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Bolivia activists stage mass coca-chewing protest
January 27, 2011 - BBC

Indigenous activists in Bolivia have been holding a mass coca-chewing protest as part of campaign to end an international ban on the practice.

Hundreds of people chewed the leaf outside the US embassy in La Paz and in other cities across the country.

Bolivia wants to amend a UN drugs treaty that bans chewing coca, which is an ancient tradition in the Andes.

But the US has said it will veto the amendment because coca is also the raw material for making cocaine.

Mattia Cabitza reports from La Paz.