Evo Morales "morality president" hits again!

by iosaf Tue Apr 24, 2007 02:01

Interesting question is it not? It was raised last week & got a positive response from Evo Morales Monday afternoon. I notice that Ireland in the meantime has seen a bust of 1.5kg of Coke at Dublin airport alledgedly worth "€100,000, hidden in the false bottom of a suitcase" according to RTE.
I don't know where they get their figures from. While I'm at it, most cocaine (as you should know regardless or not if it forms part of your little treat list) in Europe is quite adulterated. Ask your local political representative to let you shine a UVA light at his or her stash before they sufflate it. If it shines (or indeed if your local club toilet cistern shines) that's crap coke. [Cocaine doesn't respond to UV light only the other shite it's mixed with]. You'll surely spoil someone's day for that, so choose a member of the party you least like. Then rub it in. (not to their gums) tell them a decent line of good cocaine ought only cost 3euros.

Anyway.

in 1968 the United Nations added Coca to the list of organisms it would like to see extinct. This is because the USA asked them to do it. Obviously many people think it a bit strange that the global organisation that stops war and saves pandabears and whales wants 2 humble little plants extinct. But that's how it goes.

This is the Bolivian State News Agency who are filing the stories on the "should Coca leaves be on the Bolivian National Shield" :
http://abi.bo/index.php?i=resumenes_texto&j=20070413110403
Since I began writing this comment (& I type quickly) a prominent member of the Bolivian state has categorically denied he supported the suggestion. It's taking on all the elements of international "polemic"
http://abi.bo/index.php?i=noticias_texto&j=20070324100708
Which is why it will be front page news in Spain on Tuesday 24/4. The country which after the USA consumes the most Coca leaf derivative in the world. The Spanish state just announced last Friday it was going to give Bolivia 150,000,000 US dollars for schools. But you know how it goes- people get really generous & lacksadaisacal about their cash on Friday nights.

Just in case you're wondering - Bolivia is actually the smallest producer of Coca in South America. It's well down the list. They don't really have the agricultural traditions for it, but the farmers who do grow it - do so as a cash crop and for its well known medicinal properties. Not just to wash it in alkaloids and make it into Cocaine. This story is interesting - it's about "shock factor".

by etc., Tue Apr 24, 2007 02:39

Until they try a snowball or spaceball as hip groovy slang describe the cocktail mixture of heroin and cocaine most people don't appreciate how "more-ish" Cocaine is. Indeed how terribly more "more-ish" it is than smack. In fact I wouldn't be going to far wrong in saying that Cocaine and its alledgedly CIA invented ugly sister "crack" are the most addictive and destructive drugs commonly available today. Nothing else is widely available which will so quickly and so painlessly present your bank balance and personality with challenges of pernicious consequence. It is "so bad" not only because (like heroin) it feels "so good" but rather because it doesn't seem to be "so bad". A bit like some raver on experimental psychedelik drugs after three days non-stop use, one tends to lose a grip.

The plant Coca was proscribed by the UN in 1961 (a bit earlier than i wrote above). But I want you to take this a bit further than the usual "libertarian allow people to do what they want".

The Bolivian national crest is being reformed in line with government and regime policies to reflect the realities of the Bolivian nation and its largest indiginous population of any modern nation state on the continent. Of the 19 elements which make up the crest - 12 are dated from the colonial period when indeed Bolivia was a province of the Peruvian viceregency of the Spanish empire.
You can check out the crest here :- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_Bolivia & of course read its accompanying link to reuters on this coca crest story - http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSN133...70314

Now the opposition to the coca suggestion say stuff like - But our national crest is a national symbol - we don't all grow coca only the peasants do & we've suffered their revolutionary government too long. Quite. If we examine the 19 symbols we see some of them are only provincial and well have nothing to do with Bolivia as a nation & a few more like the cannons are clearly out of date.

You could go further - let's forget the crap about how many trillions of dollars a year are lost to tax revenue or the needs for vaccines or a moonbase or R&D on HIV, Malaria or cold-sores. Let's forget about all the millions of people for whom the "more-ish-ness" of Cocaine has really proved a temptation their puny weak human minds (or bank balances) can't deal with. Let's just wonder - "how many Bolivians have taken coke - smoked a rock - sucked some paste or eaten a leaf?". Oh well you'd be surprised how many. So................ why shouldn't coca be on the national crest? Indeed. Why shouldn't opium be on the flag of Afghanistan? Why shouldn't we just be honest and change the Irish crest to the Guinness logo? Many years ago more than one person using this line of argument could have insisted both Ireland and Scotland put a syringe on their national crest. Why not?

At end - I have sadly seen peoples' lives destroyed by misuse of drugs and problem drug use. Both are not exactly the same thing. But I have never seen a campus shooting. Nor have I had to rationalize the behaviour of a 2.4 meter humanoid hunter-stalker in molybedenum carbon fibre body armour. Such creatures belong to Hollywood movies along with any notion of ending the global many trillions of dollar worth Coca based trade. It's not happening. So what happens instead is education & information based non-hypocritical socially based change. Not just "policy". Drug use of whatever type (prescribed, over the counter or proscribed) can provoke or worsen existing health problems. Drugs are Health issues. I'm not going to waste readers time waffling about coke, gnashing at my teeth and bubbles of snot coming down my numbed nose. I'm not that type of politician. But I will ask our readership to consider how many lives have been destroyed through draconian judicial policy on Cannabis. & for no other reason than the myth that allowing people to consume Cannabis (as they had done since the neolithic) would encourage a market for "harder" substances such as Cocaine. That was and is a myth. A drug doesn't lead to use of a completely different substance with completely different effects. Society and the culture of "illegality" do that.

Evo Morales with a coca leaf speaking to the UN in 2006. he appealed for the ban on the plant to be lifted.

by - Tue Apr 24, 2007 12:24

Today the USS Sherman impounded 20 tons of cocaine just 20 miles off of Panama. Ok - that's nowhere near the USA but that doesn't matter. The boat was en route to Mexico which is a US neighbour. Many years ago one of the opinion writers of the British right-wing trusty newspaper "The Telegraph" very neatly demonstrated that every single "drug value" price published in the media is an utter fabrication. Regardless of who impounds the drugs - the figure happily and often proudly reported to the public through the media and then the courts through prosecution is invariably utter shite.
Yesterday afternoon customs at Dublin airport seized a little over 1kg which they value at 100,000eu. Today the US Coast Guard seized 20 tons (exactly 907.18474 kg each ton) which they value at with a retail street value of $600 million (300 million pounds sterling). Do the math.
Utter utter shite.

It is part of my constant criticism of anti-drug use policies at all levels, local - national or trans-national that a Health problem is worsening because of the pointless involvement of law enforcement agencies. Let me put it this way, you don't ask your local doctor or health clinic for quotas - and you don't expect them to overestimate the cases of HIV, cryptosporidium or H5N1 do you? It's not going to put a feather in their cap, is it? But the moment a cop or customs guard busts a tiny amount of product they inflate the value sometimes by as much as 20 times. Why? Quite simple - it helps them feel good about themselves & convinces their paymasters that "the war on drugs" is not only being won but that their individual performance is really so impressive they can rest on their laurels.

Oh yes.

When in fact in the big nasty world - one busted suitcase (With a false bottom such as Dublin airport's bust yesterday) or one mule carrying less than 400grammes in their stomach, or one boat carrying cargo rounded off to 20 US tons is quite simply a distraction.

"At the end of the day there is nothing like a good drug bust to lift everyone's spirit," said the USS Sherman's captain, Charlie Diaz. "We were, of course, elated."

I'm sure they were.

Another little human detail which cries for mentioning......"It was very exciting, of course. Fifteen guys moved 20 tons of contraband in five hours, so it was very exhausting."

I'm sure it was.

http://www.swissinfo.org/eng/international/ticker/detai...14000

by sniggering iosaf Thu Apr 26, 2007 14:43

The US coast guard released details of their biggest ever cocaine bust in the meantime and the Brits just did their "biggest crack bust" ever. Oh yes - monty python got into the guinness book of records for a sing-in with coconut shells. But that might be irrelevent.

Serious News on Bolivia!

a small explosive device went off at the Bolivian consulate to Caracas this morning. A man is in custody. The USA DEA are barking that even though Bolivia did eradicate 5,000 hectares of coca - it is still producing lots of it and Cocaine. In fact thy're going up the charts. Peru is though well ahead of them. Ironically the main ally of the USA in the region Colombia (a terrorist state) is doing very well at eradication & will be slipping off the production peaks soon. Of course that will mean they're poorer.

To put this in perspective for you - 5,000 hectares would have yielded all the busts touched on this page and many many tons more. Get the point?
It's another war that can't be won & in teh long-term you're better off not being their ally.

The advent of slick media management in the more developed states not only meant the end to hairy nostrils or cleavage (just as women entered chambers of power : one of their powers was hidden) & all the rest of the soul-less stuff you must recognise. I can't tell you how important humour is. But please don't forget or miss that most of the best politicians and many of our "favourite" regimes are filled with humour & led by jokers.
Hands up! anyone who has read more than 4 Zapatista communications without laughing! But the genius of pisstake which has brought Chiapas into and out of red alerts, Marcus into and out of regular letters to Garzon no longer works in the soul-less dour west. I was aghast when the political parties of the Spanish state attacked the former president of the Catalan generalitat and his then number 2 the leader of the Catalan independence party for their "crown of thorns" joke whilst visiting Jerusalem in 2004. The sight of 2 senior politicians posing under a souvenir crown of thorns was for a hilarious proof of humour and humanity - not a matter which brought shame to their nation and/or state. So too Yeltsin - thanks to the dead man for taking the pissed piss.

Great men and women laugh - honestly and sincerely.
Humour and Music and Love get you through oppression and poverty & are essential to good leadership skills. Looking good in a suit and fretting about your hairy ears won't get you through a guerilla war.

Look at these photos again - examine the grotesque smirks and genuine laughs of those present.
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/76021#attachment20667