Coca is a bush growing naturally in northern Andes and indigenous people in the area have been chewing coca leaves as a mild stimulant for centuries.

Coca tea is commonly served in its native region as a coffee surrogate.

But the small fresh green leaves, collected in the fashion of green tea, are also manufactured into cocaine there, and smuggled mostly to North America, Brazil and Europe. But now "Cuban scientists are studying the possible medicinal benefits of the coca leaf," said Felix Barra, the Bolivian minister of coca and alternative development.

This could predict a possible expansion of President Evo Morales' plans to increase more legal products from the plant whose main product inflicts so much pain far away from its production site. "The Cubans have visited growing areas and would later go to research centers to examine the benefits of the coca leaf from a pharmaceutical perspective."

Morales, a former coca grower and a leftist-friendly to Cuba, has enforced an anti-cocaine politics while promoting the traditional employment of the plant in the life of the Bolivians. These plans, including the making of flour, liquor and even toothpaste from coca worry the U.S. officials, involved in decreasing the coca production and waring toughly with the drug traffickers.

Cuba developed its own pharmaceutical industry, with extensive research and exporting such products to many countries, due to the drug shortage provoked by the embargo imposed by US on the island. "Bolivia would continue an eradication program that last year eliminated 12,400 acres of coca, with the goal of eventually reducing a crop now estimated at 65,500 acres to 49,400 acres by 2010", said Barra. Bolivian legislation imposes an individual coca plot to a maximum of a third of an acre.

Venezuela, led by Hugo Chavez - another element on the leftist club in South America - has helped Bolivia in building two factories producing coca tea and flour, and imports whatever the factories produce.

Since 1961, coca leaves are banned from international trade by an U.N. Convention, which could be renewed in 2008 in Vienna. Enaco, the Peruvian state coca company, exports tea to South Africa, as this country never signed the convention and confirmed that just two years ago, Coca-Cola Co. was still importing a cocaine-free extract, accomplishing U.N. requirements, to flavor some products. "We're also looking for financing to make soft drinks. We know that biggest soda maker uses coca", said Barra.