventually reported on by the New York Times
  - Colombia Reports, 21 May 2019

• Maria Fernanda Cabal, one of the most far-right radical allies of former president Uribe - born into a wealthy family of sugar plantation owners in the southwestern Valle del Cauca province, and has never shied away from using corruption, nepotism and violence to maintain and expand her family's wealth and political power
  - Colombia Reports, 20 May 2019

• The $34 million airport built in the small coca growing town of Chimore, in the middle of Bolivia's Chapare coca and cocaine region
  - Pagina Siete, 20 May 2019

• The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, was in the Chapare and stressed that the projects developed in the area represent an important step in the reduction of coca crops in Bolivia
  - La Razon, 18 May 2019

• Colombian Army's orders to kill/capture more criminals and militants are putting civilians at risk, officers say
  - New York Times, 18 May 2019

• Colombia's peace deal promised a new era, but the rebels are rearming because the government has failed to deliver promised help
  - New York Times, 18 May 2019

• Video released of FARC leader, Jesus Santrich, NOT talking about drug trafficking with DEA agents, which is why he was released from jail, to the displeasure of the US
  - Colombia Reports, 17 May 2019

• How the DEA and Colombia'a national prosecutors could have broker the law in attampt to extradite FARC leader Santrich
  - Colombia Reports, 17 May 2019

• In Colombia, if coca is regulated, then peace is guaranteed
  - La Silla Vacia, 16 May 2019

• US revokes the visas of three top judges in Colombia - for many it is clear that this is a pressure from Washington, which is concerned about decisions that are on the table in the high court around the objections to the statute law of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) and the use of glyphosate in the fight against illicit crops
  - El Especatador, 11 May 2019

• President Ivan Duque Márquez spoke on Saturday afternoon, at a workshop, "ReBuilding The Country", held in Mocoa (Putumayo), about the use of glyphosate, at a time when a decision regarding the implementation of the herbicide is being discussed in the Constitutional Court to combat illicit crops in Colombia
  - El Espectador, 11 May 2019

• Tomorrow, President Ivan Duque will go to a workshop 'Rebuilding The Country' in Mocoa, just days after the national Registrar gave the green light to a popular consultation vote that seeks to ban fumigation with glyphosate in Putumayo, one of the ten departments with more coca in the country
  - La Silla Vacia, 10 May 2019

• Coca vendors in Bogota working to destimatise the coca plant
  - Talking Drugs, 09 May 2019

• High-profile arrests won't stem cocaine production in Peru's VRAEM, Peru's largest coca-producing region
  - InSight Crime, 08 May 2019

• Denver, Colorado, is preparing to vote on the decriminilization of hallucinogenic psilocybin mushrooms
  - Salon, 06 May 2019

• Traces of cocaine and ayahuasca found in 1000-year-old shamanic pouch uncovered in southwestern Bolivian highlands
  - National Geographic, 06 May 2019

• Bodyguards injured in attack on Afrocolombian leaders in Santander de Quilichao (southwest Colombia), attackers connected with the Aguilas Negras, a far-right group that opposed the ethnic minorities in land disputes with large land owners
  - Colombia Reports, 03 May 2019

• Colombia's constitutional court believes phones and offices are bugged, with some judges believing that the US DEA is involved, which wants to learn about how the court might rule on the illegality of using glyphosate to eradicate coca
  - Colombia Reports, 29 April 2019

• A commander of Colombia's armed forces, General Diego Villegas, on Saturday apologized for the torture and murder of a demobilized FARC guerrilla, a torture and murder that has been defended three times, using at least two lies, by the defense minister, Guillermo Botero
  - Colombia Reports, 29 April 2019

• Coca growers of Puno, Perú agree to eradicate coca in the Bahuaja Sonene reserve area - the farmers decided to register to be considered producers of the millenary leaf, but for the chacchado (chewed) uses - they will ask for greater budget of Devida (the agency supporting alternatives to coca).
  - La Republica, 25 April 2019

• Today the coffee growers will leave to march in Armenia (Colombia), to ask for more subsidies from the government of Iván Duque. But the demonstration does not look great because the government has generated expectations with the promise of 256 billion pesos in subsidies and progress in creating its stabilization fund, but they have no money to go forward and a good part of them is dedicated to collecting their harvest
  - La Silla Vacia, 24 April 2019

• The confidential Colombia report on glyphosate
  - El Espectador, 24 April 2019

• The former head of Colombia’s mining association ACM and CEO of gold mining firm Minesa (mostly owned by the United Arab Emirates) has been caught on video saying that "communities don't matter" for decision makers in Bogota to approve mining projects
  - Colombia Reports, 24 April 2019

• Coffee prices plunge due to massive production in Brazil, combined with currency gyrations, has created a glut of cheap, premium coffee
  - Wall Street Journal, 23 April 2019

• Modifying the DNA from coca plants to stop drug production - the experts' proposal, a group in Colombia that identified the coca plant genome (DNA) and genes related to cocaine production, and the other in Germany, which located the steps of the production of the alkaloid and the enzymes that could be used to interrupt it
  - El Tiempo, 20 April 2019

• To the Peruvian government: a letter in solidarity with Peruvian coca growers.
  - Andean Information Network, 17 April 2019

• A paramilitary group, the AGC, allegedly assassinated a native Colombian leader, Aquileo Mecheche, in the northwest of the country (Choco), half a year after he requested protection from the government
  - Colombia Reports, 14 April 2019

• The true influence of Mexican drug traffickers in Colombia - in addition to monitoring production of cocaine, the Mexicans give weapons as payments for security and shipments
  - El Tiempo, 14 April 2019

• In 2019 so far, Colombia has manually eradicated 19,251 hectares of illegal cultivations of the coca leaf
  - El Pais, 13 April 2019

• The economy of the ex-guerrillas of the FARC in Colombia - although they work on 144 projects, for now four have a consolidated market
  - El Tiempo, 13 April 2019

• In Colombia's coca heartland (Caquetá department in the southwest), photos and drawings show life between war and peace
  - NPR, 13 April 2019

• Clashes in Peru coca eradication operation leave at least two dead in the Puno region
  - Reuters, 12 April 2019

• How the corruption of the Hidroituango dam in northern Colombia, owned by EPM - the state owned utilities company in Medellin, has caused more killings of civilians and social leaders in the area of one of the principal cocaine transportation routes out of Colombia
  - Colombia Reports, 12 April 2019

• The ambassador of the United States in Bogota, Kevin Whitaker, said this morning, about the criticism of Donald Trump to President Ivan Duque of Colombia, that the fight against drug trafficking must be "with fumigation, interdiction and ending criminal groups".
  - El Tiempo, 11 April 2019

• Colombia and the United States: six key issues to understand their relationship based on the anti-drug fight.
  - El Espectador, 11 April 2019

• Colombia - 40 years trapped in the business of cocaine trafficking
  - El Tiempo, 11 April 2019

• Kevin Whitaker, the U.S. Ambassador to Colombia, conceded during an interview with the W Radio radio station that there exists mutual responsibility between both countries for the increase in the cultivation of coca leaf
  - El Pais, 11 April 2019

• Returning to coca? The peace efforts fail to arrive in the southeast region of Colombia
  - El Espectador, 10 April 2019

• 72 percent of those surveyed in Bolivia believe that President Evo Morales should resign as the head of the coca farmers' unions of the southern Chapare region, and 58% of those surveyed think that Morales discriminates against the northern coca growers in the Yungas
  - Pagina Siete, 05 April 2019

• Why is Monsanto condemned in California (glyphosate) and welcomed in Bolivia?
  - Pagina Siete, 05 April 2019

• Bolivia must make the effort to reverse the trend of increase in the extensions of surplus coca cultivation, registered during the last two years, and reach the 22 thousand hectares established in the Law of the Coca Leaf, said the representative of the European Union in Bolivia, Leon de la Torre - meanwhile, the Minister of Government, Carlos Romero, admitted that the cultivation of 18,000 hectares of coca supplies domestic consumption
  - El Diario, 02 April 2019

• The National Council for the Fight against Illicit Drug Trafficking (Conaltid) for Bolivia, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the European Union (EU) signed an agreement on Monday for the construction of the first "mobile logistics base" in the Yungas of La Paz that will be destined to the eradication of surplus coca crops and the fight against drug trafficking
  - La Razon, 02 April 2019

• A study in PNAS finds that the cat-and-mouse game of cocaine smuggling and government interdiction strategies results in a larger geographic area for trafficking with little success in stopping the drug from reaching the United States.
  - Phys.org, 01 April 2019

• A study in PNAS finds that the cat-and-mouse game of cocaine smuggling and government interdiction strategies results in a larger geographic area for trafficking with little success in stopping the drug from reaching the United State.s
  - PNAS, 01 April 2019

• The report of the US Department of State once again places Bolivia as the third largest producer of coca and cocaine in the world and expresses its concern over the "inadequate controls" over the legal markets of this bush
  - La Razon, 01 April 2019

• Bolivia was the third largest producer of coca and cocaine in the world in 2018, according to the Report of the International Narcotics Control Strategy of the United States, dated March of this year, and which repeats the results of a similar evaluation carried out in 2017
  - Pagina Siete, 01 April 2019

• The United States Department of State presented to the Congress of that country the Report on the International Narcotics Control Strategy (INCSR), where it states that Bolivia is the third largest producer of coca and cocaine in the world - in addition, it establishes that there is no data to support the Government's position to increase the legal crops of the shrub
  - El Diario, 01 April 2019

• How Colombia's counternarcotics efforts lost effect since Duque took office, including the failure of providing support to farmers to cultivate crops other than coca
  - Colombia Reports, 31 March 2019

• Some of Colombia's top food and beverage - Postobon, Nacional de Chocolates - industries had/have links to a Medeillin crime syndicate, Heroes Granada Bloc, with Postobon earlier reported to have financed the Arlex Hurtado crime group in Uraba
  - Colombia Reports, 29 March 2019

• "Heavily armed men" displace farmers from their towns in northern Colombia, including in Ituango and Puerto Libertador,after government fails to substitute removed coca crops
  - Colombia Reports, 26 March 2019

• In a judgment of first instance, the Justice and Peace Chamber of the Superior Court of Medellín sent requrests to the Attorney General's Office to investigate allegations of possible voluntary financial contributions of four companies to a paramilitary group, the Heroes of Granada Bloc of the United Self-Defense Groups de Colombia (Auc) - Compañía Nacional de Chocolates y Galletas Noel, Grupo Nutresa, Postobón Soft Drinks, and the Ardila Lulle Organization
  - Verdad Abierta, 25 March 2019

• A leader who promoted the substitution of crops for illicit use was murdered a week ago in Tumaco, Nariño, the municipality with the most coca in Colombia - the communities are committed to replacing those crops, but they do not see the will of the Government to support them
  - El Espectador, 25 March 2019

• The coca growers of Colombia are confronting stark choices over crops, since for may, forsaking coca for traditional crops has been a costly choice and one they warn they may be forced to reverse
  - France 24, 24 March 2019

• In Bolivia, environmentalists are questioning agrofuels - the environmental expert Teresa Flores observed that since the introduction of the modified seeds resistant to the pesticide glyphosate, there were no leaps in the productivity of the oilseeds (soy).
  - El Diario, 24 March 2019

• The policies of the Government of Bolivia with respect to GM crops and the use of glyphosate are exposing the population to cancer, warned an expert investigator at UMSA, Roger Carvajal - he said that the pesticide may be present in some foods consumed by Bolivians, but no studies are done about the cancer and eexposure
  - Pagina Siete, 24 March 2019

• The coca growers of Colombia are confronting stark choices over crops - choosing to forsake coca for traditional crops has been a costly choice and one they warn they may be forced to reverse - "The substitution program has ruined me and left me in total insecurity."
  - Phys.org, 24 March 2019

• Coca leaf and landmines, the cocktail for the forgotten war in Chocó, Colombia
  - La Silla Vacia, 20 March 2019

• Days after Duque urged to spray his own people, US jury rules that glyphosate is "substantial" cancer factor
  - Colombia Reports, 20 March 2019

• In Bolivia, the legal defense of Franclin Gutiérrez has observed that the investigations of the facts that he is charged with, linked to the death of a police official, Daynor Sandóval, have severe deficiencies
  - El Diario, 20 March 2019

• A massive crowd of members of the northern coca growers of Bolivia (Adepcoca), protested in the San Francisco plaza in La Paz, demanding the government free their head leader, Franclin Gutiérrez, who is jailed under preventative detainment for the last seven months, and whose leadership was ratified permanently by the members of Adepcoca
  - El Diario, 20 March 2019

• After almost seven months of his detention, the [Provincial] Association of Coca Products (Adepcoca) of the Los Yungas region (Bolivia) returned to the streets in protest to demand the freedom of the director, Franclin Gutiérrez
  - La Razon, 19 March 2019

• The civil war in Tumaco, Colombia, now is attacking the leaders of efforts to substitute legal foods crops instead of coca growing
  - La Silla Vacia, 19 March 2019

• Bolivian coca farmers stage mass chew-in in La Paz to protest against eradication efforts (video).
  - Deutsche Welle, 19 March 2019

• Doubts over crop eradication versus substitution are crippling rural communities in Colombia.
  - Insight Crime, 18 March 2019

• The murders of social leaders in Colombia do not stop - this Sunday, March 17, the renowned leader of substitution of illicit crops, Argemiro López Pertuz, was murdered in the village of La Guayacana, district of Llorente, municipality of Tumaco, Nariño
  - El Espectador, 18 March 2019

• The anguished disappearance of the son of a social leader in Santander de Quilichao, Andrés Felipe Montoya Ospinal - his father, Fernando Montoya Valencia has led several community processes in the north of Cauca in Colombia
  - El Espectador, 18 March 2019

• The valley of the Apurímac, Ene and Mantaro rivers (Vraem) of Peru is a territory that, like other areas of the country, unfortunately lacks many basic services and other conditions that allow its development - and is threatened by illegal coca and drug trafficking
  - El Comercio, 18 March 2019

• Ex-FARC combatants are "profoundly worried" by Duque's ongoing attacks on Colombia's peace process.
  - Colombia Reports, 17 March 2019

• In Colombia, the rural coca growers have been forced into the logic of an illegal economy, when then also have rights
  - La Silla Vacia, 17 March 2019

• Glyphosate en Colombia: a threat to communities and nature
  - El Espectador, 15 March 2019

• An opposition deputy of the Democratic Unity party, Lourdes Millares, said that in the presentation made by President Evo Morales, in Session 62 of the United Nations, failed to recognize the amount of crops of the coca leaf in parks and protected reserves of Bolivia
  - El Diario, 15 March 2019

• In Colombia, many drinks have more sugar in them than its stated on the products' labels
  - El Espectador, 15 March 2019

• Glyphosate alone won't fix Colombia's complex coca woes.
  - Insight Crime, 14 March 2019

• Of the almost 50,000 hectares of coca plants in Peru, the largest area since 2012, more than 117,000 metric tons of dried coca leaves were produced, 11% more than the previous year
  - Gestion, 14 March 2019

• The president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, defends in Vienna the legal uses of the coca leaf, calls again for a regional anti-drug trafficking intelligence center, and asks to eliminate tax havens
  - La Razon, 14 March 2019

• The Departmental Association of Producers of Coca (Adepcoca) in Bolivia called a "great coca chew" and march to revalue its production, in addition to demanding the release of its leader, Franclin Gutiérrez, arrested six months ago for the acts of violence in La Asunta
  - El Deber, 12 March 2019

• The Government of Bolivia will place greater emphasis on the eradication of surplus coca crops in the town of La Asunta de los Yungas of La Paz, in that region where it identifies new plantations with different characteristics to those that exist
  - El Diario, 12 March 2019

• Felipe Cáceres, Deputy Minister of Social Defense and Controlled Substances of Bolivia, said Monday that Chapare, Cochabamba, is the area where more maceration ponds (used to make cocaine) were destroyed and that the Yungas, La Paz, is the territory where the most surplus and illegal coca leaf is produced
  - La Razon, 11 March 2019

• President Donald Trump called on Congress to almost double aid for Colombia in the fight against drugs in the face of the possibility that the Constitutional Court of that country would allow the aerial spraying to resume with the controversial glyphosate herbicide
  - El Pais, 11 March 2019

• One day after the Constitutional Court hearing on glyphosate, which showed that the Colombian government does not know how much it costs to fumigate a hectare of coca, the high councilor for stabilization, Emilio Archila, asked for the resignation of Claudia Salcedo, director in charge of drugs of Presidency, who worked until today
  - La Silla Vacia, 11 March 2019

• Is it convenient to return to using glyphosate to stop the farming of coca leaf in Colombia? The viewpoints of two ex-ministers
  - El Pais, 11 March 2019

• Opinion: the ethical failure in returning to the use of glyphosate in Colombia
  - El Espectador, 10 March 2019

• Opinion: The submission and crawling of certain governments of the Third World that kneel before anything that the gringo governments ask for or order, that is being done by their puppets, recently enamored with the grotesque Trump, so they want to reintroduce the aerial spraying of the coca crops con glyphosate
  - El Espectador, 10 March 2019

• Editorial: it is clear that the Chapare region isn't a zone for the production of platanos, nor uniquely of coca, but IS the zone of drug traffickign, where the government increasingly has less of a presence - it is a dangerous region of Bolivia
  - Pagina Siete, 10 March 2019

• The debate between President Duque and ex-President Santos for spraying coca with glyphosate in Colombia - the President asked not to discard any tool and Santos asked to prioritize the substitution
  - El Tiempo, 08 March 2019

• Women coca and poppy growers from the Andes share their experiences (video).
  - Andean Information Network, 08 March 2019

• Peruvian farmers are abandoning coffee plantations for coca fields.
  - Insight Crime, 07 March 2019

• Colombia's president, Ivan Duque, defends use of glyphosate to destroy coca crops before the Constitutional Court
  - Reuters, 07 March 2019

• In the Constitutional Court of Colombia, the Government is almost alone in its defense of the fumigation of coca with glyphosate
  - La Silla Vacia, 07 March 2019

• The human costs of the forced eradication of coca - is glyphosate the solution?
  - La Silla Vacia, 07 March 2019

• The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB/JIFE) warns of the increase of coca crops in several regions of Colombia
  - El Pais, 07 March 2019

• President Duque will tell the Constitutional Court of Colombia that nothing works against coca except for glyphosate
  - El Tiempo, 07 March 2019

• Government of Bolivia defends leaders of coca producers in the Chapare and denies there are illegal groups
  - Los Tiempos, 07 March 2019

• Controversy: Cocalero leader, Leonardo Loza, offers cholitas to authorities in Bolivia
  - Pagina Siete, 07 March 2019

• The head of the Democratic Unity (UD) bench in the Bolivian Senate, Yerko Núñez, sent a letter to President Evo Morales asking him to resign as the leader of the six federations of coca growers in the Cochabamba tropics
  - El Diario, 07 March 2019

• Special Force for the Fight Against Drug Trafficking (FELCN) in Bolivia prepares for operations in the Chapare; cocaleros deny protection to drug trafficking
  - La Razon, 06 March 2019

• Is the DEA trying to undermine Colombia’s war crimes tribunal?
  - Colombia Reports, 06 March 2019

• Tomorrow, a hearing in the Constitutional Court of Colombia about the fumigation of coca leaf cultivations using glyposhate
  - El Tiempo, 06 March 2019

• The Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking (Felcn) confirmed that some 50 community members from San Rafael, in the tropic of Cochabamba (Bolivia), attacked a patrol of the Rural Patrol Unit (Umopar) last Saturday, collaborating in the flight of alleged drug traffickers who moments before ambushed and fired at the coca eradication forces, leaving two seriously injured
  - Los Tiempos, 06 March 2019

• The Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking (Felcn) confirmed that some 50 community members from San Rafael, in the tropic of Cochabamba (Bolivia), attacked a patrol of the Rural Patrol Unit (Umopar) last Saturday, collaborating in the flight of alleged drug traffickers who moments before ambushed and fired at the coca eradication forces, leaving two seriously injured
  - El Diario, 05 March 2019

• Residents of La Asunta (Bolivia) maintain their blockade of roads against the FTC (anti-drug police) - the people of Asunta decided that they will not allow the eradication of their coca crops, as it is a traditional and ancestral zone for cultivation
  - Pagina Siete, 05 March 2019

• Representatives of different opposition political fronts and opinion leaders assure that the justice and the authorities of the Government of Bolivia have a favoritism towards the coca growers of the Chapare
  - Pagina Siete, 05 March 2019

• 400 protesters clash with riot police in northern Colombia, demonstrating against government failures to help change farms from coca, as farmers return to coca cultivation.
  - Colombia Reports, 04 March 2019

• Cáceres, years ago a thriving municipality of the lower Antioquia Cauca in Colombia, today is practically a ghost town - the threats to the people come from the 'clan of the Gulf' and 'Caparrapos', two criminal networks that, according to authorities, do not add up more than 400 men in arms, and who have been fighting a territorial struggle for more than a year for the control of nearly 10,000 hectares of coca plants and the illegal exploitation of gold mines - to this is added the fight for extortion , from which even informal traders are victims
  - El Tiempo, 03 March 2019

• The recycled war of Bajo Cauca (Colombia) - the Ombudsman's Office noted the dramatic situation that exists in the six municipalities that make up this subregion on the banks of the Cauca River, where the Gaitanista Self-Defense Groups, the Caparrapos, the ELN and the dissidence of the Farc wage a fierce battle for the dominance of drug trafficking routes and mining exploitation
  - El Espectador, 02 March 2019

• Yesterday, a coca leaf eradicator was killed in the explosion of an antipersonnel mine in the rural area of Alto Mira y Frontera in Tumaco, Nariño (Colombia) - it is the second mortal victim of these mines, which occurred in the middle of an operation for the forced eradication of illegal crops, which left 10 more injured
  - La Silla Vacia, 28 February 2019

• Coffee growers in Colombia are exploring the withdrawing of Colombian coffees from commodities exchanges as historically low prices threaten farmer livelihoods and therefore, the health of the coffee sector
  - Daily Coffee News, 28 February 2019

• Coffee farmers in Peru abandon crops to grow coca, due to slumping coffee prices and delays in certifying organic beans, according to the country's National Coffee Board
  - Reuters, 25 February 2019

• President Duque does not agree with the goals of reducing coca in Colombia, how then to help him adjust them? The goal of the National Development Plan is to eliminate 280 thousand hectares, 109 thousand more than those that exist in Colombia. Why does Duque intend to eradicate more hectares than there are?
  - La Silla Vacia, 21 February 2019

• In Colombia, demobilized FARC members have not received the basic income - the Peace Agreement included the commitment that each demobilized would receive 740,000 pesos per month (about US $250) for two years - the payments are made on the 16th of each month, but this time they did not arrive on time, but the Government assures that this Thursday the money will be reflected in their accounts
  - El Espectador, 21 February 2019

• Aggressive coca eradication threatens voluntary substitution efforts in Colombia.
  - Insight Crime, 19 February 2019

• The Chulumani Prosecutor's Office, Bolivia, cites six Adepcoca leaders (including one of Adepcoca's main leaders, Sergio Pampa) for the attack on the Digcoin director, Martín Serrudo
  - La Razon, 19 February 2019

• "It is important to alert Carlos Mesa, that if a supporter in Villa Tunari, Shinaota, Chimoré, Carrasco, Mamoré, or Bulo Bulo resists, it will be at his own risk" - with those words, Leonardo Loza, Chapare coca grower leader, referred to an eventual visit of the presidential candidate to the region of the Tropic of Cochabamba, Bolivia
  - La Razon, 19 February 2019

• The Council of Peasant Federations of the Yungas (Cofecay) decided to reactivate the so-called "self-defense committees" to avoid further attacks by the police - they demanded alternative projects to replace coca production
  - La Razon, 19 February 2019

• One of the emergency resolutions of the 10 federations of coca producers that comprise the Departmental Association of Producers of Coca (Adepcoca) orders the expulsion of Gregorio Chamiso for being a political operator of the Government - likewise, they reactivated the self-defense committees that will not allow the entry of police officers to the three provinces of the Yungas of La Paz
  - El Diario, 19 February 2019

• The government of Colombia promises to fulfill agreements for the substitution of illicit crops and keeps its word with the 130,000 families that signed commitments of substitution for illicit crops
  - El Espectador, 18 February 2019

• More than half of Colombia's media reliant on state propaganda funds - the vast majority of Colombia's media outlets depend on 'official advertising' for 40 to 50% of their revenue.
  - Colombia Reports, 18 February 2019

• Cocaleros from Bolivia activate self-defense committees to prevent police from entering the Yungas - for the cocaleros, the aggression against the director of Digcoin is a 'self-attack' made by the Government
  - Pagina Siete, 18 February 1029

• The Cochabamba province, in particular the Chapare region, is now the epicenter of laboratories for purifying cocaine in Bolivia
  - Pagina Siete, 17 February 2019

• In Bolivia, the leaders of the coca farmers in the Los Yungas region warn that the government intends to "decapitate" their leadership in order to seize control of the regional association of coca growers (Adepcoca).
  - El Diario, 16 February 2019

• The anti-drug campaigns in Colombia - $20 billion spent in 10 years and few successes
  - El Tiempo, 15 February 2019

• In Bolivia, the leaders of the coca farmers in the Los Yungas region warn that the government intends to "decapitate" their leadership in order to seize control of the regional association of coca growers (Adepcoca)
  - La Razon, 15 February 2019

• At least a hundred police officers entered the community of La Calzada in the municipality of La Asunta, Bolivia, yesterday evening and gassed the inhabitants of the area - the soldiers were searching for those accused of beating the head of the Directorate General of Marketing and Industrialization of the Coca Leaf (Digcoin), Martín Serrudo
  - El Diario, 15 February 2019

• At least a hundred police officers entered the community of La Calzada in the municipality of La Asunta, Bolivia, yesterday evening and gassed the inhabitants of the area - the soldiers were searching for those accused of beating the head of the Directorate General of Marketing and Industrialization of the Coca Leaf (Digcoin), Martín Serrudo
  - Pagina Siete, 15 February 2019

• The leader of coca growers from La Asunta, Bolivia - Freedy Quispe - denounces police intervention in La Asunta and the detention of three people
  - La Razon, 14 February 2019

• Weedkiller glyphosate, used to eradicate coca leaves, raises risk of non-Hodgkin lymphona by 41%.
  - The Guardian, 14 February 2019

• In Colombia, there is a negative correlation between coca farming and homicides, for example, in towns with coca farming there is no relation between the number of hectares farmed with coca and the rate of homicides
  - La Silla Vacia, 13 February 2019

• The seven politicians behind the Hidroituango dam, one of the worst environmental disasters in Colombia's history - starting with former president Alvaro Uribe
  - Colombia Reports, 13 February 2019

• The coca substitution program for Colombia that was born with the Havana Agreement is adrift in the Duque Government, as shown by its security policy, the decree to restructure the Presidency and the National Development Plan - although none say that the substitution program has been terminated, they leave open key questions about who will direct it, how it will continue to be implemented and what are its final goals
  - La Silla Vacia, 12 February 2019

• Desperate Venezuelan migrants turn to Colombia coca plantations for jobs picking coca leaves for drug traffickers
  - France 24, 12 February 2019

• In Bolivia, the association of northern coca leaf growers, Adepcoca, announces a lawsuit against Minister César Cocarico for accusing their members of physically assaulting a government official, Martín Serrudo
  - La Razon, 11 February 2019

• In Bolivia, the director of Digcoin (the government agency for the commercialization and industrialization of coca leaf), Martín Serrudo, was approached by a group of people, and physically struck, Saturday in the "La Calza" community of La Asunta - the Minister of Rural Development and Lans, César Cocarico, accuses the Provincial Association of Coca Growers of northern Bolivia
  - La Razon, 11 February 2019

• Government of Bolivia refuses to create a tax on coca to finance the SUS (Sistema Único de Salud - Unified Health System) and says there is money - the representative of the doctors of La Paz said that a tax on coca, sweet drinks and tobacco could finance the insurance.
  - Pagina Siete, 09 February 2019

• In Colombia, where gold mining and coca farming are a toxic mix.
  - World Crunch, 08 February 2019

• Putumayo, the first electoral alliance of the Farc with alternative movements in Colombia - a common block that helps them to win the Governorship
  - La Silla Vacia, 05 February 2019

• We support legal action that seeks to defend the sale of coca leaf products outside of indigenous territories in Colombia
  - Dejusticia, 04 February 2019

• Colombia's power brokers, families and clans - ranchers, businessmen and the narco-elite - that have long been obtaining power through both legal and illegal means, also behind mass killings of social leaders.
  - Colombia Reports, 04 February 2019

• Editorial: to reach the new goal of eradication of illicit crops in Colombia, it will be necessary to overcome obstacles.
  - El Tiempo, 03 February 2019

• The absence of deaths in Tumaco, Colombia, the world's leading coca growing region, is the result of a pact between illegals, driven by social leaders to save their lives.
  - La Silla Vacia, 03 February 2019

• "Rodigo Cadete", a mid-level FARC dissident, is killed in San Vincente del Caguan (east of Popayan), a largely rural municipality in the southern Caqueta province.
  - Colombia Reports, 03 February 2019

• In Colombia, the coca eradication goal increases to 100,000 hectares (the eradication of 40,000 hectares is the responsibility of the Army, another 40,000 of the Antinarcotics Police, and another 20,000 hectares through voluntary eradication), 30,000 more than last year - $25 million available to begin forced eradication, including funds to hire 2,100 civilians who will be formed into 100 Mobile Forced Eradication Groups
  - El Tiempo, 01 February 2019

• From today, medicinal marijuana is legal in Portugal
  - El Espectador, 01 February 2019

• Machu Picchu wellness tour includes coca-leaf reading.
  - Los Angeles Times, 01 February 2019

• Indigenous communities in post-FARC Colombia struggle to destigmatize sacred coca leaf.
  - Mongabay, 23 January 2019

• Threats to deputies, the indigenous and journalists in Putumayo
  - El Espectador, 20 January 2019

• It happened again: DEA agent in Colombia, Jose Irizarry, stole millions, and hosted yacht parties with hookers.
  - Zero Hedge, 17 January 2019

• The EPL guerrila pour gasoline on the coca wars in Valle province in Colombia
  - La Silla Vacia, 15 January 2019

• Colombia's chief prosecutor, Nestor Humberto Martinez, manipulated DEA evidence linking him to Supreme Court bribes.
  - Colombia Reports, 14 January 2019

• No, the U.S. and Colombia will not eradicate 50% of Colombian coca by 2023.
  - Today Colombia, 11 January 2019

• Without the invovlement of FARC, the drug trafficker in Colombia more now has a Mexican accent
  - La Silla Vacia, 09 January 2019

• Hollywood's lazy obsession with cocaine drug cartels, with Latinos killing each other - instead of the normal, exciting lives of Latinos, including, say, industrializing coca
  - New York Times, 05 January 2019

• Bees in Bolivia are under threat from pesticides uses to grow coca.
  - Voice of America, 07 January 2019

• Colombia's coca substitution plan is bringing death and discord to the Putamayo region.
  - Latino USA, 07 January 2019

• Seven conclusions about the murder of social leaders in Colombia, including: they are not being killed for reasons of mining or coca farming, but for battles over land rights
  - La Silla Vacia, 05 January 2019

• The use of pesticides against pesty insects of coca fields, added to climate change and other factors, threaten the survival of bees in Bolivia, according to beekeepers and experts
  - La Razon, 04 January 2019

• Coca leaf farming in Colombia continues being the major worry of the United States
  - El Espectador, 02 January 2019

• Health promotion agencies (EPS in Spanish) that charge much more than they should, suppliers of medicines that have cost overruns of more than $ 100 million and laboratories that, to increase their sales, promote drugs to people who do not need them, are some of the ingredients that have been mixed after that medicine, for which Colombia paid more than $ 8.9 billion in 2017. The figure, as recently showed in a report by the Administrator of the Resources of the General System of Social Security in Health (Adres), should have been much lower. To be precise, about $ 1,500 million lower.
  - El Espectador, 30 December 2018

• Government of Colombia says it exceeded its goal in 2018 for eradication of illicit coca and marijuana crops
  - El Pais, 28 December 2018

• Culture and ancestral art for coca: the value of traditional knowledge of Colombia's Pacific black communities
  - El Espectador, 28 December 2018

• Medellin's largest public hospital closes, one of hundreds struggling because of massive corruption with Colombia's privatized health insurance program, EPS, with reform blocked in Congress since law passed in 1994 due to EPS companies being owned by in part by, or bribing, members of Colombia's Congress
  - Colombia Report, 26 December 2018

• The Bolivian Joint Task Force of reported that due to its management it doubled the eradication of coca crops in the Yungas, where twice as much was eliminated as in 2017
  - Pagina Siete, 21 December 2018

• Editorial: coca farming or banana farming for the Chapare region of Bolivia?
  - Pagina Siete, 21 December 2018

• The extreme risk of wanting to replace coca - in the last two years, at least 63 leaders of illicit crop substitution programs have been killed
  - El Espectador, 21 December 2018

• Senator Feliciano Valencia denounces attack against his brother in Cauca - Germán Valencia, defender of human rights and member of the Association of Indigenous Councils of the North of Cauca (ACIN), was attacked by masked men in his house in the village of Vilachí, Santander de Quilichao
  - El Espectador, 21 December 2018

• Bolivia eradicated more than 11,000 hectares of surplus coca in 2018, a figure that was highlighted by President Evo Morales on Thursday, who asked the producers of the leaf, mainly those who live in the Chapare, to respect the cato limit (one cato is 1,600 square meters)
  - La Razon, 20 December 2018

• Colombia’s ambassador to the United Nations was criticized this week after abstained from voting on a UN declaration that sought to advance the rights of small farmers who make up approximately one fifth of Colombia's population
  - Colombia Reports, 20 December 2018

• The Colombian far-right group, Aguilas Negras, offers rewards to those who kill indigenous leaders in the coca growing areas of the north Cauca department, while dissident FARC guerillas offer protection to those threatened
  - Colombia Reports, 20 December 2018

• A double crime: murder of a civic leader, and a psychologist with the Agency for Reincorporation and Normalation, in the Caquetá department, southwest of the Valle de Cauca.
  - El Espectador, 20 December 2018

• Low coffee bean prices brew trouble for farmers (or those switching from coca to coffee) - the problems are caused by by currency fluctuations that are encouraging sales and production in Brazil, the world’s largest coffee producer, while forcing coffee growers in other countries to migrate for new jobs.
  - Wall Street Journal, 20 December 2018

• From cocaine to cacao: Joel Palacios's mission to save Colombia's farmers through chocolate
  - NPR, 19 December 2018

• Changes to Colombia's peace agreement with the FARC puts the agreement in jeopardy, already trouble due the government's failed efforts to successfully implement a coca crop substitution program
  - InSight Crime, 18 December 2018

• Why Colombia is losing the cocaine war - its lack of support for the rural families that rely on growing coca leaves to survive.
  - Vox, 18 December 2018

• More doubts than certainties remain in the communities that live in territories planted with crops for illicit use, after the launching -- last December 13th -- of the new policy against drugs, called "Future Route". Although during his presentation, President Ivan Duque insisted that this is an integral strategy, uncertainty persists in the territories regarding what it will represent for the coca farmers and what will happen with the voluntary substitution programs that were launched as part of the program of the implementation of the Final Peace Agreement.
  - El Espectador, 17 December 2018

• A report of the UN Office of Drug Control, about Bolivia, indicates that the volume of production in the Chapare is 2.8 metric tons per hectare, while in the valleys of La Paz (the Yungas) is about 1.3 metric tons per hectare
  - Pagina Siete, 16 December 2018

• The U.S. General Accounting Office concludes that despite spending $10 billion since 1999, the U.S. DEA does not know if any of its efforts are working, in the face of tripling of cocaine production in Colombia from 2013 through 2017.
  - Colombia Reports, 16 December 2018

• Bolivia Says NO, an opposition party, outlines respect for traditional coca activities and normalization of relations with the US
  - La Razon, 11 December 2018

• Colombia’s largest paramilitary and drug trafficking group (controlling half the cocaine exported), the AGC, said Sunday that it would redouble efforts to assume control over the country’s main cities in a blistering attack on President Ivan Duque.
  - Colombia Reports, 10 December 2018

• Coca and dissent, the crossroads en Putumayo of Colombia - from Puerto Leguízamo to Mocoa, the farmers have fulfilled their promise to eradicate 8,686 hectares of coca voluntarily, but, despite these advances, there is concern about the Government's failure to comply, the reactivation of the drug trafficking and the presence of the FARC's dissidence
  - El Espectador, 10 December 2018

• Second indigenous governor, Edwin Dagua, governor of the Huellas indigenous reserve in Caloto (Cauca, north of Popayan - a coca growing region) assassinated in southwest Colombia in one week.
  - Colombia Reports, 08 December 2018

• In North of Nariño the a group coordinated by 'Gentil Duarte' grows - the Estiven González front (FEG), a self-proclaimed dissident group of the Farc
  - La Silla Vacia, 03 December 2018

• Armed men attack indigenous reserve in Ricaurte, Nariño (southwest Colombia) - two leaders are killed and four injured - where several illegal armed groups are vying for control over territory, farms growing coca, and drug trafficking routes
  - Colombia Reports, 03 December 2018

• Farmers in the Amazon of Peru are abandoning the coca leaf in favor of cocoa, as anti-drug efforts take effect - Peruvian cocoa production will increase to a record 155,800 metric tons in 2018-2019, almost double of production five years ago, according to Fitch Solutions - according to the research firm, more than 25,000 families that now cover more than 49,000 hectares of crops, including cocoa and coffee, abandoned the illegal coca harvest last year, and this year, more than 20,000 hectares of coca have been eradicated
  - Agraria.pe, 29 November 2018

• Colombia tries to help farmers exit the cocaine business - and is failing to do so.
  - NPR, 24 November 2018

• From coca leaves to cocoa: three lessons from Peru on how coca farmers can leave the drug trade behind.
  - European Sting, 22 November 2018

• Beset with problems, Colombia's new president, Ivan Duque, shows little sense of direction
  - Economist, 22 November 2018

• The coca leaf growers assocation of Antioquia (Colombia) denounces the incomplete promises of the government of Colombia - at least 2,400 families from Cáceres, Tarazá and the south of Córdoba, who are part of the illicit crop substitution program, there are delays in the bi-monthly payment of US $650 that the National Government has to pay them, but, according to the complaints, the disbursement has not been made for at least four months
  - Blu Radio, 20 November 2018

• Travel to the depths of the world of coca in Cauca, Colombia
  - La Silla Vacia, 18 November 2018

• The Colombia Minister of Defense, Guillermo Botero, announces that without drones, without aerial fumigations, without glyphosate, but only with manual labor, that the government, in the next 4 years, is going to eradicate 210,000 hectares of coca plants across the country
  - El Tiempo, 17 November 2018

• Security, dissidents, ELN, crop substitution and social protest are some of the issues that continue to generate uncertainty in regions of the country at the 100th anniversary of the mandate of President Iván Duque de Colombia
  - El Espectador, 16 November 2018

• The first civil eradicator of coca leaves, Libardo Itaz Cruz dies after triggering an anti-personnell mine in Tumaco, Colombia
  - El Tiempo, 16 November 2018

• Néstor Humberto Martínez, Attorney General of Colombia vowing to get tougher on coca and marijuana farming, in newly released audio files, is shown to have known of bribes made by Odebrecht in Colombia - at the time, Martínez was legal advisor to Colombia's richest man, Luis Carlos Sarmiento, who was partnering with Odebrecht for construction contracts for the corruption-riden Ruta del Sol II project
  - Colombia Reports, 14 November 2018

• The Attorney General, Néstor Humberto Martínez, was formally denounced on Wednesday before the Accusation Committee of the Colombia House of Representatives after his voice appeared in audios that shook the case of bribes paid by Odebrecht in Colombia
  - El Tiempo, 14 November 2018

• One of the first decisions of the new national government of Colombia was to free, at 97,000 families, the number of families that are taking part in a voluntary substitution program for illegal cultivations such as coca and marijuana
  - El Tiempo, 14 November 2018

• Some 6,500 former guerrillas of the FARC have abandoned their reintegration camps and approximately 2,000 have rearmed, due to chronic failures by the government to facilitate the peace process, the mass killing of social leaders and growing fears of violent retaliation among demobilized members of the FARC
  - Colombia Reports, 14 November 2018

• 600 more lawsuits, now up to 9,300 lawsuit, are filed against Bayer over its subsidiary, Monsanto, sales of the cancer-causing pesticide, glyphosate - the main ingredient in Roundup weedkiller (glyphosate used in South America to eradicate coca plants)
  - Wall Street Journal, 14 November 2018

• The best return on investments (campaign donations for government contracts) when buying politicians in Colombia, led by Antioquia province
  - Colombia Reports, 12 November 2018

• How misguided American drug policies aggravate the growing chaos and crime in Central America
  - Wall Street Journal, 11 November 2018

• Glyphosate, the herbicide most applied in Bolivia, used primarily at soy bean plantations - but various countries have prohibited its use, such as Sri Lanka and Italy, and Germany will eliminate the use of glyphosate for its farming.
  - El Diario, 11 November 2018

• The future of coffee in Colombia is to seek a sustainable society and economy [the same for coca].
  - Portafolio, 10 November 2018

• The government of Colombia will restart fumigation of coca and marijuana with drones, planes and pesticide trucks, using glyphosate
  - El Tiempo, 10 November 2018

• The production of cacao in Colombia in the 2017/2018 farming season dropped by 14.5% - among the reasons to explain the drop are heavy rains that affected the principal growing regions
  - La Republica, 10 November 2018

• Benjamin Ramos is murdered in the Phillipines, a lawyer who helped poor clients whose families have been targeted by the police, soldiers and death squads associated with the drug war of President Rodrigo Duterte
  - New York Times, 08 November 2018

• The Bolivian government rejects estimations made by the United States about Bolivia's cultivation of coca leaf and production of cocaine
  - El Deber, 07 November 2018

• The Bolivian government rejects estimations made by the United States about Bolivia's cultivation of coca leaf and production of cocaine
  - La Razon, 07 November 2018

• Colombia's defense minister, Guillermo Botero, said the proposal to remove electric power supplies in areas where there are laboratories for processing illicit crops (coca and marijuana) is under study
  - El Espectador, 05 November 2018

• Coca farmers in Catatumbo, Colombia are threatened - the coca farmers are requesting the government to extend coverage of the illegal crop substitution program to their community
  - Caracol Radio, 04 November 2018

• The Attorney General of Colombia, Néstor Humberto Martínez, presented a new strategy to attack the value chains and production of drug trafficking - among the proposed strategies is to attack the fuel distribution networks, change the componenets of gasoline, and decrease the supply of electric power in the municipalities hit by this phenomenon
  - La Republica, 03 November 2018

• Coca leaf farming rises by 5,000 hectares in Peru between 2016 and 2017.
  - Peru Reports, 03 November 2018

• Gulupa, a fruit related to maracuya, is a legal alternative to coca plantations in Colombia
  - Fresh Plaza, 02 November 2018

• The consumption and availability of cocaine in the United States continued to grow between 2016 and 2017, probably as a consequence of the expansion of illicit coca crops and the production of cocaine in Colombia
  - El Tiempo, 02 November 2018

• The Supreme Court of Mexico issues a ruling allowing for the recreational use of marijuana, a decision that will allow the cultivation and consumption of the plant for recreational purposes to any citizen who requests a permit from the federal government
  - Pagina Siete, 02 November 2018

• In a letter to President Iván Duque of Colombia, the Attorney General, Néstor Humberto Martínez, made an unusual proposal to combat drug trafficking and reduce cocaine production - he proposes to take electrical energy away from areas where there are laboratories and production facilities
  - El Tiempo, 02 November 2018

• In a letter to President Iván Duque of Colombia, the Attorney General, Néstor Humberto Martínez, made an unusual proposal to combat drug trafficking and reduce cocaine production - he proposes to take electrical energy away from areas where there are laboratories and production facilities
  - Colombia Reports, 02 November 2018

• 273 coca farmers in Colombia sue the government for spraying glyphosate to destroy coca plants used to make cocaine
  - UPI, 01 November 2018

• Drug cartels test Central America for coca farming, with small plantings found in Guatemala and Honduras
  - Reuters, 01 November 2018

• The government of Colombia has 273 lawsuits against it for fumigation of coca plants with glyphosate - the Ministry of Defense has already had to pay 18 billion pesos (about US $6 million) to those affected by fumigations.
  - El Tiempo, 01 November 2018

• Drug traffickers are trying to grow coca leaf in Central America, with trial fields found in Guatemala (1 hectare) and Honduras (5 hectares).
  - Reuters, 01 November 2018

• In the midst of all the delays of the National Program for the Replacement of Crops for Illicit Use (PNIS), along with the annoyance of the coca growers who warn of going to unemployment and the threat of the Government of aerial fumigation, is another ingredient adding to the struggle of eradicating coca : 13,000 of the 97,000 families cultivating coca, with which the Santos Government signed individual agreements, are suspended from the PNIS effort.
  - La Silla Vacia, 01 November 2018

• Glufosinate ammonium (phosphinothricin) is the molecule that could replace glyphosate in aerial spraying in activities of forced eradication of coca in Colombia.
  - El Tiempo, 31 October 2018

• The national government of Colombia announced the policy to comply with the Peace Agreement - among the difficult situations to implement peace is that of the National Comprehensive Program for the Replacement of Illicit Crops (PNIS)
  - La Silla Vacia, 29 October 2018

• The Colombian Minister of Defense, Guillermo Botero, confirmed the death of a police officer, Naren Daryan Mora Rivera, who activated an anti-personnel mine during a forced eradication operation of illegal cultivations of coca plants in Tumaco, Nariño, and he insisted on the importance of using aerial fumigation to avoid risking the lives of the Colombian police.
  - El Tiempo, 28 October 2018

• After the finding of the dead body of the community leader María Caicedo, kidnapped by armed men on October 20 in Algeria, Cauca, the authorities try to blame the crime was due to real estate ligitation, while coca growing collectives say it is part of an attack on their leaders
  - El Tiempo, 28 October 2018

• Colombia's war crimes tribunal, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP in Spanish), rules that FARC leader "Jesus Santrich" has been falsely charged with drug trafficking with no evidence provided by Colombian prosecutors nor by the U.S. DEA, and until evidence is provided, Santrich should not be extradited to the U.S.
  - Colombia Reports, 29 October 2018

• President Ivan Duque plans to send 5,000 soldiers to the northeast of Colombia, the Catatumbo region that is the country's second most important coca growing region, despite local leaders begging the president not to militarize the region, which has failed in the past to fight crimes
  - Colombia Reports, 29 October 2018

• Did a DEA hoax devastate Colombia's peace process, when the DEA fabricated charges of drug trafficking against a former FARC guerrilla leader, Jesus Santrich, who was then arrested - in part because the DEA opposes efforts to help coca farmers grow alternative crops?
  - El Espectador, 27 October 2018

• Did a DEA hoax devastate Colombia's peace process, when the DEA fabricated charges of drug trafficking against a former FARC guerrilla leader, Jesus Santrich, who was then arrested - in part because the DEA opposes efforts to help coca farmers grow alternative crops?
  - Colombia Reports, 27 October 2018

• Nariño, a department of Colombia, at the crossroads of illicit crops - communities and authorities are discussing what are the sustainable alternatives to coca crops.
  - El Espectador, 27 October 2018

• President Evo Morales accused the deputy of the opposition Democratic Unity (UD) Wilson Santamaría of receiving at least Bs 1,000 from the Departmental Association of Coca Producers of La Paz (Adepcoca) to present the appeal of unconstitutionality against the new Law of the Coca.
  - La Razon, 27 October 2018

• President Evo Morales criticizes the coca farmers of Los Yungas who want to modify the new Coca Law.
  - Los Tiempos, 26 October 2018

• In Tumaco, Colombia, "the settlers are eradicated and the Indians remain" - "We are 'swimming' in coca, one can not