The Coca Leaf
As soon as I hear the term “Common Wisdom” I think ignorance of the masses. There is so much all of us accept as truth (me being included) without question and it is really a load of crap. I keep telling people forget “don’t believe everything you read” and go with “don’t believe everything you think”. The crap about the world and everything in it is so embedded inside of our brains that reading more of it is not the problem. Just about everything we take as fact should be re-evaluated REGULARLY. For George Bush, that would be at the beginning of every sentence about to be uttered.
Let’s take the War on Drugs and the stinking South American indigenous farms pumping out the cocaine to supply poor Americans and Europeans. I am proud to say that I am a user of coca in South America. Not cocaine… that’s a drug created by gringos and now manufactured north of Peru for their “enjoyment”. Coca leaves are used daily in Peru by Peruvians and visitors alike in order to function in the mountains. Take a quick trip up to Cusco and you’ll immediately feel the altitude. You’ll be weak, tired, hard of breathing, half-brained and have headaches. The immediate remedy is Mate de Coca – tea made from coca leaves. The locals chew the stuff with lime (from shells or limestone) to unlock the ingredients more efficiently. I went into my first test at the hotel right after arriving with some skepticism – of course! No skepticism about how I was feeling, though. And I was quite happy to feel amazingly better right after that first cup. It still took a day to acclimate, but coca leaves do help a lot.
The church banned coca leaf consumption a few centuries ago because it was hedonistic or some such crap. But they found that production in the fields and mines dropped precipitously so they loosened up on what constituted hedonism. Coca to keep a smile on your face… not good. Coca to keep the Vatican coffers full… excellent. So I guess one can conclude that the Church is responsible for all the cocaine now flowing north.
In a society where we blame everyone else for our problems, the War on Drugs makes a lot of sense. Take the fight to them rather than them coming here. Sounds like the same mentality as Iraq, by the way. So, we sanction one of the worst acts of environmental terrorism (I don’t use this term loosely at all) when we drop horrible chemicals around the countryside of Colombia which has “invited” us to do so. No problem for the Colombians in charge, they are not the stinking indigenous people under those drops. Then we take it to the Colombian-Ecuador border and think Ecuador is terrible for complaining about the poisons coming across their border and they have not asked for them. We’re talking about dropping chemicals banned in the States which are being dropped into one of the most environmentally precious areas of the world – The Amazon. We’re dropping them into the winds on top of people. Common Wisdom says they shouldn’t be growing the crop they have grown for centuries for their survival because we need to protect the children of the righteous nations in the north. They should be growing crops which we ban from our countries because of farm protectionist laws!
Luckily, for Peru where the real quantities of coca leaf are grown, their government is not inviting us to drop our banned poisons and I guess we have not hit that border with Colombia. The concept of the War on Drugs works well in the press, but it is an absolute farce because cocaine is still produced for and consumed by the gringos in huge quantities. In the meantime, the people in the mountains continue to “use” their version of the drug in the form of chew and tea. I found it endearing to see Inca folk selling coca leaves at the Urcos market from large bags. Another example of an old, simple culture which will undoubtedly live way beyond our new, intelligent one. Next time you’re up in mountains of Colorado with a headache and weakness, ask yourself why your government won’t allow the import of a completely safe and non-addictive remedy called mate de coca! It is because they are worried you’ll get confused and try to snort it up your nose…
Tags: peru, south america, Travel
vagabondrick
Happy Birthday and Happy Valentines Day
Both very belated (shame on me) There is so much information from Peru that I don’t know just what to respond to in this message other than to say thank you for the thoroughness of your blogs. all my love – Kathy
Sitting in Colorado, fealing weak and with a headache