Coke vending machines?

Jock — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 17:12:14 +0000

I don't want to be flippant or dismissive about this news:

Cocaine floods the playground: The Times

...because it is very serious in many ways, including many that are not being questioned in this latest bit of moral panic on drugs, but I thought it was an interesting contrast with some of the policies of South American leaders and would be leaders who want to feed coca to school children for the good of their health.

Now, it should be said that, as President Morales of Bolivia claims, himself a former coca farmer, coca is not the same thing as cocaine, just the raw material and one that in its natural state has claims to many therapeutic benefits. In fact I suppose it's rather like castor beans, which can make beneficial castor oil or terrorist weapon ricin depending on what you do to it. And these kids are breaking the law and putting themselves in danger as a result (though less from the drug itself than from the system for policing it and the underworld that controls it as a result).

But we must use these examples as reasons for opening up the debate, increasing peoples' understanding of the issues around controlled drugs.

The Coca-Cola in the schoolyard vending machine we're now so concerned about after Jamie Oliver started its long history as an extract of coca leaf, and now threatens our children's health in its own insidious way. We should not let President Morales and putative president Ollanta Humala of Peru be drowned out by the paranoia of narcotics nutters in Whitehall or Washington. These countries have millennia of experience of beneficial use of coca. If we're going to be a global village, we need to understand them.

And Transform seem to have a less panic driven response.

Jock's Place - Coke vending machines? - Comments

Coke vending machines?