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dwpineal
Psychedelic Artist
Registered: 07/20/06
Posts: 4,667
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Bolivia to export coca causes concern from UN - also check out what it says about Coca-Cola
#6631074 - 03/03/07 10:39 AM (17 years, 30 days ago) |
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http://www.miamiherald.com/579/story/30017.html
BOLIVIA Bolivia plans to coca exports in face of treaty Bolivia's plans to export coca-based products to Venezuela may violate an international antinarcotic agreement. BY TYLER BRIDGES tbridges@MiamiHerald.com LAUCA EÑE, Bolivia -- The steel girders and brick walls going up on a muddy plot here wouldn't normally merit a second glance.
But the building, a small factory that will allow Bolivia to export coca tea and other coca-related products to Venezuela, is putting President Evo Morales on a collision course with Washington and the United Nations.
Morales sees the factory -- and a second one being built elsewhere in Bolivia -- as putting money in the pockets of poor coca growers while reducing the availability of the raw leaf for drug traffickers to produce cocaine.
But the International Narcotics Control Board, a U.N. entity, says Morales' plan violates a 1961 international antidrug agreement signed by both Bolivia and Venezuela.
''What Morales is saying is not in line with the 1961 Convention, and Bolivia knows this,'' Koli Kouame, the board's secretary, said by telephone from its base in Vienna.
`NO EVIL ENDS IN MIND'
Asked whether exporting coca was legal, Morales told The Miami Herald: ``I don't have to ask permission from anyone to produce coca products. . . . Just like in the past we used coca for the benefits of humanity, now we'll industrialize it. We don't have evil ends in mind.''
To justify his actions, Morales cited two examples.
One is Coca-Cola's purchase of coca leaves from Peru. Kouame said that's legal because Coca-Cola processes the leaves to remove the alkaloid used for cocaine.
Morales also said South Africa imports coca from Peru. Kouame said South Africa has not signed the 1961 Convention.
The issue of coca farming -- legal if restricted in Bolivia, where people have long chewed or brewed the leaves into tea for health and cultural uses -- has vexed Morales since he took office a year ago.
The Bush administration has demanded that he continue his predecessors' policy of eradicating illegal coca plants. But forced eradication angers coca growers, who form the president's most loyal constituency.
Indeed, Morales grew to prominence as the leader of a coca growers' federation, a post he still retains.
Morales recently decreed that Bolivia could legally grow 20,000 hectares of coca, up from the previous legal limit of 12,000 hectares. One hectare equals 2.47 acres.
U.N. reports indicate, however, that actual cultivation is 25,000 hectares. The Bolivian government has acknowledged that only about half goes to traditional, legal uses.
Morales' government hasn't fully explained how much coca will go to the factory for export, but coca growers estimate no more than 2,000 hectares per year.
Jim Shultz, a U.S. citizen who runs a research-oriented nonprofit in the Bolivian city of Cochabamba that is sympathetic to Morales, believes the U.S. government should support a change in the 1961 Convention to allow Bolivia to export coca products.
''U.S. policy has been to try to get [coca growers] to produce bananas and pineapples, while using repression [through forced eradication],'' Shultz said. ''It has never worked'' because coca generates at least double the income of any alternative.
Morales told The Miami Herald in an interview Feb. 18: ``We want to have other products for coca so it won't go to the illegal market.''
HELP FROM CHAVEZ
Enter Venezuela President Hugo Chávez, a leftist, and a generous Morales ally.
He has donated $250,000 to Bolivia to build the two factories and agreed to import the coca tea, even though Venezuelans have no tradition of drinking the brew.
U.S. officials fear that coca leaves, once exported, would be turned into cocaine and that the new export market would only encourage more cultivation of illegal coca.
The International Narcotics Control Board seems virtually powerless to stop Bolivia from exporting coca products. Kouame said the board could only punish Bolivia by barring it from importing internationally controlled drugs such as morphine and codeine. The board has never sanctioned a country since 1961, he added.
The factory in Lauca Eñe, due to be finished in three months, is in the Chapare, a lush area in the heart of Bolivia where virtually all the coca produced is refined into cocaine, U.S. and U.N. antidrug officials say. The other factory will be in the Yungas region, to the west, where coca has traditionally been grown for legal uses.
''We've been asking for this for a long time,'' said Felipe Muñoz, who heads the Lauca Eñe coca growers federation, as he visited the factory site. ``Other governments didn't listen to us. Evo has.''
He leaned against a partially built brick wall.
''The U.S. government pressures us to reduce coca production,'' he said. ``Hugo Chávez helps us without conditions.''
DWpineal - The reason I posted this was because when I read the part about Coca-cola, I really started wondering -
Is Coca-Cola just doing a similar refining of coca leaves to utilize the non-cocaine portion of the leaves for flavoring? If so, it goes to reason that they are left with a relatively pure cocaine "waste" once they are done refining the leaves. What happens to this waste? How could they be licensed to do such a thing?
This just really got me wondering...
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robbyberto
Water Boy
Registered: 05/11/06
Posts: 15,502
Loc: Netherlands
Last seen: 1 month, 25 days
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Re: Bolivia to export coca causes concern from UN - also check out what it says about Coca-Cola [Re: dwpineal]
#6631080 - 03/03/07 10:44 AM (17 years, 30 days ago) |
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I'm glad our government is concerned about enforcing our drug laws on other countries. It's putting my tax money to very good use. We can stop drug use around the world, but we can't build a decent public education system. We have our priorities in proper order.
-------------------- “People say having kids is life changing, well that doesn’t necessarily mean a good thing, does it? I could take one of my legs off. That would change my life.” -Karl Pilkington
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Ego Death
Justadropofwaterinanendlesssea
Registered: 04/27/03
Posts: 10,447
Loc: The War Machine
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Re: Bolivia to export coca causes concern from UN - also check out what it says about Coca-Cola [Re: dwpineal]
#6631110 - 03/03/07 10:59 AM (17 years, 30 days ago) |
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>>> What happens to this waste? How could they be licensed to do such a thing?
Exactly. Its probably a portion of America's estimated $60 billion black budget....
Corruption and hypocrisy.
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EntheogenicPeace
Scholar
Registered: 10/04/05
Posts: 3,926
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Re: Bolivia to export coca causes concern from UN - also check out what it says about Coca-Cola [Re: dwpineal]
#6631239 - 03/03/07 11:45 AM (17 years, 30 days ago) |
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---
Edited by EntheogenicPeace (12/25/14 04:04 PM)
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EntheogenicPeace
Scholar
Registered: 10/04/05
Posts: 3,926
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Re: Bolivia to export coca causes concern from UN - also check out what it says about Coca-Cola [Re: dwpineal]
#6631252 - 03/03/07 11:50 AM (17 years, 30 days ago) |
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---
Edited by EntheogenicPeace (12/25/14 04:05 PM)
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cactigrower
The Nice Guy
Registered: 02/22/07
Posts: 91
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Re: Bolivia to export coca causes concern from UN - also check out what it says about Coca-Cola [Re: EntheogenicPeace]
#6631608 - 03/03/07 02:16 PM (17 years, 30 days ago) |
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I wreckon bush still sniffs that shit
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shriek
*********
Registered: 12/13/03
Posts: 3,274
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Re: Bolivia to export coca causes concern from UN - also check out what it says about Coca-Cola [Re: cactigrower]
#6631700 - 03/03/07 02:58 PM (17 years, 30 days ago) |
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the us war on drug is so fucked up i dont have words. some decades ago they stopped hash production in afghanistan and nepal, which in both countries was a tradition going back longer than USAs history, and coke in south america and whatnot. no matter how many americans get addicted to coke and children are born with crack symptoms and whatnot, it doesnt justify their invasion,murders and all other bad shit they have done in countries they do not belong.
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Drewwyann
Slayer of ticks
Registered: 10/30/06
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Re: Bolivia to export coca causes concern from UN - also check out what it says about Coca-Cola [Re: shriek]
#6632226 - 03/03/07 06:23 PM (17 years, 30 days ago) |
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what the hell is wrong with our government? how about instead of worrying about coke, we do something constructive like build schools, and educate people? or is that too practical?
-------------------- Anyone need a glass pipe? : http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002435158931 Love powerfully
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Roker
Stranger
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Loc: outer spiral arm
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Re: Bolivia to export coca causes concern from UN - also check out what it says about Coca-Cola [Re: Drewwyann]
#6633441 - 03/04/07 02:54 AM (17 years, 30 days ago) |
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Perhaps they should do a "Bush" and just unsign that "old" treaty. It is pretty old after all???
come to think of it the Declaration of Independence is pretty old? Maybe that old thing needs to be unsigned too.
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twiggedoubt
twigburst
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Posts: 2,387
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Re: Bolivia to export coca causes concern from UN - also check out what it says about Coca-Cola [Re: dwpineal]
#6635636 - 03/04/07 08:24 PM (17 years, 29 days ago) |
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I'm pretty sure the cocaine from coca-cola is used in medicines. Cocaine, novacaine, benzocaine, etc.
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