Cocalero Clásico - South American Herbal Spirit Made with 17 Exceptional Botanicals, 700ml

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Existing research finds that electorally secure governments in new democracies are more likely to escalate repression in response to social resistance. Footnote 64 Following the crisis-plagued presidency of leftist Hernán Siles Zuazo (1982–5), the Bolivian Left was in electoral decline, leaving the Right to dominate national politics throughout the 1990s and escalate repression against Chapare growers. Footnote 65 The Chapare coca struggles peaked in 1998 with the initiation of Plan Dignidad (Dignity Plan), a militarised eradication campaign that reduced Chapare coca from 31,500 to 6,000 hectares, and caused the death of 25 cocaleros and left hundreds more injured or detained. Footnote 66 During this period, Morales, president of the Six Federations, led a successful grassroots resistance against repressive drug policies. In 1994, the Six Federations allied with other sectors that led to the creation of the MAS in 1998 as a mass movement and party. Footnote 67

Corz, Carlos (11 September 2020). "El dirigente cocalero Leonardo Loza reemplaza a Evo Morales en la candidatura a senador"[ Cocalero Leader Leonardo Loza Replaces Evo Morales as a Senatorial Candidate]. La Razón (in Spanish). La Paz. Archived from the original on 12 April 2021 . Retrieved 30 August 2022. Publicación de Resultados Nacionales: Elecciones Generales 2019" (PDF). www.oep.org.bo (in Spanish). Plurinational Electoral Organ. 2019. pp.11, 20. Archived (PDF) from the original on 24 May 2020 . Retrieved 2 June 2022. Cocalero Clásico is a premium botanical spirit inspired by South American flavors and culture ( cocaleros are the coca leaf growers of Peru and Bolivia). Distilled in Dublin, Ireland of all places, the proprietary recipe of 17 natural botanicals is apparently very popular in Asia and catching on here. Juniper, Ginger, Guarana, and Green Tea are among Cocalero Clásico’s unique blend of botanicals. The biometric registry increased forced eradication and social unrest in La Paz. In fact, the Yungas experienced the highest number of reported resistance events related to coca eradication between 2006 and 2016 (see Figure 4). Supported by ADEPCOCA, most eradication occurred outside the traditional ‘coca belt’. Footnote 119 Some of the most intense eradication took place in the municipality of La Asunta, a non-traditional coca community impacted by eradication and related social unrest as early as 2008. One MAS deputy in Congress, echoing a bygone era, proclaimed that La Asunta growers were ‘obligated by international treaty’ to eradicate. Footnote 120 In response, La Asunta growers initiated a march to La Paz in April of 2008 and threatened other forms of resistance. They argued that their coca supplied the legal market (in contrast to Chapare) and criticised the Morales government for favouring Chapare farmers who have the same legal status under Law 1008 as non-traditional cocaleros of the Yungas. Footnote 121 This article analyses the efforts of President Morales (2006–19) in implementing the world's first supply-side harm-reduction drug policy focused on supporting legal coca farmers while sanctioning illicit coca cultivation. Morales’ efforts were constrained by previous US-supported policy that divided Bolivian coca farmers, creating divergent interests with respect to reform. In line with US pressures, in 1988 Bolivia adopted the Law of Coca and Controlled Substances (Law 1008), which closely mirrored a similar US-promoted law in Peru. Footnote 5 Law 1008 distinguished traditional coca cultivation zones from non-traditional zones; targeting the latter with militarised eradication that caused violence and social unrest. Footnote 6 Responding to this social discontent, President Morales, a coca farmer, adopted the ‘Coca Yes, Cocaine No’ (CYCN) drug programme, an innovative harm-reduction approach that distinguished coca from cocaine and expanded legal production and community control. However, the new CYCN programme coexisted with Law 1008 for over a decade.Crisis en Bolivia: La presidenta interina Jeanine Áñez promulga la ley para convocar nuevas elecciones sin Evo Morales como candidato"[Crisis in Bolivia: Interim President Jeanine Áñez Enacts Law Calling New Elections Without Evo Morales as a Candidate]. BBC Mundo (in Spanish). London. 24 November 2019. Archived from the original on 5 February 2022 . Retrieved 5 February 2022. To account for CYCN as a major deviation from US interests and prevailing policy outcomes in Latin America, previous studies stress the political capacity of Bolivia's coca growers’ movement. Footnote 21 In particular, the cocalero unions in the non-traditional coca region of Chapare played a pivotal role in propelling their leader, Morales, to national power. Footnote 22 In contrast, weaker cocalero organisations in Colombia and Peru are linked to persistent punitive policies and more violent repression. Footnote 23 These studies of cocalero organisations, combined with claims that grassroots organisations largely lost influence after MAS formed a government, Footnote 24 directly inform the questions and arguments that frame this study. Given the significance of the Chapare cocalero unions to Morales’ electoral success, how did coca growers’ unions shape the implementation of CYCN while Morales was in office? Moreover, how was the experience of CYCN different for Chapare unions, criminalised under previous law, compared to organisations representing traditional growers? Indeed, CYCN defied both the United States and prevailing top-down academic theories of US−Latin American relations. Moreover, cross-national analyses highlight Bolivia as the only Latin American country to significantly depart from the punitive paradigm and thus exclude the United States from national drug-policy decisions. Footnote 18 In 2008, Morales expelled the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) from Bolivia and allowed all United States International Agency for Development (USAID) programmes to lapse from 2009 to 2013. Footnote 19 The United States penalised Bolivia for these actions by decertifying it for over a decade, but this did not derail Bolivia's reform agenda. Footnote 20 In contrast, the Chapare federations’ proposed law called for a legal limit of 20,000 hectares of coca, which included 7,000 hectares gained under the Cato Accord for Chapare and 13,000 hectares of legal coca for the Yungas of La Paz and Vandiola. Footnote 138 Additionally, the Chapare law proposition recognised all cocaleros as originarios with the same legal status. Footnote 139 Importantly, the Six Federations conditioned their electoral support for MAS on the expansion of legal coca, a strategy that assured the approval of additional hectares, while also providing further evidence of the power cocalero organisations had to shape national policy. Footnote 140

The subnational perspective guiding this research departs from conventional approaches in drug-policy research that view coca-growing regions as homogeneous at either the national or regional level. Such approaches primarily focus on US influence Footnote 12 and cross-national policy comparisons, Footnote 13 but pay less attention to local variation. Studies of the US influence on drug policies in Latin America tend to cluster in two groups. One group highlights how the US-led ‘War on Drugs’ harms development, while the other group uses cross-national research to underscore the novelty of Bolivia's rejection of US policies compared to Peru and Colombia, the other major coca/cocaine producers. This article draws on these perspectives to focus on how US influence shaped early drug policy in Bolivia, which later prompted distinct reactions from traditional and non-traditional cocaleros to CYCN reforms. Evo aparece como primer senador del MAS en Cochabamba; Andrónico es tercero"[Evo Is Nominated for First Senator of the MAS in Cochabamba; Andrónico Is Third]. Los Tiempos (in Spanish). Cochabamba. 3 February 2020. Archived from the original on 27 February 2020 . Retrieved 30 August 2022. Cocaleros are South American coca leaf farmers, and it may surprise you to know that Cocalero Clasico is not the first liqueur to be bottled in their honor. That distinction falls to Agwa de Bolivia, which appears to still be on the market.

Aré Vásquez, Tuffí (2 June 2019). "¿Quién es el cocalero de 29 años que prepara Evo Morales para su sucesión?"[Who Is the 29-Year-Old Cocalero Evo Morales Is Preparing for His Succession?]. Infobae (in Spanish). Buenos Aires. Archived from the original on 2 June 2019 . Retrieved 29 August 2022. ... desde su elección, en septiembre de 2018, [Rodríguez] casi siempre [aparece] al costado derecho o izquierdo de Evo Morales ... el joven personaje ya es el hombre de mayor confianza del Presidente en su mayor bastión.

The Six Federations’ support for CYCN and local enforcement capacity was vital to the success of CYCN precisely because farmers in transitional zones faced strong incentives to defy the cato limit. Indeed, the Cato Accord ended the wholesale criminalisation of the area's coca farmers but a cato alone did not yield sufficient income for many households. Footnote 74 While recognising coca control as a public good that benefited the community, individual coca farmers preferred for others to bear the economic risk of reduced production. Footnote 75 Hence, between 2006 and 2009, widespread violations of the cato limit threatened to delegitimise CYCN as a coca-control strategy, and Morales’ early efforts to eradicate excess coca in Chapare spurred resistance. Footnote 76 For Morales, the dilemma in Chapare was compelling compliance without repression, thereby appeasing both the international community and his core constituency. To accomplish this, Morales harnessed the Chapare unions’ authority and political unity behind the MAS to implement a policy of ‘social control’, a community-based plan for enforcing the limit in the Cato Accord with minimal repression, in exchange for government-supported development projects. Since we introduced Cocalero Clásico in Georgia last summer, we’ve received an incredible response from bartenders and retailers who have really embraced the product,” remarked John Ralph, CEO of Intrepid Spirits. “Cocalero is unlike anything else on the market, and we’re confidently poised to replicate the success we’ve had in Atlanta in multiple other cities across the country over the next 12 months.” As I immediately confirmed, the coca leaf involved in the production of Cocalero contributes no psychoactive character, being extracted by “a specialised steam distillation process pioneered by the perfume industry.” The drink’s PR people slyly say that “we source our coca leaf from a legal source (which also supplies a very well-known soft drink brand!) and needless to say it therefore has no narcotic effect.” The implication is obviously that Cocalero is making use of some of the same processes as Coca-Cola itself, although they’re probably barred from using that brand’s name in their marketing.

Before Morales spoke in Chimoré, Justina Choque, 37, had fought her way to the front of the throng. She beamed in anticipation under a wide-brimmed hat.