Coca leaves on a table at a coca growers' meeting.

The coca plant is native to the Andes.

Coca is a native plant to the Andes.

Most illicit coca growers are extremely poor.

Good progress has also been made in eliminating coca bush cultivation.

However, coca leaves are also the raw material for the production of cocaine.

This was in part due to the reduction of coca bush cultivation in Colombia.

Destroying coca plants in the lush mountains in Medellin, Colombia.

Demonstrations and public acts, led by both coca growers and traders, took place on Monday, March 12, 2012, in many cities in Bolivia demanding the international depenalisation of the coca leaf.

Washington believes anti drug policies will fail, to the benefit of drug dealers, if coca growers continue to identify themselves with nationalists who vindicate the leaf s production.

What Warhol said about Coke is, he said, What I really like about Coca Cola is the president of the United States can't get a better Coke than the bum on the corner of the street.

Popular tradition, particularly in the Western part of Bolivia, considers coca a sacred leaf.

UNODC also continued to produce, together with concerned Governments, nationwide annual surveys on coca crops.

In 2009 alone, the government eradicated more than 165,000 hectares of coca.

Cocaine production has followed the same trend as coca leaf cultivation, pointing to a slight increase.

Evo Morales, the leader of the opposition and of the coca leaf growers, may be an honest, if misguided, democratic leader, but are his followers untainted by authoritarian desires?

Local media informed that 40 thousand people were due to join coca chewing day .

Reference was made to the annual surveys conducted by UNODC of opium poppy and coca bush cultivation.

Drug abuse trends in the region indicate that cocaine, coca paste and crack cocaine abuse is increasing.

In 2003, coca bush cultivation was less than half of its level in 1994. With regard to cannabis cultivation, further efforts by the international community are urgently needed.

Crop eradication will not work over the long term if there is no legal economy to replace drugs.

In spite of this, the report also underlines that in the same period coca bush cultivation and cocaine production has increased in Bolivia and Peru.

Coca cultivation has been slashed by a quarter in the past five years, and seizures of cocaine have almost doubled.

Such programmes or plans covered cannabis in 32 States, opium poppy in 19 and coca bush in 7.

Coca grower organizations are openly supporting the road as it may provide opportunities to expand production into the TIPNIS National Park.

It was noted that, in the Andean countries, alternative development had not kept pace with the sustained decline in coca bush cultivation due to insufficient financial resources.

On the supply side, there must be more support for poor farmers in drug producing countries to give them viable alternatives to growing coca.

Coca farmers and producers slash and burn forests, polluting streams with toxic chemicals and damaging fragile ecosystems.

A large number of indigenous organizations and citizens acknowledge that Evo Morales an indigenous and coca grower's leader himself has improved their situation.

Coca cultivation in the Andean region steadily decreased, from 221,000 hectares in 2000 to 153,800 hectares in 2003.

In Colombia, coca leaf cultivation has decreased continuously as a result of a rigorous eradication programme coupled with the government led forest warden programme.

UNODC continued to focus assistance on providing sustainable livelihood schemes to former coca leaf and opium poppy growers in the Andean region.

Morales was born into a peasant household on the Andean altiplano and later established himself in Chapare at the beginning of the coca boom.

President Evo Morales s rise to power was inspired by historic discrimination against the indigenous majority, with the coca leaf as an emblem of an ancestral grudge.

Bolivia s Evo Morales rose to prominence as leader of the country s coca growers during a brutal campaign to wipe out their crops, the so called Dignity Plan.

In spite of its nutrients and the traditional consumption, coca leaves are also the raw material for cocaine production, a fact that the Bolivian government acknowledges and pledges to deal with.

Despite that complication, the Government had managed to substantially reduce the number of hectares devoted to coca farming and had introduced a programme to provide the affected families with alternative crop projects.

Alternative development and illicit crop eradication monitoring and evaluation, 1998 2000, 2000 2002 and 2002 2004

One indirect, yet tragic, result has been Bolivian, Peruvian, and Colombian peasants continuing cultivation of coca leaves as a means of economic survival.

Several speakers referred to the sustained reduction of the illicit cultivation of coca bush and opium poppy in the Andean subregion and in South East Asia.

Several speakers referred to the sustained reduction of the illicit cultivation of coca bush and opium poppy in the Andean subregion and in South East Asia.

The World Drug Report 2004 provided encouraging news in some respects for example, coca bush cultivation and cocaine manufacture had fallen steadily since 1999 2000.

Coca Cola. A bunch of you may be a load of pinkos, and you may not like the Coca Cola company, but it's worth remembering Andy Warhol's point about Coke.

You put the stick in the powder to take the sacred ashes well, they're not ashes, they're burnt limestone to empower the coca leaf, to change the pH of the mouth to facilitate the absorption of cocaine hydrochloride.

In its most recent report on the global trade in illegal drugs, the US State Department stressed the increase in coca leaf crops in Peru and Bolivia last year.