Coca, the Andean plant from which cocaine is derived, has been used by indigenous populations in South America for millennia. Coca eradication was first proposed by Spanish missionaries who viewed indigenous use as an obstacle in their efforts to convert the native population to Catholicism. The imposition of Spanish cultural norms conflicted with capitalist interests: coca was widely used in colonial gold and silver mines as a means of energizing malnourished workers. Foreseeing grave financial consequences for Spain if mining operations were interrupted, King Phillip II decreed in 1569 that coca usage as a stimulant would be permitted. Despite the Spanish Crown’s sanction, colonial prohibitionists continued to warn of coca’s threat to Christianity and use in neo-Inca rites as a religious sacrament.

International controls for the coca plant were first proposed in 1912, fifty-three years after German researcher Albert Nieman discovered cocaine. Coca prohibition was proposed not in response to problematic use, but rather as a stalling tactic. In an effort to prolong a lucrative trade in opium at a time when the U.S. and China were demanding international controls, Britain adamantly refused to participate in follow up meetings to Shanghai’s 1909 international opium conference until the scope of the agenda was modified to include cocaine and morphine. Compiling detailed statistics on cocaine and morphine took time, which allowed the British merchants to continue to reap profits from the opium trade. When stalled opium convention finally did take place in 1912, Germany, the leading manufacturer of cocaine at the time, attempted (unsuccessfully) to keep coca out of international drug conventions.

Subsequent to its initial introduction to international drug conventions by Britain, the United States took the lead in advocating and funding coca eradication. In recent years, U.S. financed coca eradication has had a devastating impact on the environment in Latin America. U.S. sponsored eradication programs in Colombia have led to the clearing of over 1.75 million acres of Amazon rainforest. Aerial herbicide spraying, a key part of the U.S. funded Plan Colombia, is increasing the rate of rainforest destruction in South America. In an effort to eradicate the coca crops used to make cocaine, toxic herbicides are sprayed from above, hitting water supplies, staple crops and people. The fumigation campaign drives peasants deeper into the Amazon basin, which in turn leads to more rainforest deforestation.

Since the aerial fumigation campaign began, there have been thousands of reports of serious health problems, destruction of food crops and livestock, contamination of surface water, damage to surrounding wilderness areas, and deforestation resulting from the need of peasants to clear forests and plant food crops on uncontaminated lands. Lack of infrastructure makes it difficult for peasants to bring legal crops to market. Because the illicit drug trade is so profitable, traffickers will meet farmers at the source of coca cultivation. As impoverished peasants move deeper into the Amazon basin, they become more dependent on coca as a cash crop.