JUST SAY COCA

Andean Entrepreneurs Are Pushing Coca Beyond Cola, in New Teas,
Toothpaste, Shampoo, Liquor and More.

Bolivian president Evo Morales recently implored the United Nations to
give the coca leaf a new life. A former coca farmer himself, Morales
asked the General Assembly to focus on coca's possible future as the
raw material for a lucrative consumer-goods industry-not its nefarious
present, as the source of the international cocaine trade. "This is
the coca leaf, it is green, and not white like cocaine," Morales
lectured, waving one limp little leaf at the hall of surprised
dignitaries. Why, he demanded, is it "legal for Coca-Cola" but not
other consumer or medicinal uses?

Morales is campaigning to roll back a 45-year-old U.N. ban on trade in
coca. He wants to expand trade in legal, nonnarcotic coca products,
from tea to shampoo and soda pop. Under pressure from the United
States, which has spent billions to eradicate coca as part of its war
on drugs, Morales has reluctantly destroyed more acres of coca than
his predecessors. While the Bush administration says he's still not
doing enough, Morales wants to double to 59,000 acres the amount of
land that Bolivia set aside long ago to grow coca for legal uses.
Armed with scientific studies, Bolivian officials are attacking the
impression that coca itself is harmful to health. They argue that
legal products could be a viable alternative to growing the plant for
use in cocaine, and far more effective than trying to wipe out the
hoja sagrada, or sacred leaf, that has been a staple of Andean daily
life and religious rituals since ancient times.

Meantime, in the Andean countries of Bolivia, Peru and Colombia,
dozens of businesses are developing new coca-based goods. In Bolivia,
industrial production of coca tea began in the 1980s, and since 2000,
small companies have put out some 30 different products-coca bread and
pastas, toothpaste and shampoo, ointments, candies, liquors. The
Morales government recently set aside $1 million to further develop
legal coca products. One company now has a soft drink called "Evo
Cola" in the works.

In Peru, the state coca company, Enaco, has been turning out local
teas for years and is now expanding. Earlier this year Enaco closed a
deal to export 153,000 packets of coca tea to South Africa (which
never signed the U.N. convention). Enaco also sells coca leaves to
private Peruvian companies, including a coca-cookie maker and an
energy-drink company. Abroad, it supplies coca for use as an
anesthetic in Japan and Belgium, and as a flavoring to Coca-Cola. An
exception to the U.N. ban that many experts say was negotiated for
Coca-Cola allows exports of coca from which certain active ingredients
have been extracted. (Coca-Cola, which has long declined to discuss
the "secret formula" for its signature soda, also declined to comment
for this story.) In Colombia, the Nasa Indians recently introduced a
soft drink called Coca-Sek, already a national best seller.

The economics of legal coca make sense for farmers, says Ricardo
Hegedus, general manager of Windsor, one of Bolivia's largest
companies. Windsor buys 14 tons of coca leaf annually for use in tea,
and is introducing a coca iced-tea mix this year. Hegedus says it pays
about $6 for 2.2 pounds to coca growers, more than the $5 paid by
cocaine traffickers. Some Bolivian coca companies are now "growing a
lot and using new technologies," says Hegedus, who predicts coca tea
will sell well on the world market "if we can gain the freedom to export."

Recently, the United Nations has shown some willingness to reconsider
the health questions. A 1975 Harvard study found that coca is rich in
iron, phosphorous, calcium, vitamin A and riboflavin. A 1995 World
Health Organization study found no health problems related to the coca
leaf, and recommended study of its potential health benefits. Roger
Carvajal, Bolivia's vice minister of Science and Technology, says coca
has been found to ease stress and aid circulation and breathing.

The United States has not responded officially to the legalization
campaign, but it is unlikely to support it, after spending so much to
destroy coca. Bolivian officials say controls could be put in place to
stop the diversion of coca to the cocaine trade, and that a legal coca
industry would reduce the supply available to traffickers. Roberto
Laserna, a Bolivian social scientist, says that since eradication has
failed to cut the cocaine supply, the United States ought to consider
a new approach. Over a harmless cup of tea, perhaps.