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InvisibleveggieM

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Bolivia: Proposed Ban On Coca Chewing Raises Ire Of Growers
    #8193685 - 03/25/08 09:00 PM (16 years, 6 days ago)

Bolivia: Proposed Ban On Coca Chewing Raises Ire Of Growers
March 25, 2008 - tradingmarkets.com

LA PAZ, Bolivia, Mar 24, 2008, 2008 (IPS/GIN via COMTEX) -- -- The International Narcotics Control Board has recommended that the governments of Bolivia and Peru prohibit traditional uses of coca leaf, drawing fierce responses from defiant coca growers.

"They will have to kill us to make us stop planting coca," Bolivian coca grower Luis Mamani said in response to the recommendation. The Mamani family lives in the village of Arapata, 120 kilometers from La Paz. Residents of this area have traditionally chewed coca leaves, the raw material used to make cocaine.

Plucking leaves from a small plastic bag he holds in one hand, then popping them in his mouth and chewing them, Mamani said the international board's recommendation was an act of "revenge" against President Evo Morales, who began his political career as a leader of the cocaleros (coca farmers) in the central Bolivian region of Chapare.

"The gringos don't respect him because he used to be a cocalero, and now they want to make us pay," said Mamani's wife, Alicia. She and Luis, along with their four children, aged 9 to 16, work together in the cultivation of coca bushes in the Yungas region of the province of La Paz, a mountainous subtropical area where coca has been grown since pre-Columbian times.

The International Narcotics Control Board, the independent monitoring body for the implementation of United Nations international drug control conventions, noted in its 2007 annual report, which was released early this month, that "the practice of chewing coca leaves continues in Bolivia and Peru."

As one of its recommendations, the board called upon the Governments of Bolivia and Peru "to initiate action without delay with a view to eliminating uses of coca leaf, including coca leaf chewing, that are contrary to the 1961 [Single] Convention [on Narcotic Drugs]."

In protest, coca growers from the Arapata and Sud Yungas regions gathered for a National Coca Leaf Chewing Day and plan to hold a similar demonstration at the government headquarters in La Paz.

Meanwhile, a Bolivian delegation made up by Deputy Foreign Minister Hugo Fernndez, Vice Minister of Social Defense Felipe Cceres and coca growers' representatives voiced their opposition to the International Narcotics Control Board report at the annual meeting of the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs in mid-March.

Morales himself sent a letter to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, stating that "Bolivia does not accept unilateral certifications or impositions from foreign governments."

The letter makes reference to the international conventions that defend the freedom of action of indigenous peoples and respect for their traditions. It also invokes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1988 U.N. resolution that recognized the traditional use of coca.

"It is a historic error to try to ban coca. We are not going to allow it," Mamani vehemently stated.

Like the majority of peasant farmers in Yungas, Mamani has almost completed the latest sowing of coca bush seedlings. The "wachus" or neat furrows dug to plant the seedlings create a patchwork in which their clean geometric lines contrast with the exuberant subtropical vegetation surrounding them. Soon these lines will be "colored in" with the uniquely vibrant green of coca bushes.

This patchwork landscape has typified the Yungas region for centuries.

According to British anthropologist Alison Spedding, back in 1793 coca accounted for 27 percent of the total revenue from local products sold in the southwestern city of Potosi, the largest urban center in Bolivia during the Spanish colonial era. More than 90 percent of this coca was produced in the Yungas towns of Chulumani and Irupana, among others.

The coca plant has been cultivated since long before the arrival of the Spaniards, Spedding stated in a research report on the peasant coca-growing economy in the Yungas and the Chapare, published in Spanish in 2004.

She made the treks as part of the research for her book of the same name, published last year in Spanish by a leading social sciences research institute in Bolivia. Kawsachun means "long live" in Aymara, one of the two main languages of the Andean indigenous people who make up most of Bolivia's population.

Traces of an "alkaline substance" have been detected in gourds found in ancient storerooms along the Peruvian coast that date back to before 1,000 B.C.

Spedding notes that the main trading center in the southern Andes during colonial times was the city of Potosi, and it was the Yungas region that supplied it with coca.

Other researchers, including William E. Carter and Mauricio Mamani, have shown that coca bushes were grown in this region and other areas of the Andes mountains, like the southern Colombian region of Cauca, long before Spanish colonization.

The subtropical valleys of Pocona in the central Bolivian department of Cochabamba were another major coca-growing area in the 16th century, and their main market was the city of La Plata.

Today the legal coca leaf marketing chain begins with the producers and passes through the wholesale markets of Villa Ftima in La Paz and the "primary markets" in the main towns of the Chapare region.

From there it extends to the legal coca markets in Bolivia and neighboring countries such as Argentina and Peru.

Margarita Tern, a cocalero leader in Chapare, said the mainstay of the domestic coca leaf market is in the lowlands of Santa Cruz and Tarija, where there are significant influxes of migrants from the highlands in western Bolivia.

Prices range from 6 to 9 bolivianos a pound (78 cents to $1.18). Intermediaries sell "drums" of 22.7 kilos of coca for between 700 and 800 bolivianos ($92 to $105), depending on the season, weather conditions and quality of the leaves.

Alberto Sosa, a taxi driver, buys a small bag of coca leaves on the outskirts of the Villa Ftima market every three days. "It helps me stay alert when I work at night," he said, pulling a bag of coca leaves from his glove compartment.

Coca leaf chewing is a common practice among peasant farmers, miners, laborers and night workers. Soothsayers and indigenous priests use it in rituals passed down by their ancestors. And in many hotels in La Paz, foreign guests are welcomed with a cup of coca leaf tea, which helps to relieve altitude sickness.

Ancestral beliefs, confirmed by scientific research, credit coca leaf chewing with alleviating hunger, fatigue and sleepiness.

Hilda Spielvogel, a professor at the Universidad Mayor de San Andres and a researcher with the Bolivian Institute of High Altitude Biology, is the author of a study on the effects of coca use on physical capacity. She said her research showed that coca leaf chewing enhances physical performance due to components that lower the production of adrenaline and thus the consumption of oxygen.

"This is the only study of its kind done in Bolivia and it proves, to some extent, the theory that coca leaf chewing, in addition to its cultural significance, also has physical benefits for those who practice it," she said.

The research was conducted among 12 men of similar weight and height from the towns of Tacachi and Ventilla in the Andean high plains south of La Paz. The subjects were divided into two groups: the members of the first chewed 31.5 grams of coca while the second group was given sugarless chewing gum.

After an hour of physical endurance tests, the subjects who had been given chewing gum were exhausted, while the six who had chewed coca leaves said they still felt full of energy and could easily continue with further physical exercise.

The Bolivian Law on Coca and Controlled Substances authorizes the legal consumption and use of coca as part of traditional practices such as chewing, as well as for medicinal and ritual uses.

It consequently stipulates that coca can be produced to fulfill the demand created by these forms of consumption in the "traditional production area," which is primarily concentrated in Yungas.

U.N. and U.S. government reports indicate that coca production in Bolivia encompasses more than 27,000 hectares of crops, both licit and illicit.

In 2007, coca producers sold around 81.5 million kilos of coca leaves in the legal markets of Villa Ftima in La Paz and Sacaba in Cochabamba, which represented sales of $29.2 million.

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OfflineprsnlJesus1036
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Re: Bolivia: Proposed Ban On Coca Chewing Raises Ire Of Growers [Re: veggie]
    #8195409 - 03/26/08 06:14 AM (16 years, 6 days ago)

That's terrible. I hate how they want to take away such a huge part of the economy over there.


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Invisibletealeaf
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Registered: 09/21/06
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Re: Bolivia: Proposed Ban On Coca Chewing Raises Ire Of Growers [Re: prsnlJesus1036]
    #8195930 - 03/26/08 10:29 AM (16 years, 6 days ago)

ive been to Peru before and at every hotel and restaurant out of Lima, there would be a bowl full of coca leaves, hot water, and tea cups. this coca tea did wonders for altitude sickness as well as boosting energy. unlike cocaine, i dont see why this is a problem since you cant really abuse coca leaves the way these people do, chewing them while working and drinking coca tea during the day. i definitely was not drinking 10 cups a day cause i was hooked, not like that with the leaves!

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OfflineYossarian22
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Registered: 09/12/07
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Last seen: 9 years, 3 months
Re: Bolivia: Proposed Ban On Coca Chewing Raises Ire Of Growers [Re: tealeaf]
    #8196154 - 03/26/08 11:34 AM (16 years, 5 days ago)

Yeah, the American embassy in Bolivia even recommends them for altitude sickness. It isn't gonna happen, especially with Evo Morales as President; it's just a whiny reactionary drug board that complains about every liberalization measure(they demonize the Dutch approach and I think they complained about medical marijuana in California and the opening of a safe injection site in Vancouver). Tools.

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