Coca Brynco intends to rival Coca Cola, much like last year’s introduction of Coca Colla and is at the heart of a plan from coca growers in the central rural Bolivian province of Chapare to boost coca production.
President Evo Morales displayed it to foreign media during a press conference in which he defended the coca leaf. Bolivia, like neighbouring Peru, permits limited cultivation of coca for legal use in cooking, folk medicine and Andean religious rites. Unadulterated coca is a mild stimulant that counteracts the effects of altitude sickness and suppresses hunger pangs.?
Morales entered Bolivian public life as the leader of a coca growers union and is on a crusade to persuade the international community to stop stigmatising the leaf. As president, he has sharply boosted cocaine seizures while promoting new legal applications for coca leaf.?Coca is used in a number of consumer products, including toothpaste, teas, candies and pastries.??
The Bolivian government, with the support of the European Union, is conducting a study to determine what quantity of coca can be utilised in the legal market, compared to the coca production that is diverted by drug traffickers to make cocaine.
Foreign minister David Choquehuanca has begun a tour of five European countries to ask for support for the effort before the UN to decriminalise the Andean custom of chewing coca leaf.?Morales said in recent days that Bolivia is not asking the UN to remove coca from the list of narcotics, but rather simply to respect the chewing of the leaf itself.
Source: Brazil News
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