Obama- Punish Bolivia for "explicit acceptance and encouragement of coca production at the highest levels of the Bolivian government."

This just as
Obama and Pope Benedict discuss 'the problem of drug trafficking'


U.S.D.A. Criminal Mercantilism for Protecting Cigarette Markets

Obama at odds with Bolivia
July 8, 10:49 PM
http://www.examiner.com/x-11437-Salt-Lake-Independent-Examiner~y2009m7d8-Obama-at-odds-with-Bolivia

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On June 30, 2009 the Obama Administration reinstated George Bush's suspension of the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act for Bolivia. ATPDEA lifts tariffs for Andean countries for cooperation in fighting drug trafficking. The participating countries are Columbia, Peru, Ecuador, and formerly Bolivia.

PressTV reported:

On Tuesday [June 30th], the Obama Administration reinstated the suspension of the aid claiming there was "explicit acceptance and encouragement of coca production at the highest levels of the Bolivian government."

The Morales government has assumed a 'zero cocaine' but not a 'zero coca' policy as Coca leaves are chewed and brewed as tea by Bolivians for their medicinal properties and as they are beneficial for people living in high altitudes.

Democracy Now reported:

The most recent UN figures show cocaine production in Bolivia rose just 5% in 2007. Colombia, which has received billions in US aid, saw an increase of 27%.

Reuters quoted Evo Morales Bolivia's President, who stated:

"I'm disappointed ... because the Obama administration has used slander, lies and false accusations to suspend the preferential tariffs," said Morales, who threw out the U.S. ambassador to La Paz and American anti-drug agents last year.

Evo Morales had expelled the agents after a spy scandal broke -- Bolivia: Spy-Linked U.S. Embassy Official Won’t Return:

The Bolivian government has announced a US embassy official at the center of a local spy scandal won’t be returning to Bolivia. Assistant Regional Security Officer Vincent Cooper reportedly told a group of Peace Corps volunteers to spy on the Cubans and Venezuelans they came across in Bolivia. His instructions were disclosed after a Fulbright scholar living in Bolivia came forward last week.

Bolivia has had a shaky relationship with the US over the past few years. ABC News reported Evo Morales was Obama's most outspoken critic when it came to lifting the embargo against Cuba:

One of Mr Obama's strongest critics, President Evo Morales of Bolivia, said there had not been any real change in US policy since Mr Obama came to power and Washington was still guilty of conspiracy.

"As far as Cuba is concerned, I would like to be Obama," he said.

"You know why? Because on the embargo, Cuba has the support of the entire world, apart from Israel and the United States.

For more info:

Evo Morales was elected after Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada resigned as a result of Bolivia's water and gas wars.

Full report on US Embassy spy scandal:

Trojan Horse: The National Endowment for Democracy

Bolivia Water War from The Corporation:

Bolivia Gas War from The War on Democracy:

The Bolivian Water Revolt:

In January 2000, just months after it took over control of the water system of Bolivia’s third largest city, Cochabamba, a Bechtel Corporation subsidiary hit water users with enormous price increases. These increases forced some of the poorest families in South America to literally choose between food or water. A popular uprising against the company, repressed violently by government troops, left one 17 year old boy dead and more than a hundred people wounded. In April 2000 Bechtel was finally forced to leave. In November 2001 Bechtel decided to add to the suffering it had already caused by filing a legal demand for $25 million against the Bolivian people – compensation for its lost opportunity to make future profits.

Blog from Bolivia

How the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Undermine Democracy and Erode Human Rights: Five Case Studies

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Indians of Peru still fighting for their land

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Marlboro Protection Act

A Public Health Disaster in the Making

By John E. Calfee Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Filed under: Government & Politics, Health & Medicine, Public Square

Congress is poised to pass one of the worst public health laws ever conceived.

Congress is poised to pass one of the worst public health laws ever conceived. There is no getting around the awfulness of HR 1256, which was passed by the House last month and is now being debated before the full Senate. The topic is Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulation of tobacco. HR 1256 would create a new FDA division, supported by industry user fees, which would exercise sweeping control over the introduction, manufacturing, and marketing of all tobacco products. Existing products would be grandfathered in—no worries for the Marlboro Man—but new entrants would face something like the FDA’s famously demanding new drug approval standards, except the standards would be even tougher in one very important way to be described later.

HR 1256 pays almost no attention to the most fundamental point in all of tobacco control, if not all of public health: the distinction between tobacco smoke, which causes almost all the harms from smoking, and nicotine, whose dangers are roughly on the order of those from caffeine. Most smokers are interested in the nicotine, a fact that opens the door to all sorts of ways to reduce or practically eliminate the health harms from tobacco. HR 1256 goes in the wrong direction by encouraging the FDA to reduce nicotine yield, which would mean deeper inhaling and more harm rather than less.

Fortunately, there are already some products on the market that pose no more than a tiny proportion of the risks of traditional cigarettes. Smokeless cigarettes heat tobacco rather than burn it, delivering mainly nicotine and flavorings. And there are “smokeless tobacco” products, which are made from tobacco but are delivered by means of tiny pouches that usually dissolve in the mouth. The best-known smokeless niche is occupied by snus (rhymes with moose), which has been widely used in Sweden and is available in the United States but almost nowhere else because of prohibitions. Years of research have shown that the risks of snus are roughly 1 percent or 2 percent of the risks of traditional cigarettes, and maybe less, while both male smoking and lung cancer are at lower levels in Sweden than just about anywhere else. There has also been extensive research on improving traditional cigarettes by, for example, using better filters and altering tobacco itself to remove well-known carcinogens.

All these products involve trade-offs in the sense of sacrificing sensory experience or rapid, controlled flow of nicotine. Those things are greatly valued by many smokers. (Full disclosure: I’ve never smoked, so I’m relying on second-hand accounts.) That is one reason smoking rates have stuck stubbornly at about 15 percent to 20 percent in the United States and other advanced nations despite decades of antismoking information and campaigns and mammoth tax increases.

Most smokers are interested in the nicotine, a fact that opens the door to all sorts of ways to reduce or practically eliminate the health harms from tobacco.

The problem now is that it is almost impossible for manufacturers of safer products to tell consumers about why they are safer and why smokers should switch. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which regulates advertising, has resolutely enforced the prevailing views in the public health community, which has invested itself almost exclusively in a decades-long gamble to get smokers to quit rather than resort to safer tobacco use. Any suggestion in marketing materials that a product is safer—even one that emits no smoke whatsoever—is inevitably attacked by the antismoking watchdogs with FTC and FDA action a constant threat. The FDA does not have jurisdiction over tobacco products, of course, but products that are marketed (even indirectly) as a method to quit smoking are classified by the FDA as drugs, which cannot be sold until they pass through years of clinical trials and so forth. The nearly complete suppression of informative marketing of safer tobacco use has two consequences, both profoundly deleterious to the health of current and future smokers. It makes it almost impossible for manufacturers to provide the “reason why” messages that are the primary means for informing smokers of ways to reduce the harm from a difficult-to-quit habit. That impedes massive health-improving switching to safer products.

The upstream effects are even worse, because incentives to develop safer products are severely undermined if (to borrow a quote from the infinitely complicated history of cigarettes and health) “you build a better mousetrap and then they say you can't mention mice or traps.” The federal government has made the problem far worse by promoting the idea that all tobacco products, even smokeless ones, are equally unsafe.

Enter HR 1256, hundreds of pages of it. Two features would have devastating effects. One is the new tobacco product approval apparatus. Manufacturers would have to demonstrate that their products are not merely safer than some of the existing alternatives. They would have to demonstrate that once the products enter the market, they would not have undesirable second-order effects such as encouraging smokers to switch instead of quit, or encouraging non-smokers to start who otherwise would not have started.

Meeting this kind of standard would be extraordinarily difficult; it is nearly a recipe to discourage the development of almost any new product no matter how much safer it would be than what smokers now use. It moves the FDA far beyond the contours of drug regulation. Imagine that a dramatically effective new HIV drug could not be approved until the manufacturer demonstrated that the entry of the drug would not tempt some people into unsafe sex because they knew a better treatment could be used if worse came to worse. Suppose a better diabetes drug was kept on the sidelines while the manufacturer figured out how to show that the availability of the drug would not encourage obesity by discouraging weight loss and the like. No one wants the FDA to do that for drugs because we want better drugs, and we are willing to let consumers make their own decisions about how to revamp their lives accordingly. The imposition of this bizarre standard for new tobacco products reveals an intention to largely dispense with the task of reducing tobacco harm while demeaning the choices of smokers and potential smokers.

The product approval process would be greatly complicated by another of HR 1256’s innovations, the insertion of an outside board to participate in these decisions. The board almost certainly would be dominated by public health representatives who share a long-standing opposition to safer tobacco products and especially to any information about relative safety, stoked by the fear that even the safest products can wreak harm by impeding cessation and indirectly encouraging smoking.

None of this would apply to existing products, of course. The bigger the brand, the greater the benefit of this grandfathering arrangement. No wonder HR 1256 is called the “Marlboro Brand Protection Act.” No wonder the political breakthrough in getting FDA tobacco regulation came in 2004 when Philip Morris (now Altria) came out in support of FDA regulation; Altria remains a bulwark of support for HR 1256.

Imagine that a dramatically effective new HIV drug could not be approved until the manufacturer demonstrated that the entry of the drug would not tempt some people into unsafe sex because they knew a better treatment could be used if worse came to worse.

The same hostility to harm reduction infuses HR 1256’s provisions on marketing. Needless to say, advertising would become even rarer than it is today. The most important information—about the product’s risks and why it might be safer than something else—would be hemmed in by requirements of unknown rigor. Of course manufacturers would have to demonstrate to some degree the relative safety of their product. But most important, there would be another beyond-FDA-drug-regulation requirement to demonstrate that if smokers are told about a safer product, they will not react by failing to quit smoking and so on. Again, one wonders about how the pharmaceutical market would work if heart drug manufacturers had to prove whether telling consumers how to reduce the risk of heart attacks would adversely affect their lifestyle choices about diet and exercise.

Again, the grandfathering effect comes into play. What dominant brands fear most is aggressive marketing by competitors, especially competitors with a good safety story to tell. “Marlboro Brand Protection,” indeed.

Fortunately, there is dissent from all sorts of otherwise incompatible sources. Altria’s biggest competitors have been running full-page newspaper ads in opposition to HR 1256. But some stalwart antismoking figures are also in opposition. Professor Michael Siegel of the Boston University School of Public Health has a piece in today’s Los Angeles Times opposing HR 1256. The American Association of Public Health Physicians has vocally opposed HR 1256. So has William Godshall’s advocacy organization, Smokefree Pennsylvania, which logically enough is against measures that impede the substitution of smokeless for smoked.

Senators Richard Burr and Kay Hagan of North Carolina have introduced a bill that avoids the worst features of HR 1256 and has the virtue of lodging tobacco regulation in a separate agency and therefore avoiding the FDA, whose snail-like pacing in approving wider use of pure nicotine products has been deplorable. An even better alternative would be to unleash the FTC, whose regulatory philosophy is the simple toleration if not encouragement of truthful information in marketing. The FTC could regulate tobacco marketing like it regulates marketing for automobiles, computers, and just about everything else. It would require a reasonable basis for health claims. The standard can be tough when the stakes are high; you do not want to claim your car can stop in 100 feet from 60 mph unless you have solid evidence. But if the FTC were free of an implicit obligation to enforce what public health gurus want (sometimes including FDA staff), we could see an extraordinarily fruitful unleashing of methods for safer tobacco use and a consequent decline in the lamentable toll of cigarette smoking.

Jack Calfee is resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

FURTHER READING: AEI held an event titled “Can Smokeless Tobacco Reduce the Health Consequences of Smoking?”

Image by Flickr User Kevin Burkett found here.

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U.S. Clinton Administration Suppressed WHO cocaine report

From Transform Drug Policy Foundation:

The WHO cocaine report the U.S. didn't want you to see

http://transform-drugs.blogspot.com/2009/06/report-they-didnt-want-you-to-see.html

The largest ever study of cocaine use around the globe was carried out in the early 90's by the UN World Health Organisation (WHO) and funded by the UN Inter-regional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), but under pressure from the US its publication was suppressed when it became clear the report's findings were in direct conflict with the myths, stereotypes and propaganda that prop up the war on drugs (read the complete leaked report here).

In March 1995 WHO/UNICRI released a briefing kit summarising the key conclusions, as a curtain raiser to the report's imminent publication.

• "Health problem; from the use of legal substances, particularly alcohol and tobacco, are greater than health problems from cocaine use.
• Few experts describe cocaine as invariably harmful to health. Cocaine-related problems are widely perceived to be more common and more severe for intensive, high-dosage users and very rare and much less severe for occasional, low-dosage users." (pg. 1)

the coca plant

In a classic example of what happens when public health pragmatism collides with criminal justice dogma, just two months later, at the 48th World Health Assembly, the US representative to the WHO threatened to withdraw US funding for WHO research projects unless they 'would dissociate itself from the conclusions of the study' (read the relevant segment here). He said;

"The United States Government had been surprised to note that the package seemed to make a case for the positive uses of cocaine, claiming that use of the coca leaf did not lead to noticeable damage to mental or physical health, that the positive health effects of coca leaf chewing might be transferable from traditional settings to other countries and cultures, and that coca production provided financial benefits to peasants...

"... it [the US] took the view that the study on cocaine, evidence of WHO's support for harm-reduction programmes and previous WHO association with organizations that supported the legalization of drugs, indicated that its programme on substance abuse was heading in the wrong direction. The press package undermined the efforts of the international community to stamp out the illegal cultivation and production of coca, inter alia through international conventions.

"The United States Government considered that, if WHO activities relating to drugs failed to reinforce proven drug control approaches, funds for the relevant programmes should be curtailed. In view of the gravity of the matter, he asked the Director-General for an assurance that WHO would dissociate itself from the conclusions of the study and that, in substance abuse activities, an approach would not be adopted that could be used to justify the continued production of coca."

It's easy to see why the US would be so opposed to the study being published as it not only challenges a number of myths and stereotypes about cocaine use, but it is highly critical of a number of US-backed policies. The report specifically highlights the criticism that supply reduction and enforcement policies are not working and that alternatives needs to be explored;

"The largest future issue is whether international organisations, such as WHO and the United Nations Drug Control Programme, and national governments will continue to focus on supply reduction approaches such as crop destruction and substitution and law enforcement efforts in the face of mounting criticism and cynicism about the effectiveness of these approaches. Countries such as Australia, Bolivia, Canada and Colombia are now interested in examining a range of options to legalize and decriminalize the personal use and possession of cocaine and other related products. There needs to be more assessment of the adverse effects of current policies and strategies and development of innovative approaches." (pg. 30)

"The studies identified strict limitations to drug control policies which rely almost exclusively on repressive measures. Current national and local approaches which over-emphasize punitive drug control measures may actually contribute to the development of heath-related problems. An increase in the adoption of more humane, compassionate responses such as education, treatment and rehabilitation programmes is seen as a desirable counterbalance to the overreliance on law enforcement measures." (pg. 29)

The study also points out that 'anti-drug' campaigns are not necessarily effective, especially mass media campiagns based on scare tactics;

"Despite a broad range of educational and prevention approaches, most programmes do not prevent myths but perpetuate stereotypes and misinform the general public. Such programmes rely on sensationalized, exaggerated statements about cocaine which misinform about patterns of use, stigmatize users, and destroy the educator's credibility. This has given most education campaigns a naïve image and has reduced confidence in the quality and accuracy of these campaigns…" (pg. 23)

With regards to who uses cocaine, the study says,

"It is not possible to describe an "average cocaine user". An enormous variety was found in the types of people who use cocaine, the amount of drug used, the frequency of use, the duration and intensity of use, the reasons for using and any associated problems they experience.’"(pg. 1)

However it does usefully establish a continuum for use, noting that the majority of harms are accrued by the minority of users at the extreme of the continuum;

• experimental use
• occasional use
• situation-specific use
• intensive use
• compulsive/dysfunctional use

Experimental and occasional use are by far the most common types of use, and compulsive/dysfunctional is far less common." (pg. 28)

The study additionally notes - in direct conflict with the accepted drug war paradigm that all use equals abuse - that:

"That occasional cocaine use does not typically lead to severe or even minor physical or social problems ... a minority of people start using cocaine or related products, use casually for a short or long period, and suffer little or no negative consequences, even after years of use. ... Use of coca leaves appears to have no negative health effects and has positive, therapeutic, sacred and social functions for indigenous Andean populations."

In addressing the rise in use, the report posits that key drivers are the drug's illicit status combined with both rising wealth (for cocaine powder) and increased poverty (for crack cocaine).

"The increasing attractiveness of cocaine in the past two decades may be related to:

• the "glamour" of illicit drug use in general;
• increased wealth allowing more people access to what they believe is the most glamorous of all illicit drugs;
• widespread poverty or social disadvantage in countries such as the USA at a time when cheap coca preparations like crack have become widely available." (pg. 14)
  

The report was never officially published and according to the WHO it does not exist, however some of the project advisors are now pushing for it to be formally published. It has only emerged into the public domain because the relevant documents were leaked and found their way into the hands of the Transnational Institute drugs and democracy programme.

The suppression of this detailed, authoritative and independent report is yet more evidence of how certain governments, most conspicuously the US, have willfully refused to develop rational drug policy based on science and evidence - and worse, when evidence emerges that challenges their political prerogatives and drug war ideologies they will resort to bullying, threats and censorship to ensure it is suppressed. This is anti-science drug war posturing of the worst kind, and can only lead to poor policy development with increased social and personal costs the inevitable result.

Transform has passed this report on to the forthcoming Home Affairs Select Committee inquiry on cocaine in the hope that it might usefully be used to inform policy discussions, albeit only at the UK level for now, and some 13 years late.

Also from Transform:

• From soft drink to hard drug; a snapshot of coca, cocaine and crack, By Mike Jay
  
  
• How cocaine markets have been hit by the financial crisis
  
  
• Transform publishes comparative cost benefit analysis of prohibition vs regulation of cocaine and heroin
  
  
• Shoveling water: War on drugs - War on people (film about coca eradication)
  
  
• It is not coca growing per se that fuels the conflict in Colombia, but the fact that cocaine is illegal

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ex-U.S. President Jimmy Carter to Harvest Coca with Bolivia's President Evo Morales?

In La Paz this Saturday, former U.S. President and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Jimmy Carter accepted an invitation from Bolivian ruler and coca grower Evo Morales to harvest coca leaves on the Andean ruler's rural property in the El Chapare region (Central Bolivia).

"I hope that my next visit I will be able to go to El Chapare, where he (Morales) is going to take me to harvest coca leaves," thus affirmed the former head of state, with the help of an interpreter, during a press conference together with the Bolivian head of state, after a private meeting at the Government Palace.

Morales, leader of the coca harvesters of Bolivia, first fielded the invitation, amidst smiles and a pleasant press statement, assuring that there has been a long friendship with the Nobel Peace Laureate, who even invited him once to harvest peanuts on his lands near Atlanta (Georgia, Southeast U.S.). ...

The former U.S. head of state, already into his presentation, accepted the invitation.

"Given that President Morales has been to my property, and evidently has harvested some peanuts, I hope that on my next visit I can go to El Chapare, where he is going to take me to harvest some coca leaves," responded Carter, which also drew a smirk of happiness from Morales.

I found the above translation of the original article at an article within a blog titled 'American Thinker'. Contrary to what its name suggest, that blog makes the statement that:

If true, this report takes former President Carter into entirely new territory: active support of the production of the ingredient for crack and powder cocaine.

Confusingly, the Globovision headline reads: "Former U.S. President Carter accepts invitation to plant coca in Bolivia"

Is it plant or harvest? We don't know.

And we hope that this is a hoax from Venezuela. There should be television coverage of the La Paz event, so this incident bears further investigation. If true, this represents a historic low for an ex-president.

Appropriately, that blog is called out on this:

This commentary in this article shows that you have a vast misunderstanding of coca and its uses. By referring to Carter's excursion as "active support of the production of the ingredient for crack and powder cocaine," you simply make yourself look ignorant and stupid. Coca is used throughout the Andes much like coffee is used in the United States. It plays an important role in the economy as well as in Bolivian culture and society. Coca has been PROVEN nutritious and has many uses in medicine. You will be interested to know that many UNITED STATES pharmaceutical companies use coca and its derivatives in anesthesia. I hope next time you will read up on the subject matter before injecting your ignorant commentary into the story.

The article appears with the name A.M. Mora y Leon, which appears as the author in numerous articles within 'American Thinker'.

The submissions editor for that blog is Larrey Anderson, so described there:

Larrey Anderson, submissions editor, is a writer and philosopher. He studied comparative religion, philosophy, and law at Harvard, Penn State, and Catholic University of America. He served three terms as an Idaho state senator including a stint as chairman of the Health and Welfare Committee. He retired from the senate for health reasons. He has written four books.

Such laxity with such ignorance does not reflect favorably upon such educational institutions, let alone any government affording him a chairmanship to any sort of 'health' related body for apparently not noting of the differences between Coca leaves and refined cocaine.

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Obama Laughs Off Question on MJ Legalization

Provides zero argument for saying no to legalizing Cannabis for economic relief or job creation before compliant audience.


THE PRESIDENT: Can I just interrupt, Jared, before you ask the next question, just to say that we -- we took votes about which questions were going to be asked and I think 3 million people voted or --

DR. BERNSTEIN: Three point five million.

THE PRESIDENT: Three point five million people voted. I have to say that there was one question that was voted on that ranked fairly high and that was whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy -- (laughter) -- and job creation. And I don't know what this says about the online audience -- (laughter) -- but I just want -- I don't want people to think that -- this was a fairly popular question; we want to make sure that it was answered. The answer is, no, I don't think that is a good strategy -- (laughter) -- to grow our economy. (Applause.)

What does such a reaction say about the type of people handpicked for attending such an event?

And what does it say about Obama?

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Leaves of Wrath Led US To Blackmail WHO

during the Clinton Administration over-riding WHO and US Congress Office of Technology Assessment

Leaves of Wrath Led US to Blackmail WHO
Final Episode in the Tug-of-War Between the US, the UN and Bolivia’s Coca Leaf?

by Nadia Hausfather / March 11th, 2009

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2009/03/leaves-of-wrath-led-us-to-blackmail-who/#comment-40896

Bolivian President Evo Morales is on his way to Vienna, but he can’t bring coca leaves to chew for comfort on the plane — not even a bit of coca shampoo to shower with at the hotel. He might have his last chance to change that, once he sets foot at the 52nd session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in Austria’s capital city this March 11th. The CND is the policy-making body at the United Nations that deals with illicit drugs — and the medicinal coca leaf, native to Bolivia, is considered to be one of them.

According to the UN website, ministers and top anti-drug officials from the CND Member States will be meeting to discuss issues ranging from preventing drug abuse to adopting a plan of action to “counter the world drug problem.” But for former coca farmer Morales and other coca leaf activists, the problem lies with the UN’s decisions — particularly the one that put the coca leaf on the UN’s list of the most strongly controlled illicit substances.

For years, activists have been trying to to remove coca from the top UN list of illegal substances and change the international perception of coca as being synonymous with cocaine. President Morales himself sent an official letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon exactly one year ago, announcing he would try to take the coca leaf off the UN’s list.

But the list of controlled substances can only be changed by the 53 governments of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, “taking into account the recommendation made by the World Health Organization, based on a scientific review of a substance,” says Beate Hammond, Drug Control Officer of the Secretariat of the International Narcotics Control Board.

Hammond claims that in 1993, the WHO Expert Committee confirmed that the coca leaf belongs in the top list because “cocaine is readily extractable from the leaf.” She adds, “We are not aware of any facts that have come to light to justify a reversal of the scheduling status of coca leaf.”

But some are saying the reason those facts have not come to light has little to do with facts, and a lot to do with faulty studies — and a bit of blackmailing.

Yanking the Problem by the UN’s Roots

The roots of this thorny issue go back to 1961, when governments signed the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs to establish a single apparatus for international drug control. Another goal of the 1961 Convention was to “phase out the traditional consumption of drugs” like coca throughout the next 25 years, says a source from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

“Everyone who signed and ratified it is bound by it,” affirms the UNODC source. According to Article 3 of that convention, controlled substances are not only those substances that can be abused, but also the substances that can be converted into a drug, explains Hammond.

While Hammond says the original 1961 Convention included the coca leaf on the list based on “the views on this matter expressed by the World Health Organization,” Sdenka Silva, co-founder of the Coca Museum in La Paz, says the original WHO study that is the basis was merely “based on observations.”

The most recent WHO study was legitimate, but it was ignored, says Dr. Jorge Hurtado, director of the Bolivian branch of the International Coca Research Institute. He says that in the 90s, studies by the WHO denied the addictive nature of the leaf and reaffirmed the coca leaf’s healthy attributes, including the leaf’s ability to allow the absorption of oxygen into the brain.

But this time the UN didn’t care about what the WHO had to say, because the US didn’t like it. Minutes from the 48th World Health Assembly in May 1995 cite the US government’s disapproval of the WHO study’s most recent findings about the coca leaf. The report cites US government representative Mr. Boyer warning that “if WHO activities relating to drugs failed to reinforce proven drug control approaches, funds for the relevant programs should be curtailed.” He then “asked for an assurance that WHO would dissociate itself from the conclusions of the study.”

Mario Argandoña, a Bolivian psychiatrist from the WHO Programme on Substance Abuse, participated in the study and wrote a report describing the study’s positive findings about the coca leaf. He says a few days after the 48th World Health Assembly meeting, the US embassy representative for the WHO, Dr. Ken Bernard, visited him in his Geneva office “to tell me that his government was investigating to see whether the WHO study had received financial support from Bolivian drug traffickers.” Dr. Bernard added that US scientists had proof that the traditional use of the coca leaf had led to brain atrophy in 14,000 Indigenous Andeans. “My answer was that the funding for the study came from Italy and the USA,” recalls Argandoña. “Regarding the scientific study about brain atrophy, I told him that the ethical thing to do would be to publish such a study.” Their meeting ended there.

Even Better Than the Real Thing

Dr. Jorge Hurtado tries to dispel ideas that coca is bad for the brain and any other part of the body. He affirms that as early as the 70s, research from Harvard University showed that the Bolivian coca leaf contains more vitamin A than any fruit and has more calcium than milk.

But most Bolivians know this just from experience. Bolivian miners survive hunger and sleep deprivation for long hours in the depth of the mines by chewing on coca leaves.

Coca is not only sacred for miners — but for Bolivians of all ages and walks of life. From the age of 11, Canedo amassed coca leaves into a protruding ball in one cheek to suck their juices out — an activity called ‘acullicar.’ Both his parents’ families are ‘acullicadoras.’ When Canedo visits his piece of land in the tropical Yungas region, he cultivates coca along with his family and neighbors. Back in La Paz, he often buys a bag of coca leaves at the market to share with his family. He chews on coca leaves at local bars and pubs and especially when he’s up late studying for exams or volunteering at the annual Coca and Sovereignty Fair, where everything from coca creams to coca pancakes is sold.

“Coca is part of us, it’s part of our identity, of our ideas, of our history,” says Jeannette Rojas, director of Comunidad Sagrada Coca, a local women’s music collective that seeks to honour Bolivia’s Indigenous heritage. “That’s why we call ourselves Sacred Coca Community,” she says.

“Coca is a symbol that has resisted and persisted for centuries. It’s the only thing that we’ve managed to preserve from European and Spanish destruction.”

Coca is present “in all the celebrations you can imagine: baptisms, marriages, village festivals, fertility, thanksgiving rituals” and important meetings, adds Silva.

Bolivians aren’t the only ones who know this. “Bolivia has produced coca leaf for traditional uses for centuries,” affirms a March 2007 International Narcotic Strategy Report released by US Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.

“Bolivians actually chew on the coca leaf for medicinal purposes,” acknowledges US Drug Enforcement Administration spokesperson Michael Sanders. He recalls arriving at the El Alto airport, at more than 12,000 feet above the ground. “Because of altitude, a lot of people, including us, would get altitude sickness. They found one of the things that would curb the nausea and the altitude sickness was coca tea,” he says. “It wouldn’t get you high or anything like that, it would just assist with the symptoms of altitude sickness.”

Dr. Hurtado adds that the leaf contains two molecules that prevent addiction. And not only can the leaf prevent addiction, it can cure it, he says. Since 1984, he says he has been treating cocaine addiction with the coca leaf.

Cutting Supply Isn’t Enough

Whether curative or nutritional, what’s crystal clear is that coca leaves are not synonymous with cocaine. “Coca does not contain cocaine in its natural state,” explains Dr. Hurtado. Cocaine can only be derived from it through a specific chemical extraction process, he says, and a lengthy process is needed to transform the green leaves into the white powder.

Dionisio Nuñez, a Bolivian deputy and co-founder of the Coca and Sovereignty campaign thinks the cocaine problem in Bolivia is the direct consequence of cocaine consumption in the US and its inability to eradicate that problem domestically.

Even the DEA spokesperson agrees. “Do you like chocolate?” Sanders asked. “What if you said I’m not going to eat chocolate anymore? If everyone in the country said okay, I’m not going to eat chocolate, then there would be no such thing as Swiss chocolate because nobody would be buying it,” said Sanders.

“It’s the same thing with illegal drugs. Until the demand is gone, you’re always going to have that supply.”

Dr. Hurtado also blames the US for protecting the monopoly of multinational companies to access coca, referring to a special deal that the soft drink company had with the DEA to export coca. Article 27 of the 1961 UN convention clearly provides a loophole for Coca Cola to take advantage of, says Dr. Hurtado, adding that the UN protects the Coca Cola monopoly because “the UN is controlled by the US.”

Yet Hammond laughs about the idea of Coca Cola being allowed preferential treatment by the UN. “The 1961 Convention may permit the use and export of coca leaves for the preparation of a flavouring agent, which does not contain any (cocaine) alkaloids,” explained Hammond. “It is only under these limited conditions that these leaves may be exported,” but the alkaloids do not have to be removed prior to export.

Meanwhile, the Bolivian government struggles to find legal markets to export the coca leaf — to ensure less coca goes to drug trafficking and more goes to eating, soothing, washing and curing. If travelers like Morales want to bring coca teas, creams or candies as souvenirs to promote their local economy and heritage when they go on trips abroad, the coca leaf will need to be taken off the UN’s list by the CND.

Bolivian President Evo Morales will make his speech during the opening session of the CND March 11th. It starts at 10am at the Vienna International Centre and is open to the media.

Nadia Hausfather is a Humanities PhD student at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada and lived in Bolivia for eight months. Read other articles by Nadia.

This article was posted on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 8:33am and is filed under Bolivia, Drug Wars, Empire, South Ixachilan (America), United Nations. ShareThis

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Evo Morales Calls on Obama to Back Coca Campaign

Bolivia's Morales calls on Obama to back coca campaign

11 Mar 2009 15:26:16 GMT

Source: Reuters

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LB506427.htm

By Sylvia Westall VIENNA, March 11 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama should recognise traditional uses of the coca leaf because not all production becomes cocaine, Bolivian President Evo Morales said on Wednesday.

Morales, a former coca farmer, also called on participants at a United Nations drug policy meeting in Vienna to lift a ban on coca for some uses.

"My top aim (in coming here) is to defend coca, to fight for coca," Morales told a news conference through a German translator.

Bolivia is the world's No. 3 cocaine producer after Colombia and Peru. Coca, the raw ingredient of cocaine, is used by millions of people in Bolivia and neighboring Peru to fight altitude sickness and stave off hunger. In its natural form, the leaf is also used in teas, in cooking and for religious ceremonies.

"We hope for support from President Obama for the decriminalization of coca," Morales said, adding that Bolivia is committed to the fight against cocaine and other drugs.

"The new U.S. president has similarities to me," Morales said, adding that he hoped Obama would help his years-long coca crusade because of what they have in common. "Before, nobody believed that an Indian could be president and nobody thought that a black man could be president of the United States," Morales said.

Morales, who has banned U.S. anti-drug agents from working in Bolivia, has said his country can fight cocaine trafficking on its own. He ordered the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to stop its work in Bolivia in November after accusing the agency of spying and conspiring to overthrow him.

A U.S. State Department report in February said Bolivian cocaine production increased rapidly last year due to greater cultivation and more efficient manufacturing methods. It said Bolivia had failed to live up to obligations under international agreements.

The U.N.'s crime agency chief said on Wednesday a 10-year anti-drug drive had partially backfired by making drug cartels so wealthy they can bribe their way through West Africa and Central America, and undermining security and development. [ID:nLB426950]
(Editing by Jon Boyle)

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