Mac Margolis, Columnist

Bolivia's Hollow Victory in the War on Drugs

Less coca does not mean less cocaine.

There's a lot more left.

Photographer: Jorge Bernal/AFP/Getty Images
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Last week the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime turned some heads. In a much-publicized press conference in La Paz, the UN announced Bolivia had reduced the amount of land planted with coca -- the waxy leafed bush from which cocaine is made -- for the fourth year running.

For anyone following the lose-lose global drug war, this was encouraging news. True, coca cultivation has been declining across the Andes since 2008, but the steep retreat in Bolivia -- down by a third in four years -- has drawn attention and plaudits. Not least because it was achieved far from the gimlet eye of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.