Culture - Coca-Cola Vs Coca Sek in Colombia

[mopsie]

The real thing; Coca-Cola rival will include cocaine ingredient
Wednesday 14 December 2005


BOGOTA, Colombia — A group of Indians in southern Colombia have created a new soft drink made from coca leaf extract and plan to market their product as an alternative to Coca-Cola.






Coca Sek, a golden, carbonated drink, will go on sale this week in parts of Colombia. But its makers expect they won’t be able to export to the United States due to rules blocking the entry of coca, the main ingredient in cocaine.

The soda looks like apple cider, has a tea-like fragrance and a flavor somewhere between Seven-Up and ginger ale.

David Curtidor, a Nasa Indian who heads the small community company producing the drink, says that aside from being refreshing, the drink also is intended to make a political statement against transnational companies. Curtidor says Coca-Cola "symbolizes imperialist domination" and does not buy its raw ingredients in Colombia.

He says people in the tiny southwestern town of Calderas where the soft drink was created prefer not to drink Coca-Cola. So they are offering a substitute.

Coca-Cola dropped cocaine from its ingredients decades ago, although the soda maker’s secret formula still calls for a cocaine-free coca extract produced by the New Jersey-based Stepan Company, which Peruvian officials have said buys dried Peruvian coca leaves.

[freakybass]

Woah this news, it's amazing and funny in the same time.
But I don't think that will be possible to sell it in the Western countries due to the cocaine composition.
Sad

[Benga]

I don't know, some western countries have allowed imports of coca tea from ENACO, so as long as it's in specialised stores ( ie south american groceries), a "local" product, why not...

[sands of time]

That would be a nice thing to try just to say you've had it. I think alot of people would love to try the original coca-cola, with the cocaine and all. I know it probably won't have much of the effect, but its just fuckin classic! I doubt the U.S. will allow this particular product to enter the U.S. Many people have had they're coca tea mailed to them, but the DEA intercepted them. They don't mess around, even though there is only trace amounts of cocaine in the tea.

[Boyv]

Sounds like an hoax to me...

[Benga]

well to be perfectly honest swim would much prefer tasting coca wines, elixirs of coca etc ( and vin mariani : still can't figure out how 100g of leaves in 1L is supposed to be so fantastic...) than coca syrups and soft drinks, because of the cocaethylene euphoria.
Coca wines were present in pharmacopeas up to the 1930's ( recently found a 1930's french index which has coca wines "vins tonique a la coca" recipes, where as hemp recipes are listed but removed. These recipes are interesting for those with interest in coca leaves products. Some recipes are easily found online :

http://www.henriettesherbal.com/ecle...throxylon.html
coca wine pictures :
http://perso.wanadoo.es/jcuso/drogas...aina-vinos.htm

what is fascinating is that Mariani's famous coca wine was supposedly made from the leaves, and not adding cocaine Hcl. It's hard to understand why it is said to be so strong...

It's no hoax by the way, just read up on bolivian and peruvian coca products, which range from chocolate to toothpaste, wine, honey etc...Actually this is not the first let's say "re-issue" coca leaf containing soft drink, i remember something called "inka cola" or something...but soft drinks remain soft drinks. Ah, but recently a new coca extract pisco just came out that seems lovely...

For those interested, here's a lovely recipe, to which you can add whatever leaves you have, let's say, hum, laurel leaves, hum...

Benga's Tonic Hot Wine

take one liter of red bordeaux wine
dump in between 50 g or 100g of hum, laurel leaves
add 3 brown sugar cubes
3 sticks of cinnamon
one tablespoonful of grated ginger
a few cardamom pods
4 star anis (badiane)
4 cloves
1 teaspoon grated nutmeg
some fenel, fenugrec
optional 1 or 2 betelnut (areca catechu) dried slices.
a dash of liqueur, say cointreau or cognac, or even a little rum or whiskey
at the end of preparation some lemon juice ( or lemon peels) and orange juice (or peel) in moderation, this stuff is strong tasting.

let this sit for as long as you can, 24 hours is great but a couple of hours will also do.
cover, then heat very slowly, turn off heat just before it comes to a boil.
let it cool, and repeat process, just reaching boiling point and turning off heat, add half a glass of wine, and let sit.
Strain and drink your delicious tonic hot wine.

laurel of course is just one option among possibilities.
this drink is perfect for long winter evenings.

Reputation Comments on this post:

fascinating read benga , will try the coca wine

[robertone]

Swim doesn't see any problem here. Swim is convinced that Coca-Cola™ still contains coca-extract that's striped from its cocaine alkaloid. Swim want to know of the import of a cocaine free coca extract/beverage can be forbidden for small enterprises if it isn't forbidden for USA beverage giants?

Besides, in Swim's country cocaine and coca leaves are prohibited by law. No word about [cocaine free] extract, seeds or other parts of the coca bush.

[tayo]

Originally Posted by robertone

Swim doesn't see any problem here. Swim is convinced that Coca-Cola™ still contains coca-extract that's striped from its cocaine alkaloid. Swim want to know of the import of a cocaine free coca extract/beverage can be forbidden for small enterprises if it isn't forbidden for USA beverage giants?

yes it's interesting, coca-cola has millions of leaves imported as is, they are then decocainized... in the united states, so coca-cola must have special permisson to import leaves.

as for the tea getting in to the u.s. swim knows pretty much all swim's friends in the u.s. have never had any sort of coca tea intercepted, in fact, they always arrived within 8 days from bolivia, 100g boxes, not 10,000grams, that would be quite suspicious. and the packages are marked as tea... and the fact that it is coming from bolivia either means since it is such a small amount it's either not worth the filing and all the work to put this somewhere as "evidence" or they're just not very "on-point" when checking packages. there are probably sooo many coming in that they only worry about the big ones, and there are probably certain addresses that are known sellers of products. or if swiy happens to be in miami, swiy might get watched quite a bit more.

[Alfa]

Coca plants are legal in the Netherlands. Coca leaves are illegal. As soon as leaves fall from the plant, you are in possession of class A / list 1 drugs.

[pabel_giboon]

Originally Posted by Alfa

Coca plants are legal in the Netherlands. Coca leaves are illegal. As soon as leaves fall from the plant, you are in possession of class A / list 1 drugs.

That´s allways made fun to SWIM, how hard is someone punished for coca leaf posession, lets say 10g? SWIM means, it´s not enought to do anything but tea or chewing, isn´t it?

In the other hand, SWIM asumes that Coca Sek does not contain clorhidrate, does it? Effects shouldn´t be very different than coa tea´s.

[Alfa]

Coca-Cola Vs Coca Sek in Colombia*

*By SERGIO DE LEON*

*Associated Press Writer*

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - President Alvaro Uribe is taking the war on drugs to the supermarket, prohibiting the sale of products made from the coca plant.

With the help of more than $600 million a year in U.S. aid, Uribe has strengthened Colombia's anti-narcotics police, seized record tons of cocaine and extradited 520 drug trafficking suspects to U.S. jails.

But until recently, his hardline government had not gone after natural coca products made by Indians, acknowledging that millions of peasants have chewed calcium-rich coca for thousands of years to stave off hunger and as a remedy for ailments from altitude sickness to stomach aches.

Uribe's presidential Web site even promoted natural coca products as a rare commercial enterprise for poor Indian communities, and the federal food-safety agency provided quality-control advice to the manufacturers of coca tea, cookies, shampoo and other consumer goods.

That suddenly changed in February, when Uribe's administration started banning the sale of coca products outside the reservations where Indians have a constitutional right to grow the hearty plant. Though it's still possible to find coca products at boutique markets and health food stores, inspectors have begun to forcibly remove them from supermarket shelves.

What prompted the switch?

For one, the success of Coca Sek, an energy drink made by the Nasa Indian tribe.

The carbonated drink made with coca, which looks like apple cider and tastes vaguely like ginger ale, was becoming a trendy alternative to Coca-Cola among Colombia's urban youth. The logo on the can even mimicked the popular U.S. soft drink's curvy script.

Newspapers around the world ran David-and-Goliath stories about the challenge by an unknown Indian tribe to the U.S. soda behemoth.

Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Co. responded with a trademark-infringement suit that Colombian authorities quickly dismissed.

Word also reached Austria, where the International Narcotics Control Board enforces a 1961 treaty that requires the ``uprooting of all coca bushes which grow wild'' and bans the distribution of products with even trace amounts of coca, the main ingredient in cocaine.

The board sent Colombia's foreign minister a letter asking how the ``refreshing drink made from coca and produced by an Indian community''
didn't violate the treaty - and months later, the food safety agency quietly imposed the ban.

The Nasas cried foul, suspecting behind-the-scenes pressure from Coca-Cola.

Colombia's food safety agency, the narcotics control board and Coca-Cola Co. all denied that. Agency lawyer Carolina Contreras says it was the control board's letter that prompted the ban, and the control board says it had no communication from Coca-Cola before sending it.

But the Indians remain suspicious. While they've appealed the ban, their $15,000-a-month income from the sale of Coca Sek and other coca products is suffering, says David Curtidor, a Nasa in charge of the company that produces the drink.

``Why don't they also ban Coca-Cola?'' he said, claiming: ``It's also made of coca leaves.''

Dana Bolden, a spokesman at Coca-Cola's Atlanta headquarters, would neither confirm nor deny that a coca extract is part of the secret recipe. He repeated the company's longstanding refusal to reveal any elements of the Coca-Cola formula.

A loophole in the 1961 treaty allows coca leaves to be sold internationally if they are later distilled of their cocaine alkaloid to produce a ``flavoring agent.'' That's what Northfield, Ill.-based Stepan Co. does under a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration license.

The Stepan Co., according to its Web site, is a ``a global manufacturer of specialty and intermediate chemicals used in consumer products and industrial application.'' The company didn't respond to repeated requests to confirm that Coca-Cola is a client.

Stepan is the only U.S. firm currently importing coca, a DEA spokeswoman told The Associated Press. It buys about 55 tons of Peruvian coca leaves each year, said Jimmy Salcedo, commercial manager for Peru's state-owned National Coca Company, Enaco.

Many Indians in the Andes - where coca is revered as a sacred plant and a matter of national pride in several countries - are angry that the United States is importing coca leaves legally while their own coca products are banned.

``The coca leaf is legal for Coca-Cola and illegal for medicinal purposes in our country and in the whole world,'' Bolivian President Evo Morales told the U.N. General Assembly last year.

*Associated Press
May 10, 2007

[Orchid_Suspiria]

Swim would love to try it just cause its one of those things it's cool to say swiy tried.