People were chewing cocaine leaves before it was a (high-end) product, and they were consuming it for it's energy and medicinal attributes. It shouldn't be wasted if gathered by law enforcement. It should be used to it's full potential, because it's a natural resource. Natural resources should always be considered important, and a leverage tool for commerce. Wouldn't cocaine combine with other substances to the point where people could use it as a (bio) chemical? Material Science? What does it mix well with? So I'm thinking rather than harm the farmers, buy their product and use it better. It's an important natural resource. Big pharma, get with the program. Dow chemical? Air products? What's it good for? I'm thinking it should be brought to the market as a commodity to help the farmers. The current refiners could multi-discipline by injecting material science jobs into their greenhouses to serve demand for new materials.
It's not a target for law enforcement because people were chewing coca leaves. That's a tiny percentage of the market. Cocaine is a social problem. We already have mild stimulants like coffee.
coca from the coca plant cola from the cola nut = coca cola available at any drugstore ah, but then they left out the cocaine and added 6 tablespoons of sugar sucrose-cola?
Do you realize that farming is one of the most unnatural things that humans do? There's a big difference between chewing a leaf once in a while and growing an acre of leaves to concentrate into a bag of white powder.
Based on what you are saying ( bag of white powder ) there should be a lot of filler. Tea is a plant and is sold on the market as a ground leaf. So it should be more effective to grind coca leaf, but than to produce a white powder , you must extract the the product than purify it than dry it that is a long and costly process. By the way I never seen the product ( coca )
They do this because cocaine as a concentrated product is much more effective than raw coca. Instead of a mild stimulant, it becomes euphoric and very addictive. They process it with gasoline and other chemicals to change it's chemical structure.
Coca leaf tea is readily available in Peru. When I went to Machu Picchu, it was in all the hotel dining rooms.
About the same effect as a cup of coffee. And it did seem to help alleviate the headache from the altitude sickness in Cusco.
It seems you don't know much about tea. There is actually only one tea plant, from which all the diferent teas are processed. it is a long and tedious process. Read up on it, it will amaze yuo how much work is involved in making tea. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_processing
What bothers me is that Cannabis is treated like an Opioid. It is a Cannabinoid and is completely different from Opioids, yet it is a class 1 drug. This was done for political reasons, not for any medical reasons. Nicotine and Alcohol are much mure dangerous than Cannabis. If it were legalized, the opioid, nicotine and alcohol problems would instantly disappear, including the deathrate from overdosing . Cocaine is another story yet, because it speeds up your system, and may cause all kinds of problems. OTOH, there is no single recorded case of death from Cannabis overdose.
Whether or not I believe laws should be enacted and enforced to control such drugs, I don't see it as my business - or more-to-the-point - your business to judge what other people do or don't "have" to do. It is judgmental to decide these people can't wish to escape reality temporarily. The rest of us have our own ways, even you.
fixed it for you $127.50 in Iowa for not wearing a seat belt. source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_belt_laws_in_the_United_States