Culture - Evo Morales : Bolivian President takes 'coca is not cocaine' plea to UN

[klaatu]

news.independant.co.uk
Published: 21 March 2006

Bolivia stepped up a long-running battle with Washington this week by taking its campaign to legalise coca plants to the United Nations in a bid to persuade the international community that the leaf should no longer be banned because of its links to the illegal drugs trade.

The tiny Andean nation, headed by newly elected populist President Evo Morales, is determined to prove that coca can be the source of legitimate products for export and not just the raw material for cocaine.

In Bolivia and across fellow coca-producing nations Colombia and Peru, the leaf has been grown for 3,500 years, and is used in everything from herbal tea to clothing. Its advocates say it can be used, among other things, as an aid to digestion and can provide vital nutrients and vitamins. Its function as an appetite suppressant, they point out, could also come in handy in the struggle against obesity.

Under the slogan "coca is not cocaine", they are calling for coca-based products, ranging from staples such as tea and bread to cosmetic goods such as shampoo, to be mass-produced and exported from all over South America.

But the plant, because of its close link to cocaine, is listed by the UN as a poisonous species, something which Bolivia hopes to change this week as it takes the case for legalising coca to the UN narcotics and crime agency in Vienna.

President Morales, himself a former grower and indigenous Aymara Indian who came to prominence as a spokesman for the coca farmers of the Chapare region of Bolivia, where 90 per cent of the country's coca yield is produced, has condemned his country's cocaine production. He is insistent, however, on its right to harvest more coca.

If he succeeds in changing the plant's status by 2008, Washington will not be happy. The US, which spends $1bn a year on its so-called "war on drugs" across South America, says it would be impossible to legalise coca growing in Bolivia without sending cocaine production soaring.

US officials express serious concerns that the new wave of leftist Latin American leaders - from Bolivia's President Morales to the Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez - are acting in the interests of cocaine barons.

In most of the Andean states there are already small quotas of legalised coca cultivation supplying traditional products. Washington has argued that any expansion of those quotas would be cocaine production by another name.

Bolivia stepped up a long-running battle with Washington this week by taking its campaign to legalise coca plants to the United Nations in a bid to persuade the international community that the leaf should no longer be banned because of its links to the illegal drugs trade.

The tiny Andean nation, headed by newly elected populist President Evo Morales, is determined to prove that coca can be the source of legitimate products for export and not just the raw material for cocaine.

In Bolivia and across fellow coca-producing nations Colombia and Peru, the leaf has been grown for 3,500 years, and is used in everything from herbal tea to clothing. Its advocates say it can be used, among other things, as an aid to digestion and can provide vital nutrients and vitamins. Its function as an appetite suppressant, they point out, could also come in handy in the struggle against obesity.

Under the slogan "coca is not cocaine", they are calling for coca-based products, ranging from staples such as tea and bread to cosmetic goods such as shampoo, to be mass-produced and exported from all over South America.

But the plant, because of its close link to cocaine, is listed by the UN as a poisonous species, something which Bolivia hopes to change this week as it takes the case for legalising coca to the UN narcotics and crime agency in Vienna.

President Morales, himself a former grower and indigenous Aymara Indian who came to prominence as a spokesman for the coca farmers of the Chapare region of Bolivia, where 90 per cent of the country's coca yield is produced, has condemned his country's cocaine production. He is insistent, however, on its right to harvest more coca.

If he succeeds in changing the plant's status by 2008, Washington will not be happy. The US, which spends $1bn a year on its so-called "war on drugs" across South America, says it would be impossible to legalise coca growing in Bolivia without sending cocaine production soaring.

US officials express serious concerns that the new wave of leftist Latin American leaders - from Bolivia's President Morales to the Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez - are acting in the interests of cocaine barons.

In most of the Andean states there are already small quotas of legalised coca cultivation supplying traditional products. Washington has argued that any expansion of those quotas would be cocaine production by another name.

---------------

Klaatu

[Forthesevenlakes]

"US officials express serious concerns that the new wave of leftist Latin American leaders - from Bolivia's President Morales to the Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez - are acting in the interests of cocaine barons."

A lovely example of ironly, considering that most US officials act in the interest of alcohol, tobacco and pharmaceutical barons.

[klaatu]

Originally Posted by forthesevenlakes

A lovely example of irony, considering that most US officials act in the interest of alcohol, tobacco and pharmaceutical barons.

I thing it's unfair to say "most US officials". It's probably a lot fewer that that. It's just that they are all the really senior ones

Oh, and don't forget to add Haliburton to the list of companies who have bought those at the very top of Government......

You know, one day companies like Thales, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, SAAB, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, etc will figure out that they can make an awful lot more money selling drugs than arms. Then you can expect a sudden 180 degree shift in Government policy on drugs.

Klaatu

[Nagognog2]

When the government of Thailand decided to stop the advertising of American cigarettes to keep kids from smoking, the US government threatened the Thai government with all-out trade war. Complete with military-enforced embaroes of Thai ports and shipping. The Thai gov. caved in. Have a Marlboro, kids!

[klaatu]

I think that sets a new standard for hypocrisy

Klaatu

[motorhead]

US FL: Column: Coca Dispute Could Grow Into A Bigger Headache
by Andres Oppenheimer, (19 Mar 2006) Miami Herald Florida
I have to make a confession: Earlier this year, I consumed coca.

To be more precise, I tried coca tea. It happened in the northern Argentina province of Salta, on the border with Bolivia, after dinner with state officials at a crowded restaurant.

After desert, the waiter offered us a digestive tea. As I was happily drinking it, I was informed that it was coca tea and that it is as legal in South America's Andean region as chamomile tea is in the United States.

Lifting Ban

I'm telling you this story because some South American nations -- led by Bolivia, with the support of oil-rich Venezuela -- are launching an international campaign to lift a 1961 United Nations ban on exports of coca leaves. This crusade is likely to strain regional ties with the United States and the European Union and could become one of the biggest sources of tension in the hemisphere.

Since he took office on Jan. 22, Bolivia's leftist President Evo Morales, a coca growers' leader, has vowed to increase coca cultivation for legal use. He says coca is a great medicinal plant that has been chewed by Bolivia's Indians for centuries to fight hunger and fatigue and that it should not be confused with cocaine, refined from coca leaves and a harmful drug.

Morales wants his country to produce and export coca tea and other coca-made products that are already available in his country, such as coca wine, coca soap, even coca toothpaste. His motto is is, "Coca, si; cocaina no."

Last weekend, during the inauguration of Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, Morales presented U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice with a charango -- a Bolivian musical instrument that looks like a small guitar -- decorated with coca leaves. Rice reportedly left it behind. Coca leaves are a controlled substance in the United States.

But the pro-coca campaign is in full swing. In recent days:

* Bolivian foreign minister David Choquehuanca proposed to replace the daily glass of milk at Bolivian schools with coca. "Our children need calcium, and coca leaves have more calcium than milk," Choquehuanca told Congress.

Old Grandmothers

( By the way, Choquehuanca is quite a character. When I interviewed him recently on television, he assured me with a straight face that his Indian grandmothers "lived 200 years," thanks to the healthy herbs they consumed. Really, I asked. Calendar years? "Yes," he answered. "Calendar years."

* Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez proposed last week that Venezuelans start eating bread made of coca flour. "We should try to de-Satanize this product, which our indigenous people have been producing for centuries," Chavez said.

* In Peru, leftist-nationalist presidential candidate Ollanta Humala, who is close to Chavez and Morales, has vowed to give out coca bread as a breakfast meal at public schools if he is elected president in next month's elections.

Are Morales, Chavez, Humala and others pushing for a noble cause or are they unwittingly -- or consciously -- promoting cocaine trafficking?

Whatever the case, U.S. and European officials are nervous. They estimate that only half of Bolivia's coca production is used for coca tea or other legal purposes, while the rest goes for cocaine smuggled, mainly to Europe. If coca production increases, so will cocaine production, they say.

Different Plant

What makes many U.S. officials suspicious about Morales' coca production plan is that he represents coca growers from the Chapare region, who produce big-leaf coca that is mostly used for cocaine production. The coca for legal uses has small leaves and grows in other regions of the country.

Last week, I asked Peru's President Alejandro Toledo -- like Morales, an Indian -- whether he supports Bolivia's stand. He reacted with a skeptical smile.

"If you come to my home, you will be offered a coca tea," Toledo told me. "But this [legal] production does not explain the current extent of coca production. It [coca for legal production] doesn't even amount to 10 percent of the coca acreage in most places."

My opinion: I have nothing against Bolivia producing -- and perhaps even exporting -- coca tea ( although, as far as I remember, it tasted horrible ) or making sandwiches with coca-flour bread.

Why not? Paul John Paul II drank coca tea when he visited La Paz, the Bolivian capital, in 1988, to combat soroche, or altitude illness. Even U.S. officials in La Paz drink coca tea, as they themselves have told me.

But Morales will be playing with fire if he expands coca production on his own, without the cover of an international monitoring mechanism. If his plan results in a major increase in cocaine production, it will not only enrage Washington and the European Union, but also neighboring Brazil, the biggest market for Bolivian cocaine. The big question is not whether Morales does it, but how he does it.

[anj0vis]

I am curious if someone has some articles or research papers about coca products, their long-time effects on users, addiction potential, etc.. To me providing coca bread to kids might be a bit too much, but certainly coca products for adults should be fine. Western countries stimulant of choice is caffeine, I wonder if we ever get used to idea that there can be other mostly non-problematic stimulants also. But I'd like to see what do we know about coca leaves..