People News

Hugo Chavez' stamina secret is out

By M&C People Jan 25, 2008, 19:02 GMT

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, who charms Hollywood types like Sean Penn, Naomi Campbell, Kevin Spacey and Danny Glover, has a secret. Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez EPA/MARIO LOPEZ

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez EPA/MARIO LOPEZPage Six reports that Chavez is supplied "top quality" narcotics from Evo Morales of Bolivia.According to a Miami Herald report, Chavez let his narcotic habit slip in a speech last week to Venezuela's National Assembly. "I chew coca every day in the morning . . . and look how I am," Chavez said, flexing his biceps, reports Page Six, who cites the Herald as their source.Published in the Miami Herald, Chavez said Fidel Castro "sends me Coppelia ice cream and a lot of other things that regularly reach me from Havana," while Morales "sends me coca paste . . . I recommend it to you.""Indigenous Bolivians and Peruvians can legally chew coca leaves as a mild stimulant and to kill hunger," the Herald noted. "But coca paste is a semi-refined product . . . considered highly addictive."The paste, which can be smoked in doctored cigarettes, is called basuco or pitillo. It is described as an "intermediary product" in the chemical extraction of cocaine from coca leaves. Page Six noted Chavez' love affair with left-leaning Hollywood is still strong, and actor Danny Glover was being granted nearly $20 million from Chavez to make two films, one about a slave uprising in Haiti, the other based on a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel.