La Paz – Bolivia’s foreign minister, David Choquehuanca, on Thursday proposed here in Congress that coca leaf be used in the school breakfasts served across the country to provide the required calcium and phosphorous to the nation’s children.
Choquehuanca told the members of the lower house’s International Policy Committee that the use of coca leaf as a food supplement is among the policies being analyzed by the country’s newly installed Socialist government to restore the value of the plant, which is the raw material for cocaine.
“Our children need calcium and coca leaf has more calcium than milk, according to Harvard University. Our children need phosphorus and coca has more phosphorous than fish,” the foreign minister told lawmakers.
“Possibly, we – in place of providing milk in the school breakfasts – … should give coca leaf to our children,” added Choquehuanca, one of the Aymara members of indigenous Socialist President Evo Morales’ Cabinet.
Spreading information about the benefits of coca leaf is part of a campaign mounted by Morales’ administration to get the international community to accept the decriminalization of coca cultivation.
Choquehuanca said Thursday that the plant “is not a drug” and must be economically fostered and used as a food supplement.
In Bolivia, the plant is cultivated legally in the western Yungas region, and without the government’s permission in the Chapare area, where Morales emerged as a union leader and later political candidate.
The proposal to decriminalize coca production will be made at the next European Union-Latin America and the Caribbean Summit, which will be held in Vienna on May 12-13. EFE
