February 22, 2023, 20:20 PM
February 22, 2023, 20:20 PM
The Republic of Colombia officially joined the request of the Plurinational State from Bolivia to remove the coca leaf from the list of substances prohibited by the Commission on Narcotic Drugs of the United Nations (UN), that is, that it is intended to legalize the use of this sheet green.
It was the Vice Minister of Multilateral Affairs of Colombia, Laura Gil, who reported that make this request formally at the meeting of the UN commission to be held in Vienna, Austria, in the month of March.
“In Vienna we will present the bases of the international strategy and you may suspect what the bases are: We are going to claim the legal use of the coca leaf, We will do it alongside Bolivia, we will accompany Bolivia in this initiative,” he said in an interview with a Colombian radio station.
Gil explained that only it is intended to legalize the coca leaf and not cocaine, which is another substance prohibited by the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs. In addition, he clarified that criminal organizations that use the coca leaf to make controlled substances will be combated.
“What is proposed is to remove the leaf from this list of prohibited substances, not cocaine (…) We have to go for the mafias that are behind. That is why the president insists so much that we have to strengthen interdiction, in terms of security, but not penalize the peasantry with forced eradication”, clarified the vice minister.
“Bolivia started more or less ten years ago an initiative to achieve the legalization of the traditional use of coca. What they did was denounce the Narcotics Convention”, added Gil.
Bolivia entered in April 2021 to be part of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, which is made up of more than 50 UN members, and later requested that the coca leaf be removed from the list of prohibited substances.
“This election is a result of the success of the Bolivian model fight against drug trafficking and reduction of surplus coca leaf crops, based on the principle of common, shared and differentiated international responsibility with respect to human rights. In the same way, it strengthens the country’s commitment to the work of the Commission,” says a statement from the Bolivian Foreign Ministry regarding the election of the Plurinational State as a member of the Narcotics Commission.
Only 12,000 hectares are legal
In 2014, the delegate of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (Unodc, for its acronym in English) in Bolivia, Antonino de Leo, already had warned Bolivia about the use of cocasince the Law 1008which is in force, recognizes as legal the cultivation of 12,000 hectares (ha) of coca in the country.
“The Government (of Bolivia) has a national law that establishes that the area of coca cultivation legal has to reach 12,000 hectares; everything that is above 12,000 is not legal, if the law is not changed,” said the Unodc representative.
The Coca and Controlled Substances Regime Law, better known as Law 1008, has been in force since December 28, 1988. This regulation orders that the area of coca crops for traditional consumption may not exceed 12,000 hectares.
In November 2013, the Government presented the partial result of the study of traditional coca consumption in Bolivia, in which establishes that the cultivation of 14,705 is required has of the leaf to cover the internal demand.
“The Government will have to review Law 1008, It’s a very old law, from 1988, if I’m not mistaken, then it must be done in a way that reflects the results of the study of the legal claim of the coca leaf,” warned De Leo.
