Photo by Fritz Pinnow

Dear John,

Illicit coca cultivation, long concentrated in South America’s Andean region, is now taking root in Central America as well. The emerging evidence of coca growing and illicit cocaine production in some parts of Central America raises critical questions about the effectiveness of traditional drug enforcement policies and underscores the need for new strategies that address the root causes of such developments.

This week Ohio State University professor Kendra McSweeney and a team of researchers published an article on Central America’s suitability for expanded coca cultivation. In tandem with this new research, we recorded a podcast featuring Kendra and Fritz Pinnow, a Honduras-based journalist and documentary photographer. We were also fortunate to host Kendra in Washington, where we organized discussions with civil society and with U.S. officials to focus on coca’s new foothold in Central America and the policy implications.

We also invite you to explore our Coca Chronicles, a series of commentaries that WOLA is producing with our partners at the Transnational Institute to monitor the critical review of the coca leaf now underway at the the World Health Organization (WHO). The review could lead to a historic reclassification of the coca leaf under UN drug control treaties—an essential step toward the decades-old mistake of imposing a ban on traditional uses of coca, , vindicating the rights of Indigenous peoples, and sharing the benefits of the coca leaf more widely.

This and more in WOLA Weekly.

John Walsh

Director for Drug Policy

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