Mike's Bogota Blog

Sweaty coca erradicators reduce the supply of the leaf  - and raise its market value. How to convince farmers to give up coca leaf f...

Working a coca leaf plantation in Colombia. El Tiempo has reported the controversy over a proposed law to reduce the penalty for ha...

A bus burns in Tumaco, where police have clashed with campesinos resisting coca leaf erradication. (Photo: El Pais ) It's not di...

Coca plants being eradicated in Colombia, near the Ecuadorian border. For years, Colombia was the model anti-drug fighter for the Wa...

Yankee go home! Out with Trump/Pence! United States Vice President Mike Pence visited Bogotá yesterday, causing little polemic - pr...

Erradicating Colombian coca bushes. Less supply increases prices, triggering more plantations elsewhere. During the Santos-Trump mee...

FARC leader Timochenko, accused by the U.S. and Colombia of  'controlling the production, manufacture, and distribution of hundred...

' Lost fight against drugs ,' headlines Semana magazine. The news that Colombia's coca leaf acreage leapt 52% in 2014 m...

A cure for migraines, diabetes, insomnia? In La Candelaria, a sign on a stand selling coca leaf products boasts of their supposed hea...

A graphic from El Tiempo portrays the recent jump in coca leaf acreage in Colombia.  The reports that coca leaf acreage in Colombi...

Glyphosate being sprayed over Colombia. (Photo; Wikipedia) A World Health Organization panel recently labeled glyphosate, the main ...

A soldier chops down coca bushes in Colombia? Peru? Bolivia? Actually, it's southern Mexico. ( Revista Punto de Vista ) Soldi...

From anti-government fighters to anti-drug fighters? FARC guerrillas on the march. (Photo: Wikipedia ) In a landmark advance yester...

Juan and a cabinet of coca leaf products. Coca leaf products - the legal kind - seem to be proliferating in La Candelaria. I'm n...

Discussing coca leaves' properties in the San Alejo Sunday flea market.  As part of the negotiations beginning between the gove...