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POPSCoca, cocaine & Coca-Cola collide in Columbia
Coca Sek, a soft drink made and sold by Colombia’s Nasa Indians, apparently is a Coca-Cola knock-off gaining popularity. Now Colombia is being pushed by the International Narcotics Control Board to comply with a 1961 treaty requiring “uprooting all coca bushes which grow wild” and to stop distribution of products with any trace of coca, the main ingredient in cocaine. Coca-Cola, the Narcotics Control Board, and Colombia’s food-safety agency deny Nasa accusations that Coca-Cola is behind the ban. The Nasa say that Coca-Cola is made with coca leaves-ban it, too. The 1961 treaty allows coca leaves to be sold internationally, under the condition that all the cocaine alkaloid is removed, so a US firm legally imports coca leaves from Peru to sell to clients. “Many Indians in the Andes - where coca is revered as a sacred plant and a matter of national pride in several countries - are angry that the United States is importing coca leaves legally while their own coca products are banned.”
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