ruxandra guidi * radio + print + multimedia

http://www.bearguerra.com/bolpstcard.mov

The Walrus Magazine, 05.03.08: Coca is not cocaine. However, the leaf is the main ingredient for the drug, and the United States and the United Nations would like to see the plant completely eradicated. But Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales, is a former coca grower who has pushed for an increase in the cultivation and legal uses of coca - while still clamping down on the illegal ones. He calls this new and controversial policy “Coca Yes, Cocaine No.”

http://walrusmagazine.com/cocaine/cocaine/publish_to_web/index1.php

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Dispatches, 04.14.08: Bolivia’s president says it’s okay to grow coca. Just don’t grow it into cocaine. But there’s a fine white line between the two that’s becoming a flashpoint with the United States.

(please listen about 13:40 minutes into the broadcast)

http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/dispatches_20080414_5353.mp3

Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting’s “Untold Stories”, 03.24.08: Shortly after winning the presidency in 2005, Evo Morales went on a whirlwind world tour and brought a few small coca leaves with him to New York. It is illegal to travel with coca leaves, so it’s been said that the president stuck them inside a book he was reading at the time, to conceal them from the customs officials. During his landmark speech at the United Nations Security Council, he brought out the leaves and held them with his right hand, as he tried to make his case about coca in front of hundreds of dignitaries.

http://pulitzercenter.typepad.com/untold_stories/2008/03/bolivia-the-un.html