Via the BBC: Governor in Peru lifts coca curbs
A regional governor in Peru has issued a by-law lifting curbs on the growth of coca, the raw ingredient in cocaine.Carlos Cuaresma said peasant farmers in the Cusco region of the Andes would be allowed to cultivate coca for its traditional uses as a medicine and tea.
The Peruvian government has threatened legal action against the move.
The coca growers or ‘cocaleros’ have recently stepped up their protests against the restrictions imposed on their livelihood.
They say coca is an integral part of life in the Andes, where it is often taken as a traditional remedy to stave off hunger and altitude sickness.
Mr Cuaresma acknowledged that the decision to legalise coca production was a concession to Cusco’s increasingly militant growers.
For its part, the government says the new by-law is an attempt to legalise a product that increasingly ends up in the hands of the cocaine dealers.
This is a scenario that has been playing out in Bolivia as well: there is such thing as the culivation of coca for things other than turning the leaves into cocaine (mostly folk medicines and teas). As a result, anti-drug policies often conflict with local farmers. And, certainly, it is difficult to determine the precise use of a given plant, leading to the problem cited above by the Peruvian central government.
There is a potential political price to be paid, as in the Bolivian case, the cocaleros engaged in widespread anti-government protests (for example).
