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Wonders of the Coca Leaf

This article briefly describes the beneficial qualities, constructive uses, and profound cultural significance of the coca leaf for the indigenous Andean peoples highlighting examples from Bolivia – a country in the vanguard of the defense of the sacred leaf. More specifically I will describe the natural coca leaf’s renowned nutritional and therapeutic qualities, explain how coca has long been used for millennia as a ritual tool for divination, social interaction, and as a link to deities and the mother earth that they worship. I will also explain how coca became institutionalized as a key cultural symbol of solidarity, identity, and resistance for the native Andean people in the face of colonial and neocolonial domination. I will then describe the implications of the recent boom in the economic value of coca caused by the increased demand from the cocaine industry, combined with pressures to completely outlaw and eradicate the coca leaf. These contradictory foreign demands for the drug cocaine and for the prohibition of the natural coca leaf threaten to deprive the traditional consumers of their coca, thus creating a powerful social force of rebellion arising in defense of the traditional meanings and uses of coca in the face of threats to this traditional way of life and the very identity of indigenous Andeans. I conclude this historical analysis by bringing us up to date on constructive uses of the leaf in wider society and the current struggle to recognize the coca leaf as an intangible heritage of humanity and access to its many beneficial qualities a basic human right for everyone. http://www.accionandina.org/documentos/Wonders-of-the-Coca-Leaf.pdf

About Acción Andina

Who Are We?

Acción Andina was created in 1992 as a nonprofit network; grouping both people and institutions of civil society together for reflection and activities related to the socioeconomic, environmental, and political problems and of violence, caused as much by the economy of illegal drugs as by the military policies that seek to fight them.

Where lynching still lives

Por Daniel M. Goldstein

The Boston Globe, June 22, 2005

ALTHOUGH THE US Senate has apologized to the victims of lynchings that occurred in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, US-backed policies in Latin America are today contributing to a new rash of lynching violence that claims hundreds of lives each year.

Suppressed Drug Study WHO Made Available

Por Transnational Institute
December 2005

SUPPRESSED DRUG STUDY MADE AVAILABLE BY TNI

When the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) announced in a press release the publication of the results of the largest global study on cocaine use ever undertaken, events in another office sealed the fate of the study.

In the sixth meeting of the B committee, the US representative threatened that "if WHO activities relating to drugs failed to reinforce proven drug control approaches, funds for the relevant programmes should be curtailed".

This led to the decision to discontinue publication. TNI feels this information is valid, important and needs to be shared with our public. A part of the study has been recuperated and we have made it available on the TNI's Drugs & Democracy website.

Only one part has been translated into Spanish, containing the main results of the study. The most important recommendation holds that; "WHO/PSA should investigate the therapeutic benefits of coca leaf" and a broader statement on researching the impact on health at individual and population levels of different legislation and drug control measures.

More information at: http://www.tni.org/drugscoca-docs/coca.htm

Colombia: On the Problems of Confusing Drug Policy and Security Policy

January 2005

by TNI

Perhaps one of the most tragic consequences of associating the 'war on drugs' with the 'war on terrorism' in a country like Colombia is that the failure of the former could end with the failure of the latter.

Despite officials' fantastic manipulation of figures from anti-drug campaigns, the failure of the war on drugs is a fact that only those at the highest levels of government - in both Colombia and the United States - continue to deny. Apart from them, there is no longer any academic institution, think tank, department of official drug policy experts, etc., in the northern or southern hemisphere that has not presented convincing arguments. 'The worst blind person is the one who refuses to see,' as an old Spanish proverb says. This blindness has a high cost, not only financially, but in terms of human, social and economic development in the region.

Forward Operating Locations in Latin America. Transcending Drug Control

TNI - Acción Andina

FOL English

This issue of Drugs & Conflict explains the background to and operation of the US Forward Operating Locations (FOLs) in Ecuador, El Salvador and Aruba/Curaçao, established since 1999. While FOLs have been set up in many parts of the world, most recently around Afghanistan and in the Gulf Region, the only available justification, until recently, for establishing these US-commanded airbases in Latin America had been the War on Drugs. The host countries agreed to the establishment of the FOLs to facilitate military surveillance for the purpose of interdicting drug shipments. There is no evidence that the FOLs have made any discernible difference to the flow of illicit drugs to the USA, however, as even US military sources and the US General Accounting Office publicly acknowledge.