The political economy of a failed drug reform: Insights from Peru's main legal coca valley.

Romain Busnel, Hernán Manrique López

The International journal on drug policy 2023 Jul

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As the world's second largest coca producer, Peru has a flourishing market for coca for non-narcotic uses. With more than 20,000 hectares and approximately 35,000 officially registered farmers in the Peruvian legal scheme for coca cultivation and commercialization, this market is formally under the monopoly of the National Enterprise of Coca (ENACO). Nonetheless, ENACO only captures 2% of all coca produced nationally and has experienced a sustained reduction of farmers' participation and coca purchases within the legal trade. At different times, these problems have opened the way to demands from left-wing political parties, subnational governments, coca growers' organizations and even Peru's central drug control institutions to reform the legal coca market in Peru. However, none of these attempts have succeeded. Based on a policy analysis of the legal coca trade and analysis of official data, together with a case study of Peru's main legal coca valley (La Convención) this article seeks to understand the current crisis of the legal coca trade as well as the repeated failures of reform. Peru's political centralism and the historical marginalization of Andean culture help to explain the successful blocking of reform attempts to the legal coca trade. Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Citation

Romain Busnel, Hernán Manrique López. The political economy of a failed drug reform: Insights from Peru's main legal coca valley. The International journal on drug policy. 2023 Jul;117:104050