To the people of the Andes, Coca is not only a plant for the gods - it is an essential part of their survival. To most of the world, it is an evil plant, fueling the cocaine trade.
For the Andes people coca leaves have a number of properties - chief amongst them is that they relieve altitude sickness. Many people swear by it, and drinking coca tea is highly recommended for traveling in the Andes. Coca tea is quite nice actually, but since I do not suffer from altitude sickness, I cannot vouch for its effectiveness. Coca products (tea, sweets etc) are also sold as good for nutrition, maintaining healthy bowel movement and as good for the sex drive. In fact the list of good things it can do is almost too good to be true, and I suspect that the Andeans are trying a bit too hard :p
According to the guide from Machu Picchu, it takes 16 Kg of coca leaves to make one gram of cocaine. The street value of coca leaves is 2 Soles per ounce or 70.548 Soles per kilogram. This means that it would cost 1128.767 Soles or 376.27 US Dollars to make 1 gram of cocaine. I know that drugs like cocaine are often sold impure - but even then, I am not sure if the price of cocaine is that high ... so I suspect the farmer is not really getting paid 2 Soles per ounce. That said, it is still quite a lucrative business and I can easily understand why coca production is such a big business.
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