Expect Bolivian coca toothpaste, Times tells readers

Re Advocate for Coca Legalization Leads in Bolivian Race, by Juan Forero, New York Times, November 26, 2005:

This article is about Evo Morales, a candidate in the presidential elections Bolivia will hold Dec. 18. A poll conducted earlier this month marks him as the front runner.

The article says that Morales's election would be "little short of a nightmare" for Washington, because he has pledged to legalize the production of coca, the main ingredient in cocaine. Bolivia is already one of the world's top cocaine producers (and legalization would presumably increase output substantially).

The article suggests, however, that Morales's position is that coca will not be used to produce cocaine:

Mr. Morales says that as president he would allow the "industrial" use of coca, to make everything from toothpaste to pharmaceuticals to soft drinks to be exported as far away as China and Europe.

"Coca and coca tea can be industrialized to circulate internationally," Mr. Morales said during an interview en route to a meeting with coca farmers. "How can we not legalize, since we are not hurting anybody?"

Now, for me, and probably for most New York Times readers, the idea that Europe would be receptive to coca toothpaste imported from Bolivia is not a familiar one. But the Times reports the idea impassively. If the presidential candidate's stated plan is patent nonsense, the paper is not letting us know it. (The article does report: "American officials and leading drug policy experts contend that no matter what Mr. Morales and the coca growers say, most of the coca grown in the Chapare [region of Bolivia] winds up as cocaine.")

And if coca toothpaste is a viable product for first-world nations, that too would be interesting to know. Is it perhaps already available somewhere here at home?

The article also quotes John Walters, the White House drug czar:

I don't think there's an attractive or viable future by becoming a narco-state.

But again, the reader is offered no enlightenment. Does legalizing coca production make Bolivia a "narco-state"? Does it put the nation in violation of any international laws or treaties?

Coca production, the article strongly suggests, is economically beneficial to Bolivia and its citizens. (One farmer tells the reporter: "With coca, I was able to send my children to study. The other stuff, the citrus fruit, the bananas, give us nothing.") Granting that much of the coca will end up nourishing America's cocaine habit, what is the argument for Bolivia to sacrifice its interests in order to serve those of the U.S.?

The article answers none of these questions.