>What is the "Ancient and Sacred Leaf"?
Erytroxylon Coca, which has many traditional uses here, including fortune-telling. The saying goes "la coca no es cocaína" (coca isn't cocaine); in a very technical sense this may be true, but I understand that a large amount of the leaves are indeed used to produce illicit drugs.
Be that as it may, the fact that people who grew it for many years are now forced to stop growing the leaf creates several social conflicts.
Hilmar.
Difference in opinions hath cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether whistling be a vice or a virtue; whether it be better to kiss a post, or throw it into the fire... (from Gulliver's Travels)