I have just recently left South America to return to North America, and I would like to pose a few comments and share my opinion on this article.
Coca farmers are known as "campesinos" which is a general term loosely falling under the definition as "subsistence farmer". Campesinos are indigenous people who are farmers, and a lot of the time these farmers are farming coca leaves.
The Coca Leaf is a sacred plant in South America, used by a wide variety and majority of the population to cure minor ailments and as a natural prevention method against altitude sickness. The Coca Leaf is used in a plethora of natural products such as coca lipbalm, coca tea, coca cookies, toothpastes, etc, and at least one bag of coca leaves are demanded by the miners of South America before they begin their days work.
Many miners will refuse to enter the mine without a bag of coca leaves, because it is a stimulant that provides people with energy,people who otherwise would not have enough money to constantly provide nutrients to their bodies with a steady supply of food, so they use the traditional Andes cure, the Coca Leaf.
The Coca leaf is also offered to different gods of the Andean culture before entering in the mine and in many traditional ritualistic practices. When you take away this plant and opportunity to harvest this leaf, you are contributing to the downfall of the traditional Andean customs and the belief system of the quechua and aymara people.
The growers of the Coca Leaf are rarely associated with the production, manufacturing and selling of Cocaine, and they are merely just trying to do what their predecessors did thousands of years ago.
It is great that these farmers are provided with other crops to grow and sustain themselves off of, even perhaps profit more off of, such as cocoa, but we must strive to remember that culture preservation is an extremely important aspect of maintaining pure and natural ways of life, and it is vitally crucial that we look to how the Indigenous peoples of the planet have survived so long and have maintained their resilience through their ancient practices.
Cocaine production was never a problem merely decades ago, and is it not fair that the farmers have to suffer from a government implemented (mainly westernized) societal problem. I am not denying the amount of drug users in South America but a large portion of South American cocaine is trafficked into the United States of America, Canada, and Europe. From primary and personal experience I have witnesses the people of South America fight for their right to maintain their coca crops and I feel that we must respect their way of life.
If the Cocaine problem is concerning the people organizing these actions against coca farming, they should try and focus more on the people who have with open arms and open borders, freely transported and manufactured cocaine (a lot of these people being the puppet masters of politicians and politicians themselves). This comment was not intended to sway a selected audience in a pre-planned direction, but more so to let people know that Coca farming is useful and needed for more things than Cocaine.
Coca Farmers
I have just recently left South America to return to North America, and I would like to pose a few comments and share my opinion on this article.
Coca farmers are known as "campesinos" which is a general term loosely falling under the definition as "subsistence farmer". Campesinos are indigenous people who are farmers, and a lot of the time these farmers are farming coca leaves.
The Coca Leaf is a sacred plant in South America, used by a wide variety and majority of the population to cure minor ailments and as a natural prevention method against altitude sickness. The Coca Leaf is used in a plethora of natural products such as coca lipbalm, coca tea, coca cookies, toothpastes, etc, and at least one bag of coca leaves are demanded by the miners of South America before they begin their days work.
Many miners will refuse to enter the mine without a bag of coca leaves, because it is a stimulant that provides people with energy,people who otherwise would not have enough money to constantly provide nutrients to their bodies with a steady supply of food, so they use the traditional Andes cure, the Coca Leaf.
The Coca leaf is also offered to different gods of the Andean culture before entering in the mine and in many traditional ritualistic practices. When you take away this plant and opportunity to harvest this leaf, you are contributing to the downfall of the traditional Andean customs and the belief system of the quechua and aymara people.
The growers of the Coca Leaf are rarely associated with the production, manufacturing and selling of Cocaine, and they are merely just trying to do what their predecessors did thousands of years ago.
It is great that these farmers are provided with other crops to grow and sustain themselves off of, even perhaps profit more off of, such as cocoa, but we must strive to remember that culture preservation is an extremely important aspect of maintaining pure and natural ways of life, and it is vitally crucial that we look to how the Indigenous peoples of the planet have survived so long and have maintained their resilience through their ancient practices.
Cocaine production was never a problem merely decades ago, and is it not fair that the farmers have to suffer from a government implemented (mainly westernized) societal problem. I am not denying the amount of drug users in South America but a large portion of South American cocaine is trafficked into the United States of America, Canada, and Europe. From primary and personal experience I have witnesses the people of South America fight for their right to maintain their coca crops and I feel that we must respect their way of life.
If the Cocaine problem is concerning the people organizing these actions against coca farming, they should try and focus more on the people who have with open arms and open borders, freely transported and manufactured cocaine (a lot of these people being the puppet masters of politicians and politicians themselves). This comment was not intended to sway a selected audience in a pre-planned direction, but more so to let people know that Coca farming is useful and needed for more things than Cocaine.