Coca Colla is an energy drink produced in Bolivia with the use of coca extract as its base. It was launched on the Bolivian market in La Paz, Santa Cruz and Cochabamba in April 2010. [1] [2] Both the name and ingredients are similar to Coca-Cola. The release of this product is part of the process of the industrialization of coca followed by the Morales Administration from 2006 to 2019. [3] The "Colla" component of the name comes from Qullasuyu , the southern area of the Inca empire which included the western part of Bolivia. The term Qulla is nowadays used to name the Aymara and Quechua, indigenous people of Bolivia who make a traditional use of coca leaves. [4]
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The drink has a red label with white writing, is dark caramel in color, tastes sweet, and comes in 500 ml bottles priced at $1.50. The flavor of Coca Colla is derived from coca leaf extracts, a plant also known for its use as the base of cocaine powder. This is a restricted substance in many countries and illegal to sell, buy, or distribute in North America and Europe.
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Evo Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous Aymara Indian president, announced last year[ clarification needed ] he will make efforts to support the peoples of the Andes who have been using coca leaves for traditional use such as medication and rituals for thousands of years. 30,000 acres (120 km2) of the Andes region is set aside for coca bush growth annually. This area is set to increase to 80,000 acres (320 km2) with the increase of the government's drive for a legitimate use for the coca plant, such as toothpaste, pharmaceuticals, and coca tea.
The International Narcotics Control Board of the United Nations has had the coca leaf on the list of dangerous drugs since 1961. Exporting the drink worldwide will not be possible unless drug laws are changed, including local Bolivian law which prevents exporting any coca based product from the country. However, importers from Iran, Bolivia's economic and political ally, have already expressed an interest in over 2 million units of the drink when large scale production starts.
A joint collaboration between the Bolivian-based drink's manufacturer and the European-based advertising guerrilla group has been launched to increase the global mass media awareness of the new Coca Colla drink. The launch has sparked worldwide interest in the questionable nature of the product's globally illegal ingredients, even though the use of coca leaf is acceptable by the indigenous cultures which have traditionally cultivated it. In a press release, the manufacturer OSPICoca's President Victor Ledezma stated "Coca is ours, coca is a Bolivian product and mostly occurs in the Qullasuyu." [5]
Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in western-central South America. It is bordered by Brazil to the north and east, Paraguay to the southeast, Argentina to the south, Chile to the southwest, and Peru to the west. The seat of government and administrative capital is La Paz, which contains the executive, legislative, and electoral branches of government, while the constitutional capital is Sucre, the seat of the judiciary. The largest city and principal industrial center is Santa Cruz de la Sierra, located on the Llanos Orientales, a mostly flat region in the east of the country.
Coca is any of the four cultivated plants in the family Erythroxylaceae, native to western South America. Coca is known worldwide for its psychoactive alkaloid, cocaine.
The Aymara or Aimara, people are an indigenous people in the Andes and Altiplano regions of South America. About 2.3 million live in northwest Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and Peru. Their ancestors lived in the region for many centuries before becoming a subject people of the Inca Empire in the late 15th or early 16th century, and later during the Spanish conquest of Peru in the 16th century. With the Spanish American wars of independence (1810–1825), the Aymaras became subjects of the new nations of Bolivia and Peru. After the War of the Pacific (1879–1883), Chile annexed territory with the Aymara population.
Coca eradication is a strategy promoted by the United States government starting in 1961 as part of its "War on Drugs" to eliminate the cultivation of coca, a plant whose leaves are not only traditionally used by indigenous cultures but also, in modern society, in the manufacture of cocaine. The strategy was adopted in place of running educational campaigns against drug usage. The prohibitionist strategy is being pursued in the coca-growing regions of Colombia, Peru, and formerly Bolivia, where it is highly controversial because of its environmental, health and socioeconomic impact. Furthermore, indigenous cultures living in the Altiplano, such as the Aymaras, use the coca leaf in many of their cultural traditions, notably for its medicinal qualities in alleviating the feeling of hunger, fatigue and headaches symptomatic of altitude sicknesses. The growers of coca are named Cocaleros and part of the coca production for traditional use is legal in Peru, Bolivia and Chile.
Juan Evo Morales Ayma is a Bolivian politician, trade union organizer, and former cocalero activist who served as the 65th president of Bolivia from 2006 to 2019. Widely regarded as the country's first president to come from its indigenous population, his administration worked towards the implementation of left-wing policies, focusing on the legal protections and socioeconomic conditions of Bolivia's previously marginalized indigenous population and combating the political influence of the United States and resource-extracting multinational corporations. Ideologically a socialist, he has led the Movement for Socialism (MAS) party since 1998.
Vin Mariani was a coca wine and patent medicine created in the 1860s by Angelo Mariani, a French chemist from the island of Corsica. Mariani became intrigued with coca and its medical and economic potential after reading Paolo Mantegazza's paper on the effects of coca. Between 1863 and 1868 Mariani started marketing a coca wine called Vin Tonique Mariani which was made from Bordeaux wine and coca leaves.
Quechua people or Quichua people may refer to any of the indigenous peoples of South America who speak the Quechua languages, which originated among the Indigenous people of Peru. Although most Quechua speakers are native to Peru, there are some significant populations in Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, and Argentina.
The Movement for Socialism, officially the Movement for Socialism – Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples, is a socialist political party in Bolivia. Its followers are known as Masistas.
The Wiphala is a square emblem commonly used as a flag to represent some native peoples of the Andes that include today's Bolivia, Peru, Chile, Ecuador, northwestern Argentina and southern Colombia. The 2009 Constitution of Bolivia established the southern Qullasuyu Wiphala as another national symbol of Bolivia, along with the red-yellow-green tricolor.
Cocaleros are the coca leaf growers of Peru and Bolivia. In response to U.S.-funded attempts to eradicate and fumigate coca crops in the Chapare region of Bolivia, cocaleros joined with other grassroots indigenous organizations in the country, such as unionized mine workers and peasants to contest the government. Evo Morales, who became president of Bolivia in 2006, was a leader of the cocalero movement in that country.
Coca tea, also called mate de coca, is a herbal tea (infusion) made using the raw or dried leaves of the coca plant, which is native to South America. It is made either by submerging the coca leaf or dipping a tea bag in hot water. The tea is most commonly consumed in the Andes mountain range, particularly Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and especially in Peru, where it is consumed all around the country. It is greenish yellow in color and has a mild bitter flavor similar to green tea with a more organic sweetness.
Bolivia–United States relations were established in 1837 with the first ambassadorial visit from the United States to Peru–Bolivian Confederation. The Confederation dissolved in 1839, and bilateral relations did not occur until 1848 when the United States recognized Bolivia as a sovereign state and appointed John Appleton as the Chargé d'Affaires.
In terms of key indicators, health in Bolivia ranks nearly last among the Western Hemisphere countries. Only Haiti scores consistently lower. Bolivia's child mortality rate of 69 per 1,000 live births is the worst in South America. Proper nourishment is a constant struggle for many Bolivians. Experts estimate that 7 percent of Bolivian children under the age of five and 23 percent of the entire population suffer from malnutrition. Another health factor in Bolivia is sanitation.
Agwa de Bolivia, often shortened to AGWA, is a herbal liqueur made with Bolivian coca leaves and 37 other natural herbs and botanicals including green tea, ginseng, and guarana, distilled and produced in Amsterdam by BABCO Europe Limited. The coca leaf content of the drink, like that in Coca-Cola, has the cocaine alkaloids removed during production, and does not contain the drug.
The foreign policy of the Evo Morales administration concerns the policy initiatives made towards other states by the former President of Bolivia, in difference to past, or future, Bolivian foreign policy. Morales' foreign policy can be roughly divided between that of the Americas and the rest of the world.
The domestic policy of the Evo Morales administration refers to the domestic policy initiatives of the former President of Bolivia, including past pre-presidential advocacies by Morales.
The National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Qullasuyu is a confederation of traditional governing bodies of Quechua-, Aymara- and Uru-speaking highland indigenous communities in the departments of La Paz, Oruro, Potosí, Cochabamba, Chuquisaca and Tarija, Bolivia. Specifically, it represents the following 16 suyus: Jacha Carangas, Jatun Quillacas, Asamajaquis, Charcas Qara Qara, Council of Ayllus of Potosí, Qara Qara Suyu, Sora, Kallawaya, Leco, Larecaja, Colla, Chui, Paca Jake, Ayllus of Cochabamba, Kapaj Omasuyus and Yapacaní. CONAMAQ was founded on March 22, 1997, with the purpose of restoring the self-governance of "original nations" including "collective rights to land and natural resources, re-definition of administrative units and self-determination exercised through indigenous autonomies and direct representation in state institutions." CONAMAQ is a member of the National Coordination for Change, and of the Andean Coordination of Indigenous Organizations. It was a member of the Pact of Unity in Bolivia from its founding until December 2011.
Coca has been cultivated in medium-altitude parts of the Bolivian Andes since at least the Inca era, primarily in the Yungas north and east of La Paz. Cultivation expanded substantially in the 1980s into the Chapare region of Cochabamba and some production flowed into the international cocaine market. The US-backed efforts to criminalize and eradicate coca as part of the War on Drugs were met by the cocalero movement's growing capacity to organize. Violence between drug police and the Bolivian armed forces on one side and the movement on the other occurred episodically between 1987 and 2003. The cocaleros became an increasingly important political force during this period, co-founding the Movement for Socialism – Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples party. Coca growers from both the Yungas and the Chapare have advocated for policies of "social control" over coca growing, maintaining a pre-set maximum area of cultivation as an alternative to drug war policies. In 2005, cocalero union leader Evo Morales was elected president of Bolivia. Morales has pursued a combined policy of legalizing coca production in the Chapare and Yungas and eradication of the crop elsewhere.
Indigenous peoples in Bolivia, or Native Bolivians, are Bolivian people who are of indigenous ancestry. They constitute anywhere from 20 to 60% of Bolivia's population of 11,306,341, depending on different estimates, and depending notably on the choice "Mestizo" being available as an answer in a given census, in which case the majority of the population identify as mestizo, and they belong to 36 recognized ethnic groups. Aymara and Quechua are the largest groups. The geography of Bolivia includes the Andes, the Gran Chaco, and the Amazon Rainforest.
The National Company of the Coca is a Peruvian state company dedicated to the commercialization of the coca leaf and derivatives. It is the only state company that has a monopoly on the commercialization and derivatives of the coca leaf. It was created in 1949. In 1982, it became a state company under private law.
