Pubdate: Fri, 04 Jul 2003
Source: Miami Herald (FL)
Copyright: 2003 The Miami Herald
Contact:  http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/262
Author: Lucien O. Chauvin, Special to The Herald
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

PERU FIRM EXPORTS COCA LEAVES

Regulation Tight For Crop That Has Medical Uses

LIMA - As manager of international sales for the National Coca Co., Luis 
Hinostroza may have one of the world's oddest jobs.

His company exports coca leaves and processed cocaine, but only after 
meeting reams of red tape from drug-enforcement agencies in the buyers' 
countries. It offers coca-leaf teas, some with English-language packaging 
for sale abroad even though international norms bar their export.

ENACO, as it is known for its Spanish acronym, is the Peruvian government's 
official buyer and merchandiser of coca leaves and one of only two 
companies in the world to produce refined cocaine for medical uses.

"We have used coca in this country for 4,000 years. It is not a drug, but 
because of the negative image associated with one product it is considered 
evil," Hinostroza said in a recent interview. "We are ready to export and 
have our products already in English for the U.S. market. We just have to 
get this prohibition lifted."

Peasant farmers in the high Andes traditionally chew coca as a nutritional 
supplement and energy booster and use it in religious and fortune-telling 
rituals. Besides cocaine, which is one of 14 alkaloids in the leaf, coca 
has a long list of vitamins and minerals.

ENACO purchases roughly 3,000 tons of coca leaf a year from growers, and 
then sells about 2,800 tons for traditional uses. Another seven tons are 
ground up at one of its two Lima plants and packaged as teas, often 
consumed in the Andean highlands as a remedy for altitude sickness.

The remainder is sold abroad in leaf form or refined into about 330 pounds 
of cocaine, with a 92 percent purity level, that is exported mostly to 
Europe as an anesthetic used mainly in eye surgery.

Cocaine, coca leaves and teas are all available for sale on ENACO's 
website, www.ena co.com.pe. But there are strict controls on the cocaine, 
which ENACO sells for $1,000 a pound but which would bring about $50,000 on 
the illegal market.

"Purchase of cocaine has to be approved by drug-enforcement agencies in the 
importing country. We are very careful with the lab and with the exports," 
Hinostroza said.

The other company producing cocaine is New Jersey's Stepan Co., a 
multinational that makes a long line of industrial and household products.

Stepan buys about 110 tons of coca leaves from ENACO each year to make 
cocaine for pharmaceutical companies. The U.S. Drug Enforcement 
Administration grants Stepan a special license to import coca leaves.

"We process coca leaves for a pharmaceutical product, principally used in 
ocular [eye] surgery. That is the primary use for the coca we import," says 
Stepan's general counsel, Sam Ebert, in a telephone interview.

ENACO asserts, however, that Stepan also processes the coca syrup used for 
flavoring Coca-Cola since 1905. Stepan would not comment on whether it 
makes the extract, which lacks the cocaine alkaloid. Coca-Cola officials in 
Peru said only that the Atlanta-based firm does not buy raw coca leaves.

Supplying Coca-Cola is a business that the Peruvian company would dearly 
like to have.

"It is ironic that we cannot sell our products, but a U.S. company is given 
special permission to industrialize coca," said ENACO chemist Silveria 
Dongo, who has overseen the company's laboratory for 11 years.

"The DEA wants us to eradicate our coca, which is part of our cultural 
heritage, but it has no problem allowing it to be imported so a U.S. 
company can do the same thing," Dongo added.

With nearly 90,000 acres of coca under cultivation -- enough for 150 tons 
of cocaine -- Peru is the world's second-largest coca producer behind 
Colombia, which has three times the acreage and accounts for most of the 
770 tons of illegal cocaine sold in the United States and Europe each year.

Peru receives about $140 million a year in U.S. counter-narcotic aid, and 
in September 2002 signed an agreement with Washington to eradicate all but 
28,000 acres of coca by 2006.

After a steady decline from nearly 300,000 acres of coca in the early 
1990s, Peru saw an increase of 8 percent last year, apparently the result 
of increased eradication efforts in Colombia under the U.S.- financed Plan 
Colombia.

While the possibility of legally exporting coca leaf or coca products 
appears unlikely to become reality anytime soon, that has not stopped Dongo 
from thinking up coca-baased products.

In her tidy laboratory, amid rows of beakers holding different 
caramel-colored liquids, Dongo shows off soaps, shampoos and industrial 
products made from coca.

If all goes well, ENACO will launch a power drink later this year to 
compete with imported, high-caffeine drinks. The company is keeping the 
name of the drink secret for now
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom