Morales opens Chavez-funded coca factory
LA PAZ
Bolivian president Evo Morales visited a coca-growing region on Saturday to open a Venezuelan-funded factory where coca leaves will be made into legal products such as tea and soft drinks.
Morales rose in politics as the leader of coca farmers and part of his anti-drug policy is to encourage licit uses for coca the plant used to make cocaine, which is also revered by Andean peoples for its medicinal properties.
"Manufacturing coca doesn't do any harm because coca isn't a drug," Morales told hundreds of coca farmers gathered in a stadium in the town of Irupana.
The law allows 29,650 acres to be grown in the Yungas, although government and US officials have expressed concern that cultivation is rising in the world's third-biggest cocaine producer.
US funds coca-eradication programs in Bolivia's other main coca-growing region, Chapare, where Morales led sometimes violent protests against forced crop destruction.
Bolivian president Evo Morales visited a coca-growing region on Saturday to open a Venezuelan-funded factory where coca leaves will be made into legal products such as tea and soft drinks.
Morales rose in politics as the leader of coca farmers and part of his anti-drug policy is to encourage licit uses for coca the plant used to make cocaine, which is also revered by Andean peoples for its medicinal properties.
"Manufacturing coca doesn't do any harm because coca isn't a drug," Morales told hundreds of coca farmers gathered in a stadium in the town of Irupana.
The law allows 29,650 acres to be grown in the Yungas, although government and US officials have expressed concern that cultivation is rising in the world's third-biggest cocaine producer.
US funds coca-eradication programs in Bolivia's other main coca-growing region, Chapare, where Morales led sometimes violent protests against forced crop destruction.
posted by Alice at
Monday, June 19, 2006
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