Princess Anne had some. So did the pope. And so did the king and queen of Spain. Mate de coca, that is, or coca tea. It is recommended for anyone arriving at the high altitude of La Paz, the capital of Bolivia in South America.
The tea is credited with warding off the side effects of altitude sickness. It tastes nice, too. Most embassies in La Paz serve it to guests, although it is banned in the United States embassy.
Traces of the drink would register on drug- testing equipment because coca tea, like cocaine, uses the coca leaf as its raw ingredient. It is the link that is now imperilling the future of the coca crop.
The United Nations General Assembly this week held a special session on world drug strategy, where the effectiveness of drug- control measures was discussed. Crucially for countries like Bolivia, Peru and Colombia, it heard a call for “the elimination of the coca bush and the opium poppy” within 10 years.
The strategy for coca and opium poppy elimination (Scope) was discussed far from the coca fields where the effects of the policy will be most apparent, but it could have an unpredictable effect on the Latin American economy and its political systems.
The Bolivian government, encouraged by the US, has already embarked on a policy of elimination by 2002 of all illicit coca fields – those fields not licensed to produce coca solely for traditional uses, including coca-chewing and teas.
The UN plan would go further: it calls for total elimination of a crop that has been part of Andean culture for centuries. This is one of the reasons why there is now a serious cultural conflict over the plant.
A popular song in Bolivia, sung by a group called Wara, is La coca no es la cocaina (The coca leaf isn’t cocaine). A common T- shirt legend, La hoja de la coca no es una droga, carries the same message. And in an effort to explain this to visitors to the country, a coca museum has just opened its doors.
As the museum demonstrates, the Incas and then the Spanish discovered hundreds of years ago that the coca leaf’s properties include a stimulant that gives stamina to manual workers and travellers and thus became part of the social fabric of Andean life.
In 1886, Frank Robinson gave an inspired name to a soft drink that combined coca leaves, the cola nut and gas. Soon the coca leaf had indirectly become, through Coca- Cola, part of the social fabric of the US and eventually the world.
It was not until 1914 and the time of prohibition in the US that the narcotic element of Coca-Cola was removed from the drink, but more than 200 tons of coca leaf still go to the US every year on licence for use in flavouring the world’s most popular fizzy beverage. In the meantime, chemists were also discovering that the plant had wide medicinal uses – most obviously, as an anaesthetic.
While all this can be examined in a civilised way in the museum, what has been happening in Bolivia and elsewhere in Latin America where the coca leaf is grown is more complex and alarming.
Bolivia, Peru and Colombia are essentially under orders from the north to destroy all crops, or at least all crops not currently excluded for traditional uses.
The Bolivian government says only 11% of the population – compared with 34% in 1950 – still chew the leaf, and thus the need for such coca fields is decreasing. Since Bolivia is estimated still to produce a quarter of the world’s coca leaf and about 30% of its cocaine, it is inevitable there will be further pressure on the country to reduce even the licensed crops.
The Bolivian government’s current strategy, entitled “With Dignity”, includes moving more than 10 000 families out of the main coca-growing region and assisting them in alternative crop production. In this strategy, the government has the backing of the UN, the US and the European Union.
All of which is not much comfort to the likes of Inez Morales and her husband, Uriano Morales, whose tiny coca crop in Chapare was recently destroyed by troops. She says her entire livelihood has been destroyed in the 10 minutes or so it took a band of fresh-faced troops to swing their machetes through her crops.
Inez Morales is typical of many of the coca growers, who have not grown rich through the association with cocaine but who have made a living from the crop after the collapse of the Bolivian tin industry in the mid-1980s and the subsequent flight to the coca fields for survival.
The cocaleros (coca growers) claim 10 people have died in the clashes over the elimination policy, although the government claims this figure is exaggerated. Whatever the accurate figure, there has been violence and tension runs high.
Evo Morales, a young deputy (member of congress) and a representative of the cocaleros, says: “They are not only taking our coca, they are taking our land. They want us out of here so that foreign mineral companies can move in.”
So on the one side of the equation are the cocaleros, who claim they are the victims of what amounts to ethnic cleansing, and on the other side is the Bolivian government and international agencies, who say the elimination of the crop is one part of an essential strategy to deal with the scourge of cocaine addiction.
Is there a solution? Ken Bluestone, of the Catholic Institute for International Relations, has worked in the area and argues that the legitimate uses of coca – in tea, toothpaste and medicines – should be exploited. This would allow the farmers and their families to remain and lead productive lives. Lee Cridland, of the Andean Informational Network, backs this alternative strategy.
The UN drug control programme’s Marie Elisa Martinic says it is aware of the argument but is dubious that there is really a market for alternative use of the coca leaf that could in any significant way take the place of cocaine production.
It argues for a different form of alternative production – bananas, pineapples, palm hearts, yucca and other legal plants – and for compensation for cocaleros who have to abandon their fields.