What's the difference between coca and cocaine?
By:
DAVID McKENZIE
Perspectives Edit
Coca leaves are most known in North America as the base product of cocaine. This is true. Indeed, about the sole use of coca outside of the Andes is the manufacture of cocaine.
But this is not the case in South America. Bolivia is a mountainous country — for example, Cochabamba is located at roughly 8,500 feet above sea level, and La Paz is the highest capital in the world at over 12,000 feet. Travelers from lower elevations, and even natives, face difficulties in dealing with the thinness of the air. A friend of mine who traveled to Cuzco, Peru — a city located at 14,000 feet — was ill the entire time she was there. Last year, the Brazilian national soccer team flew to La Paz near the start time of its game there and left almost immediately after to avoid the effects of the elevation.
But while on my trip to Bolivia, I thankfully only experienced slight altitude sickness. Perhaps someone who lives in a city with a low elevation should never try playing soccer in the Andes as I did.
But the reason I didn’t have problems was the coca leaf.
Since even before the Incas ruled an empire that stretched from Colombia to Chile, natives in this area chewed coca leaves and brewed a tea from them, which not only gives relief from altitude sickness but also serves as an appetite suppressant and source of extra energy. In fact, Spanish colonizers exploited this leaf as a way to get more work out of their indigenous slaves.
In Bolivia, coca is easy to buy. In the small town of Quillacollo, I walked by many old Quechua women selling the whole leaf, which people today still chew. And even in an upscale, American-looking supermarket in the big city of Cochabamba, you can buy bags of coca tea.
It’s everywhere, and an essential part of the lifestyle in that country. After every meal at our hostel in the town of Vinto, we’d drink coca tea. Our in-country guide, Jean Carla, gave me a green pill made from coca leaves when I felt sick to my stomach one day. While I felt rather horrid the next few hours, it accomplished its desired effect: cleaning out my digestive tract. I was healthy enough to get back to normal the next day.
But don’t get any images of a high David McKenzie here, for that was never the case. As I learned in my social history of tropical commodities class with the late Michael Jimenez, most drug foods — such as coffee, tea and cocoa — that come from the tropics require a great deal of refining before they become the products we see on our grocery store shelves.
Cocaine — of course, not a product you often see — is no different. The finished product takes a great deal of refining, and it takes a large number of leaves to make a small amount of cocaine.
But yet, the coca leaf is illegal in the United States. The Lonely Planet travel guide, for example, specifically said that bringing coca tea back into the United States was a bad idea.
This leaf controls our foreign policy toward the Andean countries of Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. A report on “60 Minutes” Sunday night detailed the destructive effects of our eradication program in Colombia. The campaign includes dropping herbicides from the air onto the plants, herbicides that then get into the water and kill other vegetation — plus quite possibly cause medical problems for locals.
In Bolivia, former President Hugo Banzer — who resigned last August because of health problems and is under indictment in Argentina for his collaboration in disappearances with other South American dictators when he was the unelected ruler of Bolivia in the 1970s — began the so-called “Dignity Plan,” with the goal to wipe out the country’s illegal coca crops by the end of his term.
Several sources indicate production of coca has dropped by 90 percent, and VOA News reports that the U.S. State Department considers Bolivia “a model” for coca eradication. But the methods used in the eradication — namely military force — leave much to be desired. Bolivia is currently in turmoil as a result.
But in the North Atlantic, we primarily hear of the eradication in Bolivia as a success.
Most importantly, we almost never hear of the domestic uses of the coca leaf. Rather, we simply associate it with cocaine. For example, an article in The Financial Times (news.ft.com) speaks of “illegal” coca crops. But it never mentions domestic uses of coca and only praises the drug war in Bolivia. VOA News, meanwhile, says that the government is allowing 5,000 hectares of coca for domestic use — but that is it.
With the new war on terrorism, the war on drugs has seemingly taken a back seat — for now. But it may heat up again in the future as the connections between the drug trade and terrorism in different countries become clearer. So it’s time for us to educate ourselves on the drug war now, before our leaders try telling us that we need to send troops to South America as well.
Just remember: Coca is not cocaine.
Perspectives Editor David McKenzie urges readers to visit http://www.narconews.com to receive a different perspective on the drug war in Bolivia than you typically find. He can be reached at mckenzie@pittnews.com.
