Bolivian landslide makes US anxious

Bolivia is the third largest producer of cocaine in the world, after Colombia and Peru. For many rural voters, particularly the farmers of Chapare, from where Mr Morales comes, the key issue was the decriminalisation of the growing of coca. Coca is an everyday feature of Bolivian life. Many people chew it to keep working at the high altitudes and all foreign visitors to La Paz, the Americas' highest capital, are offered coca tea to help ward off altitude sickness.

At the moment only 12,000 hectares of coca crops are legal, the amount calculated to supply traditional demand for leaves. Mr Morales has said this is not enough and more effort must be made to industrialise the legal products derived from the coca leaf. He insists a study must be commissioned to evaluate coca demand. Meanwhile, coca growing will be decriminalised.

Cocaine, which is the refinement and crystallisation of a coca extract, is not used in Bolivia and is a foreign invention. However much of Bolivia's coca production is sold to drugs traffickers, producing 90 tonnes of cocaine a year. Brazil recently expressed concern about Bolivian-sourced cocaine on its streets. The US fears that Mr Morales' plans to legalise coca production will create a bonanza for drugs traffickers to buy, undermining the multi-billion-dollar war on cocaine.
http://news.scotsman.com/internation...?id=2433052005

Break out those silver spoons and tooters folks...Bolivia is back in buisiness! :rasta: