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Before leaving the town of Rurrenabaque tour operator Luis insisted I buy two kilograms of coca leaves plus baking soda ("biko"). As local markets have huge sacks of the leaf the total cost came to a mere $2. I shrugged my shoulders and shoved the bag into my backpack. The three men -- Silverio, Tomba and Justino -- from day one always had a mouthful of the leaves. Day seven was the first day I tried it. Whipped out the bag of leaves, opened a pack of baking soda, sprinkled some on and loaded up my cheeks. The boys, of course, hollered their approval. Hmmm, sure I can feel my tongue and cheeks going numb, understanding why dentists used it as an anesthesia back in 1885, but other than that I didn't feel different. After a couple mouthfuls I didn't pursue it further at the time. Knowing that the natives use coca leaves for energy on long days of work, knowing if there was ever a time I would need energy it would be the end of the hike, not the beginning, I consciously made the decision early on in the trek to save my coca and biko. By day ten Tomba the cook was hitting me up for some biko as the guys had run out. I gave him half of what I had. By day sixteen our foodstuffs were getting low. We had very little rice, pasta and sugar left. Upon request for further biko by Tomba I said no, looked him in the eye and added "I saved all mine for the end because I knew it would be important when we have no more food. But you ate all yours in the beginning days! Now you must pay the price." Silverio and Justino howled in laughter over Tomba's long face, slapping me on the back for my reasoning. It wasn't until the start of the third week that I loaded up on the biko one mouthful and whoa, my whole mouth was numb. The coca leaves, mixed with spit and lightly compressed by the cheeks, need biko to act as a catalyst. Add more biko and get a bigger bang. I was buzzing like a bee. In days to follow I thought more about the West's position on the coca leaf, in part the billions of dollars the good ol' USA spends to try to eradicate the plant. The Bolivian position is: "hey, we don't have chemical factories here. We don't make cocaine. The problem is not ours, it's theirs (meaning the Americans)." And they have a point. The coca leaf is not cocaine. Does mining a certain type of metal in the ground make a mining company guilty of manufacturing weapons of mass destruction? Hardly. Coca is a natural plant of significant medicinal use and potential: do derivatives benzocaine, lidocaine, procaine sound familiar? My take on the drug trade is, of course, one of laissez-faire: legalize it all. Trying to outlaw certain drugs is as lame and ineffectual as outlawing alcohol. By forcing production underground quality becomes all the more suspect and potentially dangerous for the end user. So long as the desire exists for the product it will be made, in spite of it being illegal and punishments severe. By legalizing outlawed drugs competing companies would insure greater quality -- and thus safer -- products. Lastly, something to think about: there is a coca museum in La Paz that has an interesting insight to the popularity of cocaine. It says human beings spend years of their lives in pursuit of a sexual orgasm that lasts less than a minute in duration. Yet here is a drug that delivers a high equal to or bests the orgasm -- and it lasts for 20 to 30 minutes. I don't know about you but when I retire in old age, sitting back in my rocking chair, I am going to be popping, shooting, swallowing and snorting every drug I can get my hands on. Why not?! As a world traveler going on a 'trip' is merely a derivative in itself. Chew on that for awhile coca leaf fans.
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