Toke of the Town
Steve Elliot
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| First Indigenous Bolivian President Evo Morales |
The South American nation of Bolivia is set to withdraw from the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, adopted in 1961 to outlaw "illicit substances" across the planet. It plans the move in protest of the U.N.'s classification of coca leaves as an illegal drug.
President Evo Morales -- who, not coincidentally, is also leader of one of the country's biggest coca producers' unions -- has asked the Bolivian Congress to pass a law that would take the nation out of the Single Convention, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.
Morales, an Aymara Indian who came to power as the leader of coca growers in the Chapare region, has moved away from the forced eradication of coca plantations while at the same time stepping up efforts against cocaine traffickers, with record seizures.
| Photo: Cannabis Culture |
| Bolivian kids in the coca field |
Like neighboring Peru, Bolivia permits the limited cultivation of coca for legal use in cooking, folk medicine and Andean religious rites. Unadulterated coca is a mild stimulant that counteracts the effects of altitude sickness and helps to suppress hunger pangs, reports Fox News Latino.
According to the Bolivian government, the Single Convention contradicts the Bolivian constitution, which says the country is "obliged to preserve and protect" the chewing of coca leaves as a cultural heritage and ancestral practice.
For years now, Bolivian officials have argued that coca in its natural plant form is not an illicit drug. The plant is legally grown in Bolivia for medicinal and traditional purposes. A considerable portion of the supply is also diverted and processed into cocaine for the U.S., Brazilian and European markets.
An international attempt to remove coca chewing from the U.N.'s illegal drugs list failed in January, so the government, based in La Paz, is now ready to withdraw from the convention.
| Photo: Cannabis Culture |
| Bolivians harvesting coca leaf in the fields |
No signatory nation to the Single Convention has ever formally withdrawn from it in the 50 years that the treaty has existed.
Under the draft law, which has already passed the lower chamber of the Bolivian Congress and is expected to pass in the Senate -- where leftist President Morales's party has a two-thirds majority -- Bolivia would keep its international obligations in the fight against drug trafficking.
Foreign minister David Choquehuanca said the country would rejoin the Single Convention next year, but with an important exception: That Bolivians be allowed to consume coca legally. The legislation states that Bolivia may rejoin the Convention only if the articles that outlaw the chewing of coca leaf -- in contravention of Bolivia's 2009 constitution -- are removed.
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