Bolivia's Morales Eye Middle Way on Coca (AP)

[Eugene]

Bolivia's Morales Eye Middle Way on Coca

By DAN KEANE
The Associated Press
Friday, December 8, 2006; 9:33 AM

CARANAVI, Bolivia -- Since taking office in January, Bolivian President Evo Morales
has tried to hold onto millions of dollars in U.S. aid contingent on the eradication
of coca, without losing the support of its growers. But keeping both sides happy
has proved difficult.

Morales' "zero cocaine, not zero coca" policy combines crop eradication and more
anti-drug enforcement with the promotion of the coca leaf's "industrialization"
into legal products.

In La Paz, the Bolivian capital 60 miles southwest of Caranavi, the government
agency charged with destroying illegal coca is just a 10-minute drive from the
new agency promoting coca tea, coca flour, coca-flavored liquor and even coca
toothpaste.

-snip-

Morales' strategy makes U.S. officials squirm, but Washington continues to give his
government $87 million a year in anti-narcotics aid in hopes of reducing Bolivia's
coca crop _ half the size it was a decade ago, but still the world's third largest,
after Colombia and Peru.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/08/AR2006120800470.html

[Richard D]

1. It's simple really . . .

. . . and anyone who has traveled in the Andes knows this without any doubt: Coca is good; cocaine is bad. They are not the same. Coca is medicine and is sacred to the Andean cultures. Have GI distress, a cup of coca tea will ease the discomfort and often cure the problem. Altitude problems, chew some leaf and you'll feel a lot better and be able to work/walk longer. Connect with Spirit, make an offering of coca leaf. It goes on and on. It's only the perversion of the coca leaf that creates cocaine. Morales recognizes the difference. The European cultures don't.

BTW, the worlds largest purchases of legal coca leaves is, of course, Coca Cola. Almost all of the the active cocaine hydrochloride is removed and sold to the pharmaceutical industry, but it's one of the main flavoring agents in Coke.

[Vidar]

2. Good post. Thanks.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Hope Bolivians will gain the allies they need to protect them against

more agression from right-wing meddling bullies in the U.S. It's high time they were allowed to live in peace.