Peru to Allow Some Coca Cultivation
From The BBC:
The Peruvian government has said it will allow limited cultivation of coca despite earlier opposition.
It had threatened legal action after a regional authority in the Andes issued a by-law lifting curbs on the growth of coca, the raw ingredient in cocaine.
The government backed down after the governor of Cuzco said the new by-law would affect one valley and not the whole region.
Farmers want to cultivate coca for its traditional uses as a medicine and tea…
Contrary to what most people probably think, this should be a very good thing. Last year I went to a talk by Wade Davis. I can’t remember what the term for him is, but he’s basically a plant anthropologist, or a person who studies the relationship between plants and different cultures of people (and best known for the guy who wrote the book which was mangled into the movie [i]The Serpent and the Rainbow[/i]). He talked quite a bit about South American and the plants, specifically the coca plant. What most people don’t realize is that there’s a ton of nutrients in the coca leaves which basically aren’t found anywhere else in that climate and elevation. Chewing the coca leaves brings those nutrients into the body and allows people to have much greater stamina when moving up and down the side of the mountain. It isn’t dangerous or extremely addictive until it’s refined into cocaine. Of course, the drug warriors will conveniently forget any benefit it might have and instead focus on how it can be perverted…
