Bolivia has reached a 12-year low in coca cultivation, according to a recent United Nations report. Bolivian President Evo Morales, a former coca farmer himself, has long defended coca’s legal use in tea, sweets and medicines as an ancestral right. People in the Andean region chew on the coca leaves as a source of energy and an antidote to altitude sickness. Morales says that the drop in coca cultivation is due to successful domestic policies, as opposed to U.S. involvement in forced eradication.