Coca dispute could grow into a bigger headache

Andres Oppenheimer

aoppenheimer@MiamiHerald.com

I have to make a confession: Earlier this year, I consumed coca.

To be more precise, I tried coca tea. It happened in the northern Argentina province of Salta, on the border with Bolivia, after dinner with state officials at a crowded restaurant.

After desert, the waiter offered us a digestive tea. As I was happily drinking it, I was informed that it was coca tea and that it is as legal in South America's Andean region as chamomile tea is in the United States.

LIFTING BAN

I'm telling you this story because some South American nations -- led by Bolivia, with the support of oil-rich Venezuela -- are launching an international campaign to lift a 1961 United Nations ban on exports of coca leaves. This crusade is likely to strain regional ties with the United States and the European Union and could become one of the biggest sources of tension in the hemisphere.

Since he took office on Jan. 22, Bolivia's leftist President Evo Morales, a coca growers' leader, has vowed to increase coca cultivation for legal use. He says coca is a great medicinal plant that has been chewed by Bolivia's Indians for centuries to fight hunger and fatigue and that it should not be confused with cocaine, refined from coca leaves and a harmful drug.

Morales wants his country to produce and export coca tea and other coca-made products that are already available in his country, such as coca wine, coca soap, even coca toothpaste. His motto is is, ``Coca, si; cocaina no.''

Last weekend, during the inauguration of Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, Morales presented U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice with a charango -- a Bolivian musical instrument that looks like a small guitar -- decorated with coca leaves. Rice reportedly left it behind. Coca leaves are a controlled substance in the United States.

But the pro-coca campaign is in full swing. In recent days:

• Bolivian foreign minister David Choquehuanca proposed to replace the daily glass of milk at Bolivian schools with coca. ''Our children need calcium, and coca leaves have more calcium than milk,'' Choquehuanca told Congress.

(LEGGI TUTTO)