PERUVIAN BEVERAGES GET A KICK OUT OF COCA LEAF

LIMA (AP) - It looks and tastes pretty much like the many brands of
bottled iced tea that line American supermarket shelves - just don't
drink it before a drug test.

Kdrink is one of two new bottled beverages to hit Peruvian stores this
year using a formula made from coca leaves, the base ingredient in
cocaine. Each bottle of Kdrink contains a trace 0.6 milligrams of the
outlawed stimulant.

Although that amount of natural, unprocessed cocaine carries less kick
than a cup of coffee, it is enough to create a legal headache for
exporters. With the notable exception of Coca-Cola, products using
coca leaves are banned in most countries beyond the Andes by strict
U.S. and UN import regulations.

But the two new Peruvian drinks - Kdrink iced tea and Vortex energy
drink - hope to buck the system and find legal paths into foreign
markets. The makers of Kdrink believe many countries will allow their
drink if vague anti-coca rules are clarified, while the bottlers of
Vortex are banking on a cocaine-free coca formula.

Pitching the pick-me-up possibilities of coca leaves is nothing new.
In 1886, an Atlanta pharmacist invented Coca-Cola as a
brain-stimulating tonic that combined cocaine and an extract from the
caffeine-producing kola nut.

Coke dropped cocaine from its recipe around 1900, but the secret
formula still calls for a cocaine-free coca extract.

For decades, Peruvian authorities - with assistance from Washington -
have sought to eradicate illicit coca production and persuade farmers
to switch to legal crops. But the black market demand for cocaine
around the world means coffee, pineapples and other crops promoted as
alternatives to coca by the government often fail to match coca's
profit margins.

In February, hundreds of Peruvian coca farmers from remote mountainous
jungle regions met in Lima. Among their demands, they want the
government to end eradication campaigns and develop new markets for
coca-based products.

Devida, Peru's counter-drug agency, estimates 90 per cent of the
country's coca leaf production goes to the narcotics trade, but says
it is open to finding new legal uses.

"Right now the best alternative crop is legal coca because it has the
best price," said Fernando Hurtado, director of alternative
development for Devida. "What we want to avoid and fight is coca going
to narcotics traffickers."

Thousands of years before the existence of processed cocaine, highland
Indians chewed coca to ward off hunger and fatigue. Considered an
integral part of Peruvian culture, coca is offered to Andean gods and
sold in packaged tea bags in grocery stores.

To meet local demand, Peru permits the legal cultivation of about
12,000 hectares of coca bushes.

Eduardo Mazzini, director of Kokka Royal Food & Drink, says the idea
for Kdrink arose two years ago. He says some Spanish friends were
visiting the former Inca capital of Cuzco and became enchanted with
the coca tea served to tourists as a remedy for altitude sickness.
They suggested bottling the tea.

Since then, Peruvian and Spanish backers have opened a sales office in
Spain and invested about $300,000 US in producing Kdrink, Mazzini
says. The tea's bottles proclaim its "divine energy."

Mazzini says the drink is selling "better than expected," but didn't
provide specific figures.

Silvia Dongo, a pharmaceutical chemist who helped develop Kdrink, says
the beverage provides energy from its 15 vitamins and minerals, 12
amino acids and 14 to 16 alkaloids that are found naturally in coca
leaves.

"Drinking coca beverages is a way to seek a natural and healthy
stimulation," she says.

Meanwhile, Vortex is seeking a share of the "energy drink" market
dominated by the likes of Austria's Red Bull, a hyper-caffeinated
carbonated beverage popular with young club goers who often mix it
with hard liquor before hitting the dance floor.

Unlike Kdrink, Vortex's makers decided to tackle the export problem by
removing two blacklisted stimulants found in coca - cocaine and
egonina - from their formula.

"Coca has been demonized for too long," says Vortex co-founder
Christian Chang, who extols the leaves' healthful attributes. "Having
said that, coca does have its problems."

The company is pursuing cocaine-free certification from the Peruvian
government before presenting Vortex to U.S. authorities for approval,
which would open energy drink markets worldwide, Chang says.

In the meantime, the company is pursuing the Peruvian market by
selling bottles at less than half the price for its imported
competitors, Chang says.

The company met its goal of capturing 10 per cent of the market in
February, he says, and by late March had sold 70,000 bottles since the
introduction Jan. 20.