Colombia calls for coca leaf to be considered a banned substance

BOGOTÁ — Colombia on Monday requested a revision of the current classification that keeps coca leaf on the list of controlled substances at the sessions of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs being held in Vienna.

For Colombia, listing the coca leaf on the list of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs in 1961 “constitutes a historic error against the indigenous peoples of the Andes”, Colombian Deputy Minister for Multilateral Affairs Laura Gil said during the general debate.

“The plant is not the problem, it is part of our history and traditions,” Gil added, urging other countries to support his initiative.

The Commission on Narcotic Drugs is made up of 53 member states and has the mandate to decide on the extent of drug control.

The proposal on the coca leaf – the raw material of cocaine – is part of a new drug policy that Colombia has been promoting for six months when Gustavo Petro, the first left-wing president in the country’s history, is came to power.

“Colombia is tired of putting the dead and tired of persecuting its peasants in this failed drug war,” Gil told the Commission. “It is obvious that in the countries where the consumer markets are, they demand without doing their part. They haven’t done enough to prevent the use of illicit substances,” he added.

The Andean country intends to leave behind the prohibitionist model it has followed for years and which has not led to reduced harvests, Gil said. In 2021, a historic level of 204,000 planted hectares was reached, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Gil assured that the historic increase in illicit crops has left a burden of violence, despite the fact that official figures indicate that over the past two decades, more than one million hectares of illicit crops have been manually eradicated. , fumigated with the herbicide glyphosate over two million hectares and 6,000 tonnes of cocaine were seized.

Colombia’s new drug policy seeks to avoid persecuting peasant farmers and to focus the efforts of public forces on the main links of drug trafficking and money laundering. It also seeks to prioritize programs so that farmers voluntarily substitute illegal crops for legal crops and reduce forced eradication.

At the national level, a debate on the use of the coca leaf is expected, since Petro recently asked Congress for extraordinary powers for six months to “regulate” its alternative uses, as well as those of cannabis and “for medicinal purposes , therapeutic and scientific”. “. of psychoactive substances”.

For Elizabeth Dickinson, senior analyst for Colombia at the International Crisis Group, the Colombian government is trying to turn the narrative around the coca leaf and for that it is trying locally and internationally, saying it will not continue to play the same role and that, therefore, other countries should also change their approach to the drug issue.

“What Petro is doing may make countries that have traditionally supported Colombia to reduce drug supply nervous, instead of tackling the problem of drug use and public health in their own country,” Dickinson told AFP. ‘Associated Press.

With its request, Colombia joined Bolivia in its efforts to have the UN lift the veto on traditional uses of coca on the grounds that in its natural state it is not a narcotic.

“Our peoples demand to decolonize the current regulations of the conventions and to do justice to six decades of colonization,” Bolivian Vice President David Choquehuanca, an Aymara native who claims to chew coca leaf, told the Commission. compliance with its use. .traditional, nutritional, therapeutic and recommended for the marketing of the leaf.

Government Minister Eduardo Del Castillo, who was also part of the Bolivian delegation, stressed that the coca leaf has “nothing to do with cocaine” and that drug trafficking “has used its profits for private”.

In Bolivia, the cultivation of coca up to 22,500 hectares for traditional consumption such as chewing and infusions is legal. More than 100,000 families depend on this crop.