ABSTRACT: from the story of the discovery, the use and the subsequent prohibition of cocaine, we find good reasons to legalize it.

(Radical News n. 51 of the 11th of March 1988, from El Pais Domingo)

In the year of grace 1533, Don Francisco Pizarro, conqueror of Peru for the crown of Spain, found that in those lands everybody chewed the leaves of a plant that was later named Erythrixylon Coca by the scientific pedantry. The incas preferred to call it "Mama Cuca", and used it as a symbol of their divine majesty: according to the inca Garcilaso, it was the children of the sun who gave them as a gift this wonderful plant that satiated those who were hungry, gave fresh energies to those who were tired and made the unhappy ones forget their grief. Therefore, the images of the gods were always represented with a swollen cheek, to mean that the lucky ones were eternally chewing coca leaves.

The exhilarating and tonic properties of coca soon had the occasion to be further underlined, thanks to the conquerors, who forced the natives to hard labour and rewarded them with the leaves of this plant. This regime caused the Peruvian population's health to decay remarkably, and this induced some well-meaning clergymen to recommend the prescription of coca, "because it is nothing but a idolatry, the work of the devil. It fortifies only in appearance, and strengthens superstitions, as well as damaging the health". A few years later, toward the middle of the XVIth Century, the second Council of Lima forbade the use of cocaine to Peruvians, Chileans and Bolivians. This holy assembly however, forgot to ban hard labour, which would have perhaps contributed to invigorate the indians in a decisive way. But let's not forget that this world is a vale of tears, and that we are here not to be happy, but to win heaven for us by means of suffering. The main result of this prohibition was that the monopoly of coca bec

ame a state trade, and continued to be such until the XVIIIth Century, when it returned to be a private trade.

As all other drugs, cocaine, which is a synthetic derivative of coca leaves, is terribly noxious for the health, even for those who are not forced to hard labour. The indians who chewed "mama cuca" for centuries before the coming of the Spanish ignored this; nor is it a matter of concern for the thousands of officials, politicians, artists, sportsmen, physicians, priests, professors, policemen, who consume it regularly and with enthusiasm.

The effects of cocaine on the body can be more or less devastating, but, on the contrary, its economic consequences are very beneficial for those who trade it. As far as the political consequences of this flourishing and unhealthy trade is concerned, these are visibly negative, at least in two fundamental ways: in one way, which is typical of the producing and under-developed countries; another one, typical of the consuming and developed countries.

Let's take, for instance, the case of Colombia, whose institutional regulations have almost been destroyed by the gigantic criminal activity of the traffickers: assassination of eminent politicians and jurists, generalized corruption, and so on. How can this situation be solved? Common sense can help us, without doubts: prosecuting the large-scale traffickers in an ever severer way. Although until now this policy has obtained no other effect but that of increasing the prices of the product, multiplying crime and creating a specific form of terrorism, the positive results must be imminent, it is obvious! Some inconsiderate persons recall that in the seventies the Colombian mafias were concentrating all their energies in the production of marijuana - the wonderful Santa Marta Gold, for example - until a permissive legislation opened the way to the autochthonous production in California, and from one day to another the dealers' trade was finished.

These trouble makers that have a good memory dare to suppose that the day in which coca were legally grown in the Rocky Mountains or on any other portion of American soil, the cocaine mafia that is destroying Colombia would be eliminated. You see to what absurd conclusions the absence of an upright and prohibitionist moral sense can lead to.

And what about the political effects in the consuming countries? All we need to do is to carefully watch a reportage on the topic, which was awarded some time ago by the Tve (Spanish television, editor's note), to realize the state of things. We are shown U.S. policemen disguised as dealers, offering drugs to the people walking by: those who accepted were immediately arrested, or - to say it in the awarded film-maker's way - "the depraved thought they had their dose, but were punished by the law". The audience at home was satisfied, without being outraged at how the police invent fake offences and propose real punishments. Anything is allowed in the battle against drugs - as in a field such as terrorism -; it is even forgivable to forget the fundamental principles of a state based on law. Not only those who create the law commit a fraud, but those who are charged with enforcing it are cheating in their office, with the approval of the citizens, who for the very fact of being accomplices of something lose any

right to be called citizens.

Of course, drugs kill: the first things it kills are common sense and civic sense. Thanks to these two murders, prohibition is maintained and the drug traffic continues to flourish.