LIMA, Peru · It looks and tastes pretty much like the many brands of bottled iced tea that line American supermarket shelves -- just don't drink it before a drug test.
Kdrink is one of two new bottled beverages to hit Peruvian stores this year using a formula made from coca leaves, the base ingredient in cocaine. Each bottle of Kdrink contains a trace -- 0.6 milligrams -- of the outlawed stimulant.
Although that amount of natural, unprocessed cocaine carries less kick than a cup of coffee, it is enough to create a legal headache for exporters. With the notable exception of Coca-Cola, products using coca leaves are banned in most nations beyond the Andes by strict U.S. and U.N. import regulations.
But the two new Peruvian drinks -- Kdrink iced tea and Vortex energy drink -- hope to buck the system and find legal paths into foreign markets. The makers of Kdrink think many nations will allow their drink if vague anti-coca rules are clarified, while the bottlers of Vortex are banking on a cocaine-free coca formula.
Pitching the pick-me-up possibilities of coca leaves is nothing new. In 1886, an Atlanta pharmacist invented Coca-Cola as a brain-stimulating tonic that combined cocaine and an extract from the caffeine-producing kola nut.
Coke dropped cocaine from its recipe around 1900, but the secret formula still calls for a cocaine-free coca extract produced at a Stepan Co. factory in Maywood, N.J.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/lo...pr21,0,5735365.story?coll=sfla-news-caribbean
Kdrink is one of two new bottled beverages to hit Peruvian stores this year using a formula made from coca leaves, the base ingredient in cocaine. Each bottle of Kdrink contains a trace -- 0.6 milligrams -- of the outlawed stimulant.
Although that amount of natural, unprocessed cocaine carries less kick than a cup of coffee, it is enough to create a legal headache for exporters. With the notable exception of Coca-Cola, products using coca leaves are banned in most nations beyond the Andes by strict U.S. and U.N. import regulations.
But the two new Peruvian drinks -- Kdrink iced tea and Vortex energy drink -- hope to buck the system and find legal paths into foreign markets. The makers of Kdrink think many nations will allow their drink if vague anti-coca rules are clarified, while the bottlers of Vortex are banking on a cocaine-free coca formula.
Pitching the pick-me-up possibilities of coca leaves is nothing new. In 1886, an Atlanta pharmacist invented Coca-Cola as a brain-stimulating tonic that combined cocaine and an extract from the caffeine-producing kola nut.
Coke dropped cocaine from its recipe around 1900, but the secret formula still calls for a cocaine-free coca extract produced at a Stepan Co. factory in Maywood, N.J.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/lo...pr21,0,5735365.story?coll=sfla-news-caribbean
