THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE FAMILY - Hector Barrera & Mauricio Perez - May 1982

Hector Barrera & Mauricio Perez

How alcohol and drugs have contributed to the breakdown of Latin-American family life. Long before the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadors, American Indian tribes consumed various native alcoholic beverages. They chewed coca leaves, even smoked marijuana. Cocaine was used for centuries by the natives of different regions of today's Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. During the pre-Inca period it was considered a divine drug. It could only be used by those of royal ancestry or by the priesthood. Likewise in Colombia, almost all the native tribes before the Spanish Conquest used indigenous hallucinogens in religious rites, not as "mind expanders" as today. By the time the Spaniards came to the New World, the use of native alcoholic beverages was common among members of virtually all social levels of American Indian society. Family life had severely broken down. American Indians from Tierra del Fuego in the south to Mexico in the north were also great consumers of chicha, an alcoholic beverage generally made from fermented corn. Chicha could be made from native American grapes and from apples or pears. Because of unsanitary conditions that prevailed in preparation of this drink, chicha has been gradually prohibited in this century, being replaced by the consumption of beer. - Information Supplied By: Herbert W Armstrong Library