Nobody runs their household that way. The State Government dont operate that way, but we are totally incompetent when it comes to spending americas taxpayer money. Why would we continue to a 32 billion a year on i. T. Programs that dont work for the federal government. But 60 of what they take out of the pentagon and thats governmentwide. Why would we do that . Were going to have a special Senate Committee to look at this, oversight, look at bad actors in government and demand the people get fired in the company is not performing pay the money back. None of that happens. So you can defraud the federal government. You can do it with impunity and thats because members of congress are basically not willing or inexperienced to not know you want to hold people accountable for what they say theyre going to do. Whether its a federal employee, procurement employee for the company provided. Thats just one example that happened this week. Host what is the business started . Guest my father was in the business and i started a plastic lens class lines in intraocular Lines Division of that and i did that in southern virginia. At the tip here for 10 years. Host does that Company Still exists . Guest it was sold. Portions still exist. Up next, Ricardo Cortes with a secret history of coffee, coca and cola. And now, Ricardo Cortes attacks that attempt superheavy of coffee and coke around the world. To keep the Cocacola Company supplied with coca while simultaneously punishing to ban its use worldwide. This is a little over an hour. Okay, so tonight we are pleased to welcome Ricardo Cortes to discuss his legal book, a secret history of coffee, coca and cola. Secret formulas, special flavors, special favors in the future prohibition. Cortes is the creator and illustrator as books for all ages were mostly all ages such as marijuana, timing and the jamaican bobsled team. His latest book examines a series of highly addictive substances that have caused many deaths and through much, much profit in how they make their way in the u. S. Senate u. S. Government through his then in ensuring they come into this country. We are pleased to be joined by two drug policy experts. I tsl assigned to a tree and a senior fellow at the Washington Office on latin america. Without further ado, i want to hand it over to the panel. [applause] thank you so much for coming out here. Im really excited to be in new york. Im going to start off by talking about my book and number go into a little bit about which focuses on cocoa and cocoa powder to see and with its going on at the u. N. And in the history of the tree that prohibits coca around the world. My book started out as a children book. It started as a follow through Childrens Book i did about marijuana in 2004, 2005. It was in a book about teaching kids how to smoke weed, but an educational book about how they might talk to their kids about a difficult subject with him i dont run into. So thats where the format is an illustrated picture book for kids. As i got into the subject and started looking into train, which is relevant to some childrens lives. Their children but pickett, families involved in the oppressive policies to eradicate coca and its a social or cultural issue. As i got deeper into the history of coca and specifically with relationships of the Cocacola Company, origins from a medical marvel to the drug problem we have today, it got really complicated and so now its a book for adults. I also started in coca with coffee because they wanted to do a comparison is not in that fascinated me with the way the drugs, plants change their perceptions over time for the cultural perceptions, the legal, social perceptions. As inspired by Michael Collins spoke about body of desire, where he talks about the history for different plants. When apples came to this country, they want the fleshy fruit we all know today, but were used for fermentation purposes. People get trunk and people wanted to be in the apple. I looked further and found other plants similar and today you say thats incredible that it was the witchs fruit or potato solution of problems with it. Obviously coffee was fascinating because there is a great origin myth of coffee and eventually questions to the hope that it, the religious legality of it in times where coffee was banned, coffeehouses were shut down. Sometimes for health reasons, but also political reasons. So i saw that this coffee with another plant with an alkaloid as his principal active ingredient, caffeine of the coffee. Something that went through the cycles of experimentation and then prohibition and obviously acceptance. Coffee is legal in most parts of the night takes today. So coca is a similar plant, sometimes picked on the same mountain fed by the same people and they both have an alkaloid as it principal ingredient. Theyre both in their pure form powerful stimulants. Caffeine is toxic in its purest form. And so, i just wanted to make a comparison and thats why i went so far back to go to the history of coffee and get a little into the history and thats when it crept into the question of cocacola, something that always fascinated me because i grew up with those rumors. Was there ever in cocacola . And started to take the cocaine out. They met a maker, boucher for who basically was the person who would take out they cocaine and new jersey. As we can talk about today, the Pharmaceutical Company is still there today. You can go on the dea website and see how they have to register to import coca life and register for the production of a controlled substance. So i went into that history to basically find out that cocacola has been getting access to coca leaf for the past century. For this all comes together today and what we would get into is the coca became prohibited around the world through one of three treaties that now dictates the International Drug policy in the first one is the 1961 convention on narcotic drugs and that was the treaty that today still says bolivia is supposed to eradicate their wild coca bushes we have to stop the chewing of coca, something thats been going on in south america for thousands of years. The Cocacola Company had a role in negotiations of the treaty. I went to the National Archives and what you see a lot in this book is illustrations of the pictures i took in the archives of the documents. Instead of writing all the words out, i found boxes and boxes of documents and the personal files with the of narcotics and took photographs of them and then illustrated them. So what you see in the book is rather than retell the story of words, i recreated these documents and correspondence that happened over decades and decades. Between harry and singer, who you may know as the architect of the campaign against marijuana. That was one he was really act they been successful in cohabiting marijuana. At the same time, also the point man for the federal government in his negotiations at the u. N. To codify the laws against coca. What was happening, was in constant medication with the Company Primary for the Vice President , vice pays, who really got to feel the relationship between them over time. They just had a really interesting parlay between each other. So thats the beginning of an overview of the book. I want to pass the mic back and forth and i think were going to have questions for each other. But thats the beginning. At evening. Im at the super policies were around the trip policy there. I was once asked to check to a group of High School Students in the literature resume and background and came up with the topic and you had to speak to the topic. This being a high school dance, they wanted here but sex, drugs and International Relations. At that homeequity type these things together. It didnt dawn on me until the last minute and i realized the way to tell that story was through the story of columbus, who i considered the granddaddy of International Drug traffickers. How you see the world depends where you say, where you stand, perspective. I went to reframe this discussion in ways that not think very often. The story of columbus after the space route to asia, looking forward a shortcut and he was interested in gold and spending religion, but primarily it is about spaces. Whatever space is so valuable that then . Wasnt just the food was terrible in europe. And it was, but each new exotic spice was thought to have certain properties. Each of these new spaces where the today. So thats one of the reasons by the trade became so valuable and people risk their lives to explore these themes. So after the conquest and colonization, exporting drugs back to europe in this hemisphere as well. By drugs i mean sugar, which many people consider a job, where we get from is definitely a drug. Coffee, tobacco, tea and aphrodisiac spaces. These things became the developmental and system. Vast fortunes were created. Think about where we are today. What was the colonial economy . These are all drugs. And now we have turkish coffee, english tea time and of course of the fortunes that drove a lot in the european development. And so, long story short the reason have the world got colonized in some ways is because a bunch of old white men in europe couldnt get up so there you have sex, drugs and International Relations but i tell the story because what we consider drugs is important so when the white males of european ancestry that drafted this 1961 convention got to read some of their favorite drugs that they got accustomed to policy, alcohol, you know, all these things they love to do. But coca was something Indigenous People used and is the attitude that made them say this is forbidden, this causes degeneration, this is terrible stuff. But coca in its natural form is a very beneficial and relatively harmless. Its a very mild stimulus in my opinion and my personal experience two cups of coffee basically, so this thing thats hard to get across people in the United States these policy makers is that coca isnt cocaine. Indigenous people shouldnt be punished because some people refined into cocaine and abuse state and theres great value and this is an ancient tradition that doesnt harm people and the arrogance by which the Foreign Policy traced to dictate terms and countries like bolivia less than 1 of any excess cocaine in bolivia and set in the United States. And the heavyhanded nature of the policy would think this is some kind of a flood from bolivia the way that we dictate terms in this country. Now imagine if the United Nations and the u. N. Convention were to treat coffee the way with the content they treat coca what would happen if they tell oblivions chewing coca which theyd been doing for centuries if not thousands of years imagine if they did that to the United States you have to give up this habit now. She was a major that went to elmhurst college, and in 2001 he comes by europe with the administration to secretly them coffee for one day without notice during finals week as a project so all these students get up in the morning and theres no coffee in the bookstore area sold on campus and they have friends dress up in trenchcoats as drug dealers. You want to buy a shot of espresso . 6. And people were actually buying this stuff and in cbs news come all this stuff, so that is the kind of outrage that you would expect of someone told you you could no longer consume your favorite beverage stimulant coffee, and that is i think you begin to understand some of the indignities and outrage when the ignorant people, other people decide they cant chew coca anymore. And then finally, i would say this treaty 62yearsold now the u. S. And a small number of other governments say that we shouldnt revisit these treaties as though they were carved in stone so much has changed. Would any of these governments defend the views on gender equality, on the Sexual Orientation were indigenous rights or Race Relations based on 52yearold attitudes . Of course not. We have evolves, our views have changed the have become better and the same people the drug warriors who want to protect their turf are saying no we must never revisit these conventions. They should be set in stone for all of time and of course that time has come to change these things. We will talk more about these im going to turn this over to claudia. Thank you. Is this on have . I would like to offer a few more reflections on the release and then talk primarily whats going on with efforts to reform the International Drug control convention and then i will conclude with some thoughts on the growing movement for drug policy reform. What i really like about the book apart from the illustrations, which are great, is how she reveals the hypocrisy of the socalled war on drugs and one of those that was pointed out is how coffee is treated differently than coca and i would even go further in saying that my own experience is that coca is a mild stimulant, but it doesnt have the image that coffee does so you could drink two cups and you could go to sleep without any trouble leader that might. If i drank two cups of coffee in the afternoon i met half of the night. I cant sleep. It doesnt give you that half an hour after you drink a cup of coffee you kind of crash. Coca is a very mild stimulant and house the variety of nutritional values, so apart from the fact its been used by Indigenous People from the religious, cultural and nutritional reasons and medicinal reasons for centuries now there is an effort taking advantage, the advantages that it offers not only in bolivia but also in colombia so a Processing Plant that is built in the coca growing region of bolivia and have the opportunity to sample some of their products and they have a marvelous coca liqueur and a variety of energy drinks. As a drink in colombia which is a great flavor but again its not like drinking red bull. Its a very nice kind of stimulant. It would be much better for you. Theres a variety of breads and rolls and theres also this is the bag that is basically cheese puffs the government is distributing to kids through a free breakfast program. The folks at the plant went on about how great these were. I thought they were all full myself but i guess the kids like them and i also confess that i hate the taste but there are a variety of products that have very good uses and should be available not only in these countries but also on the International Markets theres a variety of uses beyond what the uses for flavoring another that ricardo points out to in his book is related to the conventions. I was struck this relationship between the u. S. Drug czar for decades and the president of cocacola very cozy relationship, so in the end of the 1961 u. N. Single conventional the narcotic drugs and the subsequent 1988 convention make it a criminal offense under the International Law so while cocacola is the use for a flavor and and Indigenous People across the andes or told the traditional practice of coca and a drinking coca wouldnt be tolerated by the International Community and its important to point out that the u. S. Was the architect of these treaties and certainly had support from other countries. Today the have key allies in their efforts to maintain the treaty such as russia, japan, sweden, but it really is a u. S. Instrument. So, coca along with canadas and opium became the main targets of the 1961 convention. This historical error as i like to call it was basically justified by the 1950 report on the commission of inquiry on the coca leaf which has pointed out is a totally racist document. It has absolutely no Scientific Evidence. You can find it on the web now you will be outraged if you read it yet it is the basis for the International Drug control. Subsequent to that in the 1990s, the u. N. World Health Organization carried out a study of the who carried out eight study of coca and cocaine and they concluded the use of coca appears to have no negative affects and has positive therapeutic and social functions for indigenous indian populations. And there are a variety of other studies including one that points to the nutritional value of the coca. But in response to the study, not surprisingly, the u. S. Government led the charge against it. It dhaka and your review and was never published although again, you can find on the internet. The 61 convention also calls for the elimination of the coca shooting within 25 years of the going into force of the convention and that period ran out in 1989. In the meantime, the International Community adopted the declaration on the rights of Indigenous People which calls for the respect of the cultural traditions and the medicinal practices of the indigenous populations. For many countries including the United States the of basically accepted the idea of the indigenous use of coca leaves. You can get coca in the embassy in order to help deal with altitude sickness. They only took it away after others started pointing out that it was readily available at the embassy. Yet despite the changes, the u. S. Government and other governments have refused to allow any changes to the International Conventions and any changes that would correct this historical wrong. Turning now to the efforts to change it, but the election as president of bolivia who as you know marks the real turning point in bolivi