In a US White House media brief in September 2021, it was stated that 'The United States is committed to working together with the countries of the Western Hemisphere as neighbors and partners to meet our shared challenges of drug trafficking and use. My Administration will seek to expand cooperation with key partners, such as Mexico and Colombia, to shape a collective and comprehensive response and expand efforts to address the production and trafficking of dangerous synthetic drugs that are responsible for many of our overdose deaths, particularly fentanyl, fentanyl analogues, and methamphetamine. In Mexico, we must continue to work together to intensify efforts to dismantle transnational criminal organizations and their networks, increase prosecutions of criminal leaders and facilitators, and strengthen efforts to seize illicit assets. In Bolivia, I encourage the government to take additional steps to safeguard the country’s licit coca markets from criminal exploitation and reduce illicit coca cultivation that continues to exceed legal limits under Bolivia’s domestic laws for medicinal and traditional use. In addition, the United States will look to expand cooperation with China, India, and other chemical source countries in order to disrupt the global flow of synthetic drugs and their precursor chemicals.'
This statement was made by a country that is the world's largest market for cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine and the country most responsible for global cannabis prohibition today. When the obvious approach to reduce cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine trafficking and use is to legalize cannabis so that it is available to the people in place of these dangerous drugs that thrive in its absence, the US makes regular statements of this nature to portray itself as a victim of the global drug crisis that it was largely responsible for creating.
The apparent concern to protect Bolivia's legal cultivation of coca appears to stem from the fact that the elites of the US love cocaine and will do all they can to obtain it from legal sources in Bolivia or illegal sources in Colombia and Mexico. US President Joe Biden's real concern about the global drug menace from opioids, cocaine and methamphetamine can be gauged from the fact that he has pardoned his cocaine associated son Hunter facing felony charges while ignoring the hundreds of thousands of cannabis users who are imprisoned or face trial for using a herb that has been completely legalized in 24 states, legalized for medical use in 38 states, and enjoys overwhelming support for legalization among the American public. Successive US governments have stalled all efforts to legalize cannabis federally and do all they can to ensure that it is not legalized in South American nations like Bolivia. Bolivia is another of the South American countries that the US has used to outsource the production of the drugs of choice of the American elites - heroin and cocaine. It appears that in countries like Colombia and Mexico, the US works with the drug cartels to ensure production and supply of these drugs, while in Bolivia the US works with the Bolivian government itself.
Bolivia has a history of being subservient to the mining, petrochemical and synthetic drug industries that have made the elites of both Bolivia and the US rich and the working classes and indigenous communities of Bolivia even more poor. The revolutionary Che Guevara focused some of his attention on trying to liberate the people of Bolivia from the elites who worked hand in hand with the US. Even as Uruguay - the first nation in the world to legalize cannabis for adult use in 2014 since its global prohibition - took the bold step, almost all other South American countries continue to operate under the influence of the US.
For Bolivia to work as a free and independent nation, it must legalize cannabis for all purposes so that it is available to the people who need it the most - the poorest classes, the indigenous communities and the working classes. Legalized cannabis for all purposes can enable Bolivia to reach economic sustainability, provide universal health care, fight the menace of legal and illegal synthetic pharmaceutical medicines, besides creating a number of cannabis-related industries that heal the nation and combat environmental destruction. If sufficient cannabis is produced in Bolivia, it can meet the local needs of the people as well as be available for export to nations like the US and other countries that cannot grow sufficient cannabis to meet their needs. Instead of being an outsourcing destination for the US' cocaine needs, it is much better for Bolivia to be an independent nation using cannabis as its basis for economic growth and independence. Countries like Brazil and Argentina are starting to show signs of moving towards cannabis legalization. Mexico's Supreme Court ruled a few years ago that cannabis prohibition violates an individual's fundamental rights. All these South American nations are blocked in their progress to economic development through cannabis legalization by the US, working hand in hand with local politicians to ensure that the supply of heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine to the ruling upper classes in the US and these South American nations remains unaffected. The fact that a decade has passed since Uruguay legalized cannabis for adult use and no other South American nation has followed shows the extent of control the US exercises over the South American nations even today.
The Bolivian flag bears the three colors of cannabis - red, gold and green - but its governments appear to be more inclined to the white color of powdered cocaine that fuels American efforts to keep cannabis prohibited globally in order to ensure the supremacy of the ruling and elite classes of every nation. The resulting destruction of the planet and suffering of the inhabitants of this earth are not matters that concern these entities too much...
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'The United States is committed to working together with the countries of the Western Hemisphere as neighbors and partners to meet our shared challenges of drug trafficking and use. My Administration will seek to expand cooperation with key partners, such as Mexico and Colombia, to shape a collective and comprehensive response and expand efforts to address the production and trafficking of dangerous synthetic drugs that are responsible for many of our overdose deaths, particularly fentanyl, fentanyl analogues, and methamphetamine. In Mexico, we must continue to work together to intensify efforts to dismantle transnational criminal organizations and their networks, increase prosecutions of criminal leaders and facilitators, and strengthen efforts to seize illicit assets. In Bolivia, I encourage the government to take additional steps to safeguard the country’s licit coca markets from criminal exploitation and reduce illicit coca cultivation that continues to exceed legal limits under Bolivia’s domestic laws for medicinal and traditional use. In addition, the United States will look to expand cooperation with China, India, and other chemical source countries in order to disrupt the global flow of synthetic drugs and their precursor chemicals. '
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