The coca leaf has a myriad of analgesic properties and chewing its leaves provides energy and alleviates hunger, thirst and pain, according to Andean culture. Since time immemorial, the Nasa Indians of the Cauca region of Colombia have been making all kinds of products from coca leaves. It is an ingredient in some energy drinks and spirits and also in a beer that has provoked an unusual legal battle.
The all-powerful Coca Cola, the Atlanta-based soft drink multinational, has declared war on Coca Pola and has filed a lawsuit against its manufacturers, claiming that it is usurping part of its name and demanding that they erase the word “coca” from all Coca Cola products.
“It is a difficult demand to meet, because the coca leaf is an indigenous heritage,” says David Curtidor, the cooperative’s lawyer. “It is a spiritual and economic dispute. First the Spanish empire prohibited the coca leaf and now the Coca Cola empire wants to do it”, denounce from the Coca Nasa cooperative.
“We carry the coca leaf in our blood, but since it is always said that coca is cocaine, we strive to spread the word that this is not so,” says Fabiola Piñacué, a Nasa entrepreneur and founder of Coca Nasa, the first cooperative of its kind in Colombia. “I saw the potential of Coca Pola and knew we should make it, and we did the trials and worked hard until we did,” Piñacué adds.
The creator of Coca Nasa, which has fifteen workers, claims its Coca Pola as a one hundred percent handmade product. “The owners of Coca Cola are uncomfortable and say that we plagiarized them, but we didn’t plagiarize anyone, we inherited the coca leaf and its manufacture,” he says. This is the second lawsuit that Coca Cola has brought against Coca Nasa, since in 2007, after the launch of Coca Sek, they received another lawsuit that was ultimately dismissed.
