The Bolivian vice president, David Choquehuanca, urged both bodies to support Bolivia in its effort to declassify the coca leaf from Schedule I of Narcotic Drugs of the Single Convention of 1961.

“We call and invite the countries present in this event to support and accompany us in activating the process of critical examination of the current classification of the coca leaf (…)”, stated the vice president during the 24th High Level Meeting of the CELAC-EU Drug Coordination and Cooperation Mechanism, which brought together, in La Paz, authorities from both regional blocs.

In March 2023, the Government of President Luis Arce announced the decision to activate this process through a critical examination by the World Health Organization.

Colombia, Peru and Bolivia are among the largest generators of the product, and the latter maintains a legal limit of 22 thousand hectares for legal uses through the Coca Law, while the surplus is subject to eradication and rationalization.

Choquehuanca defended the benefits of coca with the argument that it is a cultural heritage and described its medicinal and nutritional qualities in an extensive exhibition. The “historical errors of the plant control regime and its derivatives,” imposed with the Single Convention of 1961, “are correctable and reviewable” in light of current scientific evidence, he said.

He also recalled that the indigenous peoples did not participate in the negotiations of the Single Convention of 1961, where the coca bush and leaf were included in List 1 of narcotic drugs as a consequence of the report of the Commission of that study of the year 1950.

The Vice President also denounced the “knowledge of the biased and discriminatory nature of the methodological framework of the ECOSOC study and the absence of academic and comparative technical-scientific precision, to sentence the natural coca leaf to extermination and include it in that list.

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