Posted on 01/19/2011 2:13:49 PM PST by NormsRevenge
LA PAZ (Reuters) – A pale green energy drink made from coca leaves has given Bolivian President Evo Morales a boost as he tries to persuade the United Nations to scrap a ban on the traditional Andean practice of chewing the leaves.
Coca is the raw material for making cocaine, but Bolivians have chewed the leaves for centuries for it mild stimulant that reduces hunger and altitude sickness.
The coca leaf was declared an illegal narcotic in the 1961 U.N. Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, along with cocaine, heroin, opium and morphine and a host of chemical drugs.
Tuesday's launch of the energy drink Coca Brynco was hailed by the Bolivian government as an important step in its efforts to promote coca's health benefits and develop legal uses for its leaves in the world's No. 3 cocaine producer.
"We want to reaffirm with this product that the coca leaf is healthy," Rural Development Minister Nemesia Achacollo said at the launch. "We must defend our coca leaf and show it's not a drug."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Some guy in Georgia did that over one hundred years ago.
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