Cuba’s Castro Says Banning Coca Is Like Taking Tea From English

[naaman fletcher]

May 31 (Bloomberg) -- Former Cuban President Fidel Castro said the global ban on coca, the leaf used to make cocaine, is like taking away tea from the English.
The leaf, whose eradication is mandated by a 1961 United Nations treaty, is used as part of millennia-old traditions among Indians in Andean countries including Bolivia, Castro wrote in a “Reflections” column published on the Cuba Debate website.
“Prohibiting it is like saying to the English that they can’t consume tea, a healthy custom imported by the U.K. from Asia, which was conquered and colonized by them for centuries,” Castro wrote in the column titled “The Empire and Drugs.”

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-31/cuba-s-castro-says-banning-coca-is-like-taking-tea-from-english.html

And I agree 100%!

[Mika]

1. Good to see you come over to the other side, you Castro lover you!

:evilgrin:

:hi:

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[naaman fletcher]

2. Hey.. I call it as I see it, and I agree with him here. nt

[Billy Burnett]

3. You are now **officially** a supporter of tyranny and oppression.

:sarcasm:

Like the rest of us who agree with a thing or two that Castro has said or done.

Welcome to the club.

:fistbump:




edit: added the sarcasm icon, just in case.

[ChangoLoa]

4. Of course, coca is great for health and a culture's pillar.

It was like magic for me once, "saved my life".

The challenge is to make the world like and understand the use of coca leaves.

Some months ago, I heard that before the colonization only the Inca and the Quechua aristocracy were allowed to consume it. The spaniards, I was told, "freed the coca and gave it to the masses" as a "populist" measure in order to affect the Inca's link with the people. Has someone heard anything about this?

[Mika]

5. Finally! The commies/Castro sympathizers are coming outta the woodwork.

I always knew it! :beer:

Welcome to the club, Chango.

Now that you're tagged as a defender of Castro's tyranny, get ready for a rocky ride. :fistbump:


:sarcasm:

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[ChangoLoa]

9. :)

I've experienced some rocky rides myself, you know that :toast:

[Bacchus39]

6. maybe they did it to make the Indians work harder??? but haven't heard that

on tourist trips in Peru they take to restaurants where they serve coca tea. all the tourists try it.


yeah, and Fidel, you go girl!!!

[Mika]

7. You too?

OMFG! :wow:



:beer: :beer: :beer:

:sarcasm:

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[Bacchus39]

8. nothin wrong with kickin' back with a few brews after a hard day's revolution

with your comrades and sippin some coca tea for an all nighter strategy session on creating the perfect society.

[ChangoLoa]

10. Wiki mentions it (the work harder theory too)

Traces of coca have been found in mummies dating 3000 years back.<5> Extensive archeological evidence for the chewing of coca leaves dates back at least to the sixth century A.D. Moche period, and the subsequent Inca period, based on mummies found with a supply of coca leaves, pottery depicting the characteristic cheek bulge of a coca chewer, spatulas for extracting alkali and figured bags for coca leaves and lime made from precious metals, and gold representations of coca in special gardens of the Inca in Cuzco<6><7>

Coca chewing may originally have been limited to the eastern Andes before its introduction to the Incas. As the plant was viewed as having a divine origin, its cultivation became subject to a state monopoly and its use restricted to nobles and a few favored classes (court orators, couriers, favored public workers, and the army) by the rule of the Topa Inca (1471-1493). As the Incan empire declined, the leaf became more widely available. After some deliberation, Philip II of Spain issued a decree recognizing the drug as essential to the well-being of the Andean Indians but urging missionaries to end its religious use. The Spanish are believed to have effectively encouraged use of coca by an increasing majority of the population to increase their labor output and tolerance for starvation, but it is not clear that this was planned deliberately.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca

[Bacchus39]

11. well, there's an idea for Fidel to increase Cuban worker productivity

as the government has been asking of the people lately.

[flamingdem]

12. What? Everybody is getting along and loving on Fidel!11!

[Mika]

13. Our work has been done, comrade.

My local communist Bolivarian cell leader told us at this week's secret meeting that it would turn out this way eventually. ;) ;)

lol

:hi:

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[flamingdem]

14. Say hi to everyone in the secret cell for me!

[Mika]

15. Will do.

We missed ya this week. ;) ;)

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[flamingdem]

16. Hangin' on the oil threads, fascinated with the undersea drama

- a temporary obsession compared to Cuba. I am worried about those beautiful parts of the world becoming oil lakes, including Cuba. The current looks like it will flow away from Cuba but anything could happen with storms.