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The impact of a small leaf
Coca leaf is at the core of the war that keeps on disrupting Colombia, funding guerillas as well as paramilitary forces. Peru, in the other side of the continent, is for his part divided between legal and illegal « cocaleros» : In Bolivia, Evo Morales is the leader of the Bolivian « cocaleros» : One of his first decisions was to completely legalize the coca leaf:
Thus coca leaves plays a fundamental role in the politics, the society and the economy of the countries from Columbia to Argentina: Cultivation and consumption are part of an omnipresent tradition:
This traditional consumption consists in the “masticacion”(chewing) of bowls of coca leaves. (That actually means sucking the leaf in the corner of the mouth): The great majority of population masticates coca, from any background: In Salta, in the North of Argentina, the deputies even chew during the parliamentary sessions.
The magic potion
It is one of the oldest plants of the Latin American area (tracks can be found up until 4000 years ago). It played and keeps on playing a determining role through its various uses – medical, social and religious. Coca leaf is used to keep oneself awake at work or to assure a good digestion. It is distributed and shared with a symbol of goodness, it is used to cure wounds, it is offered to the gods… Its importance is so that is went until being used as money:
A study realized by Harvard University in 1975 shows that the chewing of 100 grammas of coca could satisfy the basic nutritional needs of an adult during 24h thanks to its potency of calcium, proteins, vitamins A et E, and the alkaloids: (Duke, James A., David Aulik, and Plowman.: Nutritional Value of Coca).
Historical background
The Church started to prohibit this “plant of evil” in the colonies: But the autochthones refused to work without coca (meanwhile with coca, they could work up to 48h in a mine without eating nor drinking) thus forcing Phillip II to allow its consumption. The Church merely established a dime. The use of coca leaf was thus extended until Europe where the doctors discovered its energetic and digestive values.
In the middle of the XIX century (1863) a French contractor invented a “wine” based from coca leaf. The Mariani wine quickly obtained a worldwide success, so that it received a prize from the pope Léon XIII: He is then plagiarized by Pemberton, a pharmacist from Atlanta, who added African coconut and some gas component in order to commercialize it as a remedy against gastric problems (the first Coca Cola was thus called French Wine Cola) Coca Cola quickly faces a worldwide success and becomes one of the drinks the most appreciated of the 20th Century.
“Coca plant not only preserve health of all its consumers it but also extends their lives of several years and enables them to develop prodigious physical and mental efforts:”
Dr John Pemberton – 1885
During the same period, the anesthetic effects of cocaine are discovered in Europe (Incas undertook trepanning thanks t the anesthetic power of coca leaves ). It is also used for dental and eyes surgery.
But in the 20th century, the research enabled the discovery of an active principle of coca, cocaine, and its medical and psychotropic effects: Freud became the first famous cocaine addict. One of his friends, whom he had prescribed cocaine to wean morphine, died of an overdose. Paranoia, addiction, overdose, adverse effects of cocaine and a front of prohibition is created, bringing Coca-Cola to remove any active ingredient of the drink (the first coca-cola therefore contained cocaine, theobromine and caffeine, which helped to explain its rapid success) and then different laws of prohibition. Today, Coca-Cola officially uses coca leaves to extract the flavor, but not the active ingredient.
These leaves come from “legal” plantations of coca in Peru, made for Coca-Cola. Every year, Stepan Company, the only person in the U.S enabled. to import and to use coca leaves, imports 100 000 tons of leaves from Peru and Bolivia, extracts cocaine and sells it to Coca-Cola (cocaine sold to Mallinckrodt, pharmaceutical company). These “legal” plantations are `planted alongside the illegal plantations, which are hunted and destroyed. The United States is both the country which imports legal coca and the country which sponsors the fight against coca fields, especially through the “Colombia Plan”, which aims to destroy the Colombian fields by fumigation.
Coke against Cocaine
Dr. Jorge Hurtado, Bolivian psychiatrist started with several observations
- The coca leaf is not a drug and can be used for a good purpose
- Cocaine is a drug against which we must fight
- Cocaine trafficking is a terrible flea for the Andean region (Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador …).
- The fight against cocaine traffic, as it is conducted today, is also bad for the region: the war against the 3cocaleros3 does not make sense.
He then founded the Museo de la Coca La Paz to inform on the difference between the coca leaf, the one used for traditional and medicinal purposes, and cocaine. He discovered that the chewing of coca is a good way to wean cocaine addicts and prescribed as a treatment to its patients. In 1992, he participated in the creation of a collective to find nonviolent solutions to the war against drug trafficking. This group became a platform bringing altogether intellectuals, scientists and politicians in Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela.
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