Kdrink Company Speaks

We were talking about this coca based beverage last week. It seems Kokka Royal Food & Drink Company saw Talk Left's post on the subject and sent her an email that they asked be published. She of course was happy to do so.

We remind you that Kdrink, contains energy from 15 vitamins and minerals, 12 amino acids and 14 to 16 alkaloids that are found naturally in coca leaves. There is no cocaine in this drink. In their own words:

One of the big mistakes about the coca leaf is to confuse it with the cocaine. Cocaine is one of the 14 alkaloids of the leaf and need to be procesed and mixed with other 15 chemical components to arrive firstable to cocaine sulfate and afterwards to cocaine cloridrate. Between the other alkaloids we can find globuline, pectine, engonine etc. that have such a good benefits for health that we cannot find it in other natural product. In fact Andine people is using it since precolombine period under hunger, extreme work and other unhuman situations.

...There is a social problem about the coca bush that cannot be solved by eradication of plantations. Only the alternative products will have the solution and this is a reallity that only knows who knows the Ande.

The language barrier notwithstanding, their letter makes a lot of sense and they at least are coming up with constructive suggestions. The reality is not much else but coca will grow in these regions and alternative uses could stop the endless cycle of jungle cocaine production.

The peasants growing the plant are not the ones making money on the black market. It would be easy to pay them a comparable amount for their crops by developing a commerical US market for legal uses of the herb.

See Talk Left for the full text of the letter.