Alternative crops, however, are not economically comparable to coca.

Former M19 member Antonio Navarro Wolff said: " If the government wants a serious peace plan they will have to take control of the coca leaf plantations that are currently owned by the FARC because if not another criminal group will take over it.

When growers in a FARC-controlled area are caught selling coca to non-FARC brokers, they are generally forced to leave the region, but when growers are caught selling to FARC in paramilitary-controlled areas, they are generally killed.

He has argued that the alternatives for many children in Colombia are worse, including prostitution and exploitative work in mines and coca production.

In some countries where coca is illegal, products marketed as " coca tea " are supposed to be decocainized, i. e., the pharmacologically active components have been removed from the leaf using the same chemicals used in manufacturing cocaine.

Opium smoking and eating, coca leaf chewing, cannabis resin smoking and the non-medical use of cannabis are prohibited.

There are two species of cultivated coca, each with two varieties:

The two subspecies of Erythroxylum coca are almost indistinguishable phenotypically.

The Spanish are believed to have effectively encouraged use of coca by an increasing majority of the population to increase their labor output and tolerance for starvation, but it is not clear that this was planned deliberately.

Traditional medical uses of coca are foremost as a stimulant to overcome fatigue, hunger, and thirst.

Raw coca leaves, chewed or consumed as tea or mate de coca, are rich in nutritional properties.

Traditionally, coca leaves are prepared either to chew or as a tea ( mate de coca ).

In Bolivia bags of coca leaves are sold in local markets and by street vendors.

Typical coca consumption is about two ounces per day, and contemporary methods are believed to be unchanged from ancient times.

Coca consumers claim that most of the information provided about the traditional use of the coca leaf and its modern adaptations are erroneous.

Critics of the effort claim that it creates hardship primarily for the coca growers, many of whom are poor and have no viable alternative way to make a living, causes environmental problems, that it is not effective in reducing the supply of cocaine, in part because cultivation can move to other areas, and that any social harm created by drug abuse is only made worse by the war on drugs.

The environmental problems include " ecocide ," where vast tracts of land and forest are sprayed with glyphosate or RoundUp, with the intention of eradicating the coca plant.

The pharmacologically active ingredient of coca is the coca alkaloid, which is found in the amount of about 0. 3 to 1. 5 %, averaging 0. 8 %, in fresh leaves.

Traces of coca have been found in mummies dating 3000 years back.

Extensive archaeological evidence for the chewing of coca leaves dates back at least to the sixth century A. D. Moche period, and the subsequent Inca period, based on mummies found with a supply of coca leaves, pottery depicting the characteristic cheek bulge of a coca chewer, spatulas for extracting alkali and figured bags for coca leaves and lime made from precious metals, and gold representations of coca in special gardens of the Inca in Cuzco

However, the reader is made aware of the truly addictive effects of the drug when rats, who have found the coca ( Erythroxylum coca ), become seriously addicted and scour the ship looking for it.

In January 2003 and under the leadership of Evo Morales, a group of union leaders ( Evo Morales for the “ cocaleros ” — coca growers, Jaime Solares and Roberto de la Cruz for urban workers and miners, Felipe Quispe for the indigenous farmers in the Aymara region surrounding La Paz ) joined together to found the " People's High Command " ( Estado Mayor del pueblo ).

Recently, Boliviana negra, a roundup resistant type of genetically engineered coca plant has been introduced, which was found to both resist roundup herbicides as well as have an increased yield.

Morales then found an audience in Europe for his positions and traveled there to gain support and to educate people on the differences between coca leaves and cocaine.

* cocaine ( found in Erythroxylum coca, Coca )

Cuscohygrine is a pyrrolidine alkaloid found in coca.

coca ( Bolivian or Huanuco Coca )-well adapted to the eastern Andes of Peru and Bolivia, an area of humid, tropical, montane forest.

Many poor campesinos, driven from the central highlands by lack of land or loss of jobs, migrated to the lowlands and valleys of the eastern Andes, where they turned to the cultivation of coca.

Much of the jungle through which the eastern Caquetá originally flowed has been cleared for pasture, crops of rice, corn, manioc, and sugar cane, and in the past two decades, particularly coca crops.

In the Andes commercially manufactured coca teas, granola bars, cookies, hard candies, etc.

Despite the legal restriction among countries party to the international treaty, coca chewing and drinking of coca tea is carried out daily by millions of people in the Andes as well as considered sacred within indigenous cultures.

The US-based Drug Enforcement Administration, along with local governments, has frequently clashed with cocaleros in attempts to eradicate coca across the Andes.

" It was later pointed out to him that a ) Bolivia is landlocked and has no coast ( Burton was chairman of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee ); b ) the Bolivian coca fields ( in the yungas and Amazon lowlands ) are beyond the reach of any carrier-borne crop-duster, being separated from the nearest coastline ( the Pacific coast of Peru and Chile ) by the 20, 000 + feet high peaks of the Andes ; and c ) F-18s cannot crop-dust.

" An Act To provide for the registration of, with collectors of internal revenue, and to impose a special tax on all persons who produce, import, manufacture, compound, deal in, dispense, sell, distribute, or give away opium or coca leaves, their salts, derivatives, or preparations, and for other purposes.

* oral intake – caffeine, ethanol, hash cakes ( cannabis ), nutmeg, datura, psilocybin mushrooms, coca tea, poppy tea, laudanum, GHB, ecstasy pills with MDMA and / or various other substances ( mainly stimulants and psychedelics ), prescription and over-the-counter drugs ( ADHD and narcolepsy medications, sleeping pills, anxiolytics, sedatives, cough suppressants, benzydamine, ephedrine, pseudoephedrine, morphine, codeine, opioids and others )

On November 9, the family crowns the skulls with fresh flowers, sometimes also dressing them in various garments, and making offerings of cigarettes, coca leaves, alcohol, and various other items in thanks for the year's protection.

Besides coca, the coca leaf contains a number of other alkaloids, including methylecgonine cinnamate, benzoylecgonine, truxilline, hydroxytropacocaine, tropacocaine, ecgonine, cuscohygrine, dihydrocuscohygrine, nicotine and hygrine.

Addiction or other deleterious effects from the consumption of the leaf in its natural form have not been documented in over a 5, 000 year time span, thus leading to the logical conclusion that coca left in its natural form causes no addictive properties at all.

Nevertheless, the INCB on other occasions did not show signs of an increased sensitivity towards the Bolivian claim on the rights of their indigenous population, and the general public, to consume the coca leaf in a traditional manner by chewing the leaf, and drinking coca tea, as " not in line with the provisions of the 1961 Convention.

" The Board considered Bolivia, Peru and a few other countries that allow such practises to be in breach with their treaty obligations, and insisted that “ each party to the Convention should establish as a criminal offence, when committed intentionally, the possession and purchase of coca leaf for personal consumption .”

Outside of South America, most countries ' laws make no distinction between the coca leaf and any other substance containing cocaine, so the possession of coca leaf is prohibited.

He argued that the war on drugs leads states to do things that would have never been considered half a century before, such as prohibiting a person from ingesting certain substances or interfering in other countries to impede the production of certain plants ( e. g. coca eradication plans, or the campaigns against opium ; both are traditional plants opposed by the Western world ).

Bolivia is the world's third-largest cultivator of coca ( after Peru and Colombia ) with an estimated 218 km² under cultivation in 1999, a 45 % decrease in overall cultivation of coca from 1998 levels ; intermediate coca products and cocaine exported to or through Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile to the United States and other international drug markets ; alternative crop program aims to reduce illicit coca cultivation.

In the 1800s, a pharmacist in Georgia, John Pemberton, took extracts of kola and coca and mixed them with sugar, other ingredients, and carbonated water to invent the first cola soft drink.

Cocaine ( not the other extracts from the Peruvian coca leaf ) was prohibited from soft drinks in the U. S. after 1904, and Coca-Cola no longer uses kola in its original recipe.

To counter this development, the U. S. government, through its foreign aid agency USAID, has promoted a policy of crop substitution, whereby coca cultivation is replaced by coffee, banana, pineapple, palm heart, and other crops suitable for a tropical climate.

A Bolivian man holding a coca leaf ; coca has been a staple crop in Bolivia and other parts of Andean South America for centuries, where it is chewed as a stimulant and has become an integral part of rural culture.

Some recipes even include cannabis or coca leaf, or other traditional entheogens.

* Evo Morales, President of Bolivia – Interviewed on September 22, 2006 ; talked about his recent speech at the United Nations in New York where he held up a coca leaf and argued for international drug law reform as well as talked about the nationalization of Bolivia's energy reserves among other topics.