DEB ATE PAPERS JUNE 2009 no17 Coca Myths T N Drugs and Democracy Programme I TRANSNATIONAL TNI Briefing Series No 2009/1 CO N TE N T S AUTHORS • Editorial 3 Anthony Henman Pien Metaal • Myth One: Coca and Nutrition 4 EDITORS Martin Jelsma Box: Nutritional value of coca leaf - Harvard Study 7 Amira Armenta DESIGN • Myth Two: Coca and Alkaloids 7 Jan Abrahim Vos • Myth Three: Coca and Addiction 13 PRINTER Drukkerijj PrimaveraQuint • Myth Four: Amsterdam Coca and the Environment 16 FINANCIAL CONTRIBUTIONS • Myth Five: Coca and Society 20 Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Netherlands) • Final Remarks 22 Foundation Open Society T Institute (FOSI) • Bibliography 23 N Drugs & Conflict Series I CONTACT Transnational Institute No. 1 Europe and Plan Colombia, April 2001 De Wittenstraat 25 1052 AK Amsterdam No. 2 In the Heat of the Debate. Fumigation and Conflict in Colombia, September 2001 Netherlands No. 3 Merging Wars. Afghanistan. Drugs and Terrorism, December Tel: -31-20-6626608 2001 Fax: -31-20-6757176 No. 4 A Failed Balance. Alternative Development and Eradication, [email protected] March 2002 www.tni.org/drugs No. 5 Breaking the Impasse. Polarisation & Paralysis in UN Drug www.ungassondrugs.org Control, July 2002 No. 6 Change of Course. An Agenda for Vienna, March 2003 The contents of this No. 7 Cross Purposes. Alternative Development and Conflict in Colombia, document can be quoted or June 2003 reproduced as long as the No. 8 Transcending Drug Control. Forward Operating Locations in Latin America, September 2003 source is mentioned. TNI No. 9 Drugs and Conflict in Burma (Myanmar). Dilemmas for Policy would appreciate receiving a Responses, December 2003 copy of the text in which this No. 10 Coca or death? Cocalero movements in Peru and Bolivia, April document is used or cited. 2004 No. 11 A Pointless War. Drugs and Violence in Brazil, November 2004 To receive information No. 12 Downward Spiral. Banning Opium in Afghanistan and Burma, about TNI’s publications and July 2005 activities, we suggest that you No. 13 Coca yes, Cocaine, no? Legal Options fot the Coca Leaf, May subscribe to our bi-weekly 2006 bulletin by sending a request No. 14 Paco Under Scrutiny. The Cocaine Base Paste Market in to: [email protected] or registering Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, October 2006 at www.tni.org No. 15 Losing Ground, Drug Control and War in Afghanistan, December 2006 No.16 Withdrawal Symptoms, Changes in the Southeast Asian drugs Amsterdam, June 2009 market, August 2008 ISSN 1871-3408 All editions of the series are available online in English and Spanish at: www.tni.org/reports/drugs/debate.htm E ditorialT itel istory has been unjust to the the plant is used to produce its “black gold”. coca leaf, denying it distribu- Every day press accounts around the world tion on a global scale despite use the word coca in their headlines, when its proven value as an energy they refer in fact to cocaine. enhancer, and limiting its poten- tial for widespread use as a healthy alter- Amidst all this confusion, Bolivia’s President native to all sorts of chemical stimulants has recently announced that his country will currently available on the world market. step forward to undo the historical mistake of including the coca leaf in the 1961 Con- The inclusion of the coca leaf in the 1961 vention. Although the claim that coca is part Single Convention’s lists of drugs liable to of the identity and history of the Andean/ abuse, and therefore subject to international Amazon region is unlikely to be questioned control, has not produced the effect origi- by most countries, a possible removal of the nally desired: traditional use - whether by coca leaf from the international control sys- chewing the leaves or drinking them in an tem is still met with considerable scepticism. infusion - is still widespread, though largely The reasons for such a degree of resistance limited to a few countries where such prac- – which we believe to be mistaken and inap- tices have historical antecedents. Potential propriate - have motivated the production demand is high, particularly for coca tea. of this briefing paper The ban of even this innocuous custom is T still one of the demands repeated annually The present issue of Drugs & Conflict in the statements of the INCB, the interpre- intends to debunk and disentangle the most tive body of the UN control system. This prominent myths surrounding the coca leaf. N unreasonable posture has recently led to It aims to clear the air and help steer the a formal request from one government to debate towards a more evidence-based I abrogate the articles of the 1961 Conven- judgement of the issues. Discussion has tion that demand the abolishment of coca been stuck for too long at the point where leaf chewing. it is now, and - sometime in the near future - political decisions will need to be made on Many myths surround the coca leaf. Radically coca’s fate and legal status. opposed views and opinions can be heard in the polemical debates surrounding this Persecuting plants and the people who plant, and those not familiar with the sub- grow them is still a basic ingredient of drug ject are easily lost among all the apparent policies around the world. One Andean contradictions. The debate is politicised and president recently announced he would has become subject to extreme ideologi- like to see farmers that grow these plants cal positioning. For some the coca leaf is incarcerated. This not only constitutes a as addictive as its best-known derivative basic human rights offence, since it aims to cocaine, while others argue that it can punish poor families in search of a viable and cure half the diseases of modern times. For sustainable form of agriculture, but it also some, coca growing is the main cause of demonises innocent plants, and thus Mother environmental degradation, while others Nature herself. claim that coca helps to protect the soil and prevents erosion. Many other examples can Not surprisingly, the grey area between be identified, equally strong in their oppos- extreme positions on the coca leaf offers ing contradictions. sound evidence on which we can form a balanced perspective, and hopefully treat The coca leaf has been used and misused this plant with the respect it deserves. The for many ends, each of them suiting different time has come for humanity to recognise interests and agendas. Even its very name has its past mistakes on this question, and given been appropriated by a soft drinks producer, the chance, to repair them and finally come which still has difficulties in admitting that to its senses. Drugs & Conflict N o. 17 - June 2009 3 C O C A M Y T H S extreme, however, there exists an increasingly he myths, both positive and negative, sur- vocal lobby which defends the use of coca not rounding the use and cultivation of coca so much as a stimulant, but as a food supple- leaves represent extreme versions of a ment, and sometimes engages in extravagant continuum of ideas about this psychoac- claims regarding coca’s dietary benefits. tive plant, and in most cases contain elements which are not entirely distant from the truth. The association of coca with malnutrition has By identifying the myths in pairs, each of these a long institutional history, having evolved from marking the extreme end of a given subject the plainly racist prejudices of nineteenth cen- of debate, our aim is to pinpoint the middle tury travellers via the psychiatric establishment ground where a new evidence-based consensus in Lima2 where coca came to be associated can emerge regarding coca’s undoubted stimu- with poverty, backwardness, and a long list of lant, nutritional and therapeutic properties. The physical and mental “alterations”. Crucially, areas of current concern are the following: such links formed the basis for the condemna- tion of coca chewing in a report presented to 1. Coca and nutrition. (“The use of coca is symp- the international community in 1950, known tomatic of hunger and malnutrition”/ “Coca is a as the report of the Commission of Enquiry on solution to the world’s hunger problem”) the Coca Leaf. This Commission had been given 2. Coca and alkaloids. (“Cocaine can easily be a mandate by an Economic and Social Council T extracted from coca leaves”/ “Coca leaves contain (ECOSOC) resolution 159 (VII) IV on August no cocaine”) 10, 1948, to “investigate the effects of chewing 3. Coca and addiction. (“The use of coca produces the coca leaf and the possibilities of limiting its N a form of drug dependence”/ “The use of coca production and controlling its distribution”.3 The will cure dependence on cocaine and crack”) resulting document, prepared after a brief visit I 4. Coca and the environment. (“Coca cultivation is to Peru and Bolivia by a group of “experts” devastating the rainforest”/ “Coca is an ideal crop led by Howard B. Fonda, then director of for poor soils in the tropics and will be cultivated the American Pharmaceutical Manufacturers’ everywhere once declared legal”) Association, drew many of its arguments from 5. Coca and society. (“Coca farmers should be identi- the work of the Peruvian psychiatrists Carlos fied as drug traffickers”/ “ Coca farmers only grow Gutiérrez Noriega and Vicente Zapata Ortiz, coca to satisfy traditional indigenous uses”) who claimed: “We have already pointed out that coca diminishes appetite and allows one to live with a minimal food ration. In consequence... coca 1. COCA AND NUTRITION may be one of the factors which condition the poor nutrition of regular users, and poor nutrition is one It has long been common among super- of the factors which favour the toxic effect of the ficial observers to confuse the use of coca drug.”4 Modern defenders of this school are with an inadequate diet, and thus to claim that going even further by saying: “(flour of) coca leaf coca is in some specific sense responsible for has no nutritional value whatsoever and is toxic malnutrition among the Andean population.