Chavez asegura que mastica coca diariamente

Algunos analistas señalan que el comentario de Chavez ante la Asamblea Nacional aumenta el peligro de que se admita un acto ilegal.

El controversial presidente venezolano, Hugo Chávez, revelo que regularmente consume coca – la fuente de la cocaina – creciendo las preguntas sobre la legalidad de sus acciones.

El comentario de Chávez paso casi inadvertido, viniendo en un discurso de cuatro horas en el que él hizo titulares internacionales con un llamado a otros países para que dejaran de marcar de terroristas a dos grupos izquierdistas colombianos guerrilleros y reconocerlos como "ejércitos".

"Mastico la coca cada día por la mañana... y miren como estoy", tal y como se ve en el video de su discurso, mostrando su bíceps a la audiencia.
Chávez, quien no bebe el alcohol, añadió que tal como Fidel Castro " me envía el helado Coppelia y la mayor parte de otras cosas que con regularidad me llegan de La Habana, " el Presidente boliviano Evo Morales " me envía la pasta de coca... Se lo recomiendo”.

No era claro lo que Chávez quiso decir. Los indígenas bolivianos y peruanos legalmente pueden masticar hojas de coca como un estimulante suave y matar el hambre. Pero la pasta de coca es un producto semi-refinado - entre hojas y la cocaína - considerado sumamente adictivo y a menudo fumado.

"Esto es otro síntoma de que [Chávez] ha perdido totalmente el concepto de límites”, dijo Aníbal Romero, analista político de la Universidad Metropolitana. "Esto muestra que Chávez es un hombre fuera del control”.

"Si él afirma que consume la pasta de coca, admite que consume una sustancia que es ilegal en Bolivia así como en Venezuela", dijo Hernán Maldonado, un analista boliviano que vive en Miami. "Es más, esto es una acusación de que Evo Morales es un narco-traficante" para enviarle la pasta.
Morales ha sido jefe desde hace mucho tiempo de una unión de los cultivadores de coca bolivianos y es conocido por masticar la coca en público, aún durante reuniones de gabinete. Bolivia limita el área cultivada de coca en un esfuerzo para controlar las provisiones de hoja de coca que terminan ser refinado en la cocaína.

Sin embargo, parece que Chávez se refería a masticar hojas de coca como una práctica tradicional y legal entre grupos indígenas en las altas montañas de Andes, pero ilegal en Venezuela, según expertos.

"Venezuela firmó la Convención de Viena en 1961, que regula todo lo referente a las drogas", dijo Mildred Camero, ex-Presidente de la principal agencia antidroga del país, el Consejo Nacional Contra el Uso Ilícito de Droga. "En la lista... la hoja de coca fue prohibido".

Aunque el cultivo y la masticación de hoja de coca sean legales en Bolivia, Morales "debería explicar los envíos a Chávez", dijo Carlos Sánchez-Berzaín, un crítico de Morales y el antiguo Ministro del Interior boliviano residenciado en Miami.

"El gobierno [boliviano] debería declarar cómo envía la coca, cuánto envía, con qué frecuencia, el peso, en qué tipo del contenedor, porque esto es una sustancia controlada y el gobierno debe ser supervisado", dijo el Sánchez-Berzaín.

Esto no es la primera vez que el presidente elogió las propiedades de hojas de coca. Durante una visita a una cocina comunal en Caracas a principios de 2006, junto al Presidente uruguayo Tabaré Vásquez, Chávez aconsejó usar los hornos de la cocina para cocer pan hecho de una harina especial a base de coca.

A principios de 2007, Venezuela firmó un acuerdo para comprar 4,000 toneladas de hoja de coca a Bolivia como un esfuerzo para disminuir el suministro disponible para refinar la pasta en la cocaína y lanzar la fabricación de productos de alimentos y medicinales por una escala industrial.

Caracas hizo el primer pago de 500,000 dólares, pero el proyecto permanece congelado en gran parte debido a las implicaciones legales para transportar las hojas a través de fronteras.

Aunque las hojas de coca tengan características alimenticias y medicinales, "el componente principal es un alcaloide, la cocaína, " puede ser ‘dañino’ si forma parte de la dieta diaria. Nancy Siles, un bioquímico del Colegio boliviano de Bioquímica y Farmacia, escribió esto en un informe reciente.

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Chávez says he chews coca daily

Analysts said Chávez's comments before National Assembly amounted to a dangerous endorsement and might be an admission of an illegal act.

BY CASTO OCANDO

El Nuevo Herald

Venezuela's controversial President Hugo Chávez has revealed that he regularly consumes coca -- the source of cocaine -- raising questions about the legality of his actions.

Chávez's comments on coca initially went almost unnoticed, coming amid a four-hour speech to the National Assembly during which he made international headlines by calling on other countries to stop branding two leftist Colombian guerrilla groups as terrorists and instead recognize them as ``armies.''

''I chew coca every day in the morning . . . and look how I am,'' he is seen saying on a video of the speech, as he shows his biceps to the audience.

Chávez, who does not drink alcohol, added that just as Fidel Castro ''sends me Coppelia ice cream and a lot of other things that regularly reach me from Havana,'' Bolivian President Evo Morales ``sends me coca paste . . . I recommend it to you.''

It was not clear what Chávez meant. Indigenous Bolivians and Peruvians can legally chew coca leaves as a mild stimulant and to kill hunger. But coca paste is a semi-refined product -- between leaves and cocaine -- considered highly addictive and often smoked as basuco or pitillo.

''It is another symptom that [Chávez] has totally lost the concept of limits,'' said Aníbal Romero, a political scientist with the Caracas Metropolitan University. ``It shows Chávez is a man out of control.''

More seriously, Venezuelan and Bolivian analysts said Chávez's comments amount to a dangerous endorsement of a substance controlled around the world, and perhaps even an illegal act by a very public head of state.

''If he is affirming that he consumes coca paste, he is admitting that he is consuming a substance that is illegal in Bolivia as well as Venezuela,'' said Hernán Maldonado, a Bolivian analyst living in Miami. ''Plus, it's an accusation that Evo Morales is a narco-trafficker'' for sending him the paste.

Morales is the longtime head of a Bolivian coca-growers' union and is known to chew coca in public, even during cabinet meetings, since he took office. Bolivia limits the coca acreage in an effort to control supplies of coca leaf that wind up being refined into cocaine.

Most likely, however, it seems Chávez was referring to chewing coca leaves, a traditional and legal practice among indigenous groups in the high Andes mountains but illegal in Venezuela, according to experts.

''Venezuela signed the Vienna Convention of 1961, which regulates everything that has to do with narcotics,'' said Mildred Camero, former president of the government's main counter-narcotics agency, the National Council Against the Illicit Use of Drugs. ``On the list . . . the coca leaf was prohibited.''

Although the growing and chewing of coca leaf is legal in Bolivia, Morales ''should explain the shipments he sends to Chávez,'' said Carlos Sánchez-Berzaín, a Morales critic and former Bolivian interior minister now living in Miami.

''The [Bolivian] government should declare how it sends the coca, how much it sends, with what frequency, the weight, in what type of container, because it is a controlled substance and the government must be monitored,'' Sánchez-Berzaín said.

This is not the first time that the president praised the properties of coca leaves. During a visit to a communal kitchen in western Caracas in early 2006, with Uruguayan President Tabaré Vásquez, Chávez suggested using the kitchen's ovens to bake bread made from a special coca-based flour.

''We could try that here, as part of that effort to de-Satanize a product that our indigenous people have been producing for centuries,'' he said.

In early 2007, Venezuela signed an agreement to buy 4,000 tons of coca leaf from Bolivia in what it said was an effort to diminish the supply available for refining paste and cocaine and launch the manufacture of food and medicinal products on an industrial scale.

Caracas made the first payment of $500,000, but the project remains frozen, in large part because of the legal implications of shipping the leaves across borders.

Although coca leaves have nutritional and medical characteristics, ''the principal component is an alkaloid, cocaine,'' that can be ''harmful'' if it's made part of a daily diet, Nancy Siles, a biochemist with the Bolivian College of Biochemistry and Pharmacy, wrote in a a recent report.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/386592.html

Chavez Chews Coca?

by Viewer Services

We’re still in Guyana, and I’ll have more updates for you later today on the story here … but in the meantime, if you haven’t been reading through all the comments in my previous posts, you might have missed a pretty shocking story: Chavez proudly boasts of using coca himself.

Here’s a youtube video of making an official address and talking about his coca use (thanks to Alfredo, for posting this link earlier):

http://housley.blogs.foxnews.com/