You can also make a traditional tea before you go out and solve the world's problems in a bathroom at 4am.
Since 2010, Bolivia's government has been able to reduce the production of coca fields in the country
by about 30 percent. This is according to United Nations data:
The data, presented in the form of satellite images and imaging studies, were published last week in a report which was jointly presented by Antonio De Leo, representative of the UN Office Against Drug and Crime, and the Bolivian president, Evo Morales.
[...]
During his speech, Morales stressed that the progress against drug trafficking was possible after the 2008 expulsion of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) — accused of conspiracy and espionage — together with a significant national effort. The head of state also celebrated that drug trafficking no longer has a significant weight in the economy of the Andean country, now corresponding to less than 1% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
This is not to say that the DEA was creating coca production, but the DEA in most countries, not unlike our own, does not really seem to be interested in winning a drug war versus controlling people under the guise of a drug war. Communities, or in this case a country, can have as good if not better results when they're working on
handling it themselves.
"Bolivia has adopted a policy based on dialogue, where coca cultivation is allowed in traditional areas alongside alternative development [in others]," Antonino de Leo, UNODC's representative in Bolivia, told VICE News.
De Leo said Bolivia had largely succeeded in applying an "innovative approach" that involves the unionization of coca growers, and respect for human rights, along with forced eradication in non-permitted areas.
The pluses to this innovative method is that it takes away the financial incentive to grow coca. But Bolivia still has many of the same draconian drug laws in place from before the DEA left the country.
"There are still disproportionately high sentences, for example the maximum sentence for drug trafficking is 25 years, that's the same sentence as a murder," she said. "The law does not include alternatives for non-violent drug crimes, it does not include alternatives for low income people that are producing. These are people that aren't crucial to the drug trade, but they end up as mules or small producers, and then end up in jail."