Coca Protest Spreads in Bolivia
"Bolivian farmers blocked highways for a fifth day demanding their right to grow coca, from which cocaine is processed, as 20,000 retirees marched on La Paz demanding bigger pensions."
"Coca farmers wielding sticks and stones have battled with police using tear gas since Monday for control of a stretch of the key route through central Bolivia, high in the Andes. Growers of coca demanded repeal of a 1988 law prohibiting farmers from growing the leaves Andean indigenous people have chewed for thousands of years, also used in a non-narcotic tea thought to help fend off altitude sickness."
"But the leaves are not just a traditional plant; they are also a temptingly lucrative cash crop in South America's poorest nation."
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