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Bolivian candidate vows to subsidise legal coca use

Nov 17, 2009 8:07 PM | By Sapa-AFP

Bolivia's right-wing presidential candidate Manfred Reyes Villa said he would subsidise the consumption of coca leaves if elected next year, but also pledged to cut down on coca planting.

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A woman lays out coca leaves in San Francisco, a town in the region of Ayacucho that is on the frontline of the coca and cocaine trade, November 9, 2009. The Apurimac and Ene River Valleys (VRAE) in Peru have become the world's most intensive coca growing areas with remnant bands of the left-wing Shining Path rebels protecting drug trafficking routes throughout the rugged jungle landscape, according to United Nations analysts.
A woman lays out coca leaves in San Francisco, a town in the region of Ayacucho that is on the frontline of the coca and cocaine trade, November 9, 2009. The Apurimac and Ene River Valleys (VRAE) in Peru have become the world's most intensive coca growing areas with remnant bands of the left-wing Shining Path rebels protecting drug trafficking routes throughout the rugged jungle landscape, according to United Nations analysts.
Photograph by: MARIANA BAZO
Credit: REUTERS

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"As president of the republic I will subsidise coca. To those who chew (leaves), I will give back 50 percent of the cost," Reyes Villa told reporters.

At 18 percent in recent polls, Reyes Villa remains 34 points behind frontrunner President Evo Morales, who is also the leader of Bolivia's largest coca-leaf growers union, in the run-up to next year's August 6 poll.

Coca leaves are the raw material from which cocaine can be processed, but they are habitually chewed mainly by indigenous communities in Bolivia and are used in traditional remedies.

Growing small amounts for such purposes is legal.

Outside of coca for chewing, and medicinal and ritual uses, "the rest is an excess that is going toward drug trafficking," warned Reyes Villa, saying that tens of thousands of hectares of coca leaf crops needed to be destroyed.

According to a June report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the country's cocaine production increased over the last year by nine percent, for a 113-ton crop.

Bolivian law allows for the production of 12,000 hectares of coca to be produced for legal purposes.

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Comments

Nov 17 2009 08:27:32 PM
hoodoo
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We need dykes...and lots of seeds...coca seeds....chew chew chew....spit spit spit....water....

The biggest mistake the powers that be made was to promote tobacco....

Eish....
Nov 17 2009 09:02:41 PM
Sechaba-is-not-a-fake-Communist
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Ok
Nov 17 2009 09:09:29 PM
Rockspider
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Yeah, grass would have tasted crappy without it.
Nov 17 2009 10:30:49 PM
Mommacyndi
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When you go to Mata Picchu you get coco tea to help with the altitude adjustment.

Some countries are simply more civilized than others :)
Nov 18 2009 04:31:12 AM
Billy Hill
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Bolivia is reinventing democractic socialism. They are in the process of creating a plurinational state with equal rights for all nations and people, redistributing land, providing free health and education for everyone, creating what they call a pluri-economy that includes public, private, co-operative and communitarian.

In four years of power they have eliminated illiteracy, reduced extreme poverty by 6%, insituted a senior's pension for the first time, nationalized hydrocarbons and achieved a 6.5% economic growth.

They are showing that a government that acts in the interests of the majority really can succeed and that an alternative is truly possible.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23986.htm

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Western world main stream media with it's ownership concentrated into a few corporations, without fail attempt to demonize and discredit nations not prepared or no longer prepared to bend over and grab their ankles for them.

In the case of Bolivia, Venezuela, Brazil, Cuba and others in Latin America, the US in particular fear a domino effect with so many nations there rejecting western capitalism.

This is behind the US (corporate sponsored) coup on the democratically elected government of Honduras on June 28 this year and is behind the massive US military build up in Colombia.

Many nations globally are saying enough is enough to decades of US aggression and western interferance in the affairs if sovereign nations which has led to their plundering and pillaging of resources.


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