BOLIVIA'S COCA MUSEUM DIVINE OR DIABOLICAL?

LA PAZ, Bolivia, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Only in Bolivia can one find a museum
dedicated to the much-maligned and misunderstood coca leaf, holy of holies
in ancient Andean religions but also the reviled raw material used to make
cocaine.

Much like the hidden coca patches dotting South America's subtropical
lowlands, the International Coca Institute's museum is nestled in a barely
noticeable backyard of a busy La Paz open market in the San Sebastian
district. Finding its Web site (www.coca-museum.magicplace.com) might prove
to be easier.

``Our main objective is to differentiate between coca and cocaine without
resorting to demagoguery like calling it the 'holy leaf,''' sociologist and
museum guide Javier Castro said.

The 3-year-old museum is mainly funded by foreign visitors who pay $1.15 to
browse the extensive chronology, anthropology and criminology that Castro
and three doctors have gathered over 15 years in their drive to demystify
the tiny, bitter leaf.

``The foundation also produces a distilled coca liquor we sell in 375 ml
bottles for about $3.25. We use organic coca to make liquor and pills,
neither of which have cocaine, to help with stomach pains or altitude
sickness,'' Castro said.

``We believe the best way to combat the drug trade is to commercialize the
medical applications of coca and its byproducts,'' he added.

The Bolivian and U.S. governments, however, have another idea of how to
combat the drug trade: Root the sturdy plants right out of the ground.
Plantings in the Chapare region, a key supplier of illegal coca, have fallen
to 5,000 acres (1,950 hectares) from 93,000 acres (37,000 hectares) three
years ago.

The eradication programme has undercut the livelihoods of 40,000 families
over the same period of time, leading to riots, roadblocks and 10 deaths in
recent weeks.

COCA LOADED WITH NUTRIENTS

``Another vocation of the museum is to prevent the use of cocaine, but not
as part of a government campaign telling people drugs are bad. We show
people how coca leaves are good but also the harm cocaine and the chemicals
used to make it can have on drug users,'' Castro said.

First grown in what is now Huanca Prieto in northern Peru around 2,500 BC,
coca was processed into cocaine by Albert Niemman of Goettingen, Germany, in
1859. Then Karl Koller used it as an eye anaesthetic in 1884 and told his
friend, Sigmund Freud, about the wondrous natural drug and the word was out.

Three years later Dr. John Styth Pemberton of Atlanta combined Andean coca
leaves with African cola nut extract to create a new refreshment: Coca-Cola.
The Coca-Cola Company says the world's top-selling soft drink still has
``decocainized'' coca leaf flavors but has never had cocaine as an
ingredient.

A coca leaf weighing 100 grams contains 18.9 calories of protein, 45.8 mg of
iron, 1540 mg of calcium and vitamins A, B1, B2, E and C, which is more than
most nuts, according to a 1975 study by a group of Harvard University
professors.

Castro reckons if coca's nutritional value were more widely known rather
than the chemical leaching process that yields cocaine, alternative
development programmes in this part of the world would include legally
sanctioned production of the demonised plant.

``The first commercial use of coca began in 1600 when the Spaniards realised
silver miners in Potosi worked harder when they chewed coca. So they
convinced the Roman Catholic church to lift the ban on the sale of coca
leaves, promising the church 10 percent of revenues would go to pay for the
construction of churches,'' Castro said.

TWO KINDS OF COCA USERS

Coca is used by an estimated 8 million Aymara and Quechua Indians in the
South American Andes for ritual purposes such as when someone dies, marries
or is born, but it also has deep roots in the culture.

``Coca has a social function too as a social lubricant, just like French
people who share a bottle of wine,'' Castro said.

But U.S. diplomats here estimate coca is used as a very different kind of
social lubricant by about 3 million people in the United States who are
suspected of being cocaine abusers.

About 50 percent of the world's cocaine users live in the United States,
according to the International Coca Institute.

The museum has a model of a coca refining lab and lists all the chemicals
used in the alkaloid leaching process: Coca is processed into base by
treating the leaves with water, calcium oxide, kerosene, diluted sulphuric
acid and ammonia.

Then the paste is bathed in sulphuric acid again, followed by potassium
permanganate and ammonium hydroxide to turn it into cocaine.

``We think if people knew they were putting these kinds of things in their
bodies they'd stop,'' Castro said, standing by a model of a cocaine addict
dressed in ragged clothing and with a can of food and an old television set.