NATURAL NEWS: Coca leaves have been chewed and consumed as tea for thousands of years in the high Andes. They are rich in many essential nutrients; they ease respiratory and digestive distress and are a natural stimulant and painkiller. Indigenous tradition and scientific studies have both confirmed that in their natural form, the leaves are completely safe and non-addictive — it takes intensive processing and toxic chemical ingredients to produce cocaine. That’s why more and more coca-containing products have started to hit the market in Andean countries in the past few years.
Yet the United States still aggressively pursues an eradication policy that encourages Andean governments to spray their forests with toxic chemicals to eliminate this medicinal crop. It is illegal to import or possess the leaves under U.S. law — unless you’re the Coca-Cola company. In an effort to preserve the traditional flavor of the best-selling drink, the company long ago convinced the U.S. government to exempt it…. (more)
EDITOR: We cannot vouch for the entire accuracy of the above. We can that US policies concerning drugs are inane.
I wrote an editorial partly about this, about eight and a half years ago (one of my favorites) after encountering a book that deals with it, “For God, Country and Coca-Cola”:
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-old/154/editorial.shtml
At the time I believed de-cocainized coca to still be an ingredient in the soft drink. The editorial describes a phone call to their public call-in number and the response I got, in which they neither confirm nor deny it. (Of course the absence of a denial does not prove it is still being used, and there could be PR reasons why they see it as better to not say anything about it.)
The Wikipedia entry on Coca Cola (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola_formula) lists a Washington Times reference from as recently as 2004 which claims that they still use coca. Of course 2004 is years ago now too. The article quotes a representative of Peru’s national coca company verifying that they supply 100 metric tons of coca to the company known to have done de-cocainization for Coca Cola. That by itself does not absolutely prove they are doing work for Coca Cola now — they could be buying the leaves simply to provide the cocaine itself to pharmaceutical corporations for the legal medical market.
Some people from the Peruvian company attended our 2003 conference, by the way. I wrote another editorial (also one of my favorites) about one of the products they handed out:
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-old/280/cocasoap.shtml
Dave Borden, Executive Director, DRCNet