Pubdate: Fri, 14 Jan 2005
Source: Eastern Door, The (CN QU)
Copyright: 2005 The Eastern Door
Contact:  http://www.easterndoor.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2464
Author: Felix Atencio-Gonzales
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

SACRED GIFT OF THE INCAS

Coca Leaves Are Not Cocaine

Leaving Listuguj and Campbellton for a journey to South America is always 
exciting, as is coming back. With a grant from the Quebec Art Council, I 
went to Peru to do a research about coca leaves, a plant that Andean people 
have used for more than 5,000 years. They call it Mama-Coca or Mother-Coca 
and I brought three leaves with me. Arriving at the Montreal airport, the 
custom officer was unequivcal. "There are drugs and we have zero tolerance 
for drugs," she said before seizing the leaves.

Coca leaves are not the white powder some people snort. In Peru, I chewed 
coca leaves, meeting farmers, academics, community leaders, a judge and 
other people such as Pedro Marticorena, a Wanka spiritual leader. 
"Mama-Coca, bring together our family, our community, Father-Sun, 
Mother-Earth, the stars, the sacred mountains, the animals and plants. She 
plays an important role in connecting us," he said from his adobe-made home 
in Huancayo, a city located 2,600 metres above sea level.

In fact, when a young adult takes his parents to meet his girlfriend's 
family to formalize their relationship, they take coca leaves and offer 
them the Kintu, five of the best leaves: round, big, perfect texture, not 
split or scratched. Coca is also present at the birth of a child or at 
their first ahricut. At funerals, they are given for the person's use in 
the other world. Elders can foretell the future by "reading" coca leaves, 
an ancient tradition gaining popularity in big cities. They don't use 
cocaine for any of these moments.

Indian healers and doctors use coca leaves. Transofrmed into drinks, bread 
or balm, coca is sold in local stores or in city malls. Restaurants, after 
a meal, offer a few leaves in a cup of hot water because of coca's 
digestive properties. Coca, an important source of nutrients, contains high 
levels of calcium, iron, phosphorus, potassium, and vitamins A B12 and E. 
In fact, many chewers get 100 percent of the recommended daily allowance of 
these nutrients from their coca use. A Harvard University study found that 
100 grams of Coca more than satisified the recommended daily allowance of 
calcium, iron, phosphorus, vitamin A and riboflavin. For many poor people, 
coca is a critical element of their diet and tourists visiting Huancayo 
drink coca tea to battle altitude sickness.

The coca leaves seized by the officer were gifts for my documentary's 
producer and for Charles Cooco, a spiritual leader from Wemotaci, an 
Atikamekw community, 450 kms, north of Montreal. He wants to visit Peru to 
learn about traditional use of coca leaves by Indians. He knows that 
cocaine is made from coca leaves and he wants to tell coca growers about 
the ravages that cocaine is causing to some First Nations.

The Origins Of The Coca Leaves

Before the Spanish conquistadors arrived looking for the Incas' gold, 
people were telling Coca's story. Pedro Marticorena narrates it: 
"Kjana-Chuyma, a respected wise man, had received a message from Father 
Sun: "Dark days are coming. Though, I will give you a gift that will help 
you. go to the mountain and you will find a plant with great strength. When 
you feel hungry, take it to your mouth. When you get sick, use it to heal 
your body and when you want to know tomorrow, see it dancing on the wind 
and you will find answers to your questions. However, if the foreigners 
touch this plant they will find poison for their bodies and darkness for 
their minds'."

Prophetic or not, in 1860 cocaine was isolated from all the other chemicals 
in the coca leaf and the pure form of cocaine was extracted. It's a unique 
chemical in that it is both a central nervous system stimulatn and an 
anesthetic. Its greatest medicinal value was in ophthalmology. In those 
years, eye surgery stood in desperate need of a good local anesthetic. This 
was because, in eye operations, it is essential for a conscious patient to 
move his eye as directed by the surgeon, without flinching. Viennese 
ophthalmologist Karl Koller found that cocaine was ideal for the task. 
Later, Neurologist Sigmund Freud played a significant role in the 
development of the Western cocaine industry. Coca-Cola was developed in 
1886 and contained cocaine-laced syrup. Cocaine was widely used until it 
was outlawed in the U.S. in 1914.

Today, cocaine medical application is overshadowed by its unwelcome 
popularity in the streets of Western and Asian countries, its biggest 
markets. It has also made its way into some remote Inuit and First Nations 
communities in Canada with devastating social consequences. It takes around 
300 kgs. of coca leaves and 14 chemicals to produce 300 grams of cocaine. 
It's a long, lengthy process: starting with coca leaves and sulfuric acid. 
Producers draw off the liquid and then add more acid, along with lime, 
water, gasoline, potassium permanganate and ammonia. This creates a paste 
that is further refined by using kerosene, methyl alcohol and more sulfuric 
acid. The result is the white crystalline powder that has a bitter, numbing 
effect when tasted and is sold in the streets as coke, snow, snow white and 
nose candy.

Cocaine's international illegal economy has penetrated various social 
classes that news reports link production, trafficking or consumption to 
politicians, ministers, police officers, farmers, bankers, coca growers, 
etc. But cocaine's popularity demands extensive production and this brings 
more repression against the coca plant, the raw material for cocaine. In 
Peru, government officials estimate at 34,000 hectares the area used by 
coca plants. The traditional use of coca leaves by Indigenous people 
requires 12,000 hectares, and the rest, government officials conclude, are 
used for cocaine production.

According to psychiatrist Baldomero Caceres, a coca expert and professor at 
the Molina University, "These conclusions don't consider the real number of 
traditional users nor the quantity they use themselves or for their 
ceremonies. Unhappily, the government applies its eradication program based 
on these estimates." Cacares was taking part at a demonstration organized 
by the Federation of coca growers in Lima. Entire families, including 
children, left their villages and walked nearly 600 kms. to demand of 
President Alejandro Toledo the industrilization of coca leaves, a better 
control of harvesting and to be consulted for the introduction of more 
realistic alternative crops. The first week of July, after almost two 
months in Lima, they returned to their villages, ignored by the President.

Bolivia manufactures more than 30 products made from coca - from toothpaste 
to gums, bread, shampooing to wine - but can't export them because coca is 
enlisted as a drug. In Peru, demands to industrialize coca are disregarded 
and farmers are rallying to defend their coca production, including these 
feeding cocaine labs. Coca growers have to sell their harvest to ENACO, the 
government coca regulator institution. But ENACO's low prices and buying 
limits encourage some producers to deal with buyers working for clandestine 
cocaine laboratories.

Most of Peru's coffee grows on the eastern foothills of the Andes. In many 
areas, coffee competes for plantation space with coca. It's a battle the 
coca often wins because the regional cost of growing coffee is more than 
$1.5 per kg; the world market price just half a dollar per kg. This 
compares to $3.5 per kg for coca. Coca growers can harvest four times a 
year but the immediate advantage has a lasting and serious environmental 
impact. The soil is rapidly exhausted and needs longer regeneration time. 
The government's program for coca eradication spreads from air and land, 
chemical products that make their way into other fields, into the forest, 
the rivers and into the food chain. On the other hand, the chemicals used 
in the illegal process of cocaine and its derivates, are also toxic and 
make their way into the ecosystem.

Fighting to stop the flow of cocaine from Peru, the United States 
conditions its aid to Peru in exchange for the coca eradication program, 
without consideration of Indigenous users. It also sends advisors, arms and 
money, which is seen by locals as a disguise to fight Marxist guerilla 
groups of the FARC in Colombia or the Shining Path in Peru, both also knows 
to protect drug traffickers in exchange for money and arms.

In this context I was doing my research in Peru. Coca traditional users 
want to change the perception westerners have of coca leaves. For them coca 
is not the problem, but cocaine is. They say that producers, geurilla 
groups, politicians, cocaine traffickers, street pushers and cocaine users 
in Canadian cities or small villages, don't respect their sacred coca 
plant, the gift given to the incas. Pedro Marticorena, has invited Charles 
Cooco to Peru. "I would like to show him how important and present coca is 
in our culture and I want to tell him that if Native people in Canada are 
snorting cocaine, they don't respect our sacred medicine," he says.

My three leaves confiscated at the airport were burned. "If you would have 
brought a handful of coca leaves to Canada, you would have been charged for 
drug trafficking," the Customs officer told me. I don't know of anyone who 
died of chewing coca leaves. Ironically, it is legal to bring cigarettes, a 
major cause of lung cancer in Canada.