Evo Morales calls for legalization of coca leaf chewing--NYT op-ed

[Peace Patriot]

Let Me Chew My Coca Leaves

by EVO MORALES AYMA
Published: March 13, 2009

La Paz, Bolivia

THIS week in Vienna, a meeting of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs took place that will help shape international antidrug efforts for the next 10 years. I attended the meeting to reaffirm Bolivia’s commitment to this struggle but also to call for the reversal of a mistake made 48 years ago.

In 1961, the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs placed the coca leaf in the same category with cocaine — thus promoting the false notion that the coca leaf is a narcotic — and ordered that “coca leaf chewing must be abolished within 25 years from the coming into force of this convention.” Bolivia signed the convention in 1976, during the brutal dictatorship of Col. Hugo Banzer, and the 25-year deadline expired in 2001.

(SNIP)

Mistakes are an unavoidable part of human history, but sometimes we have the opportunity to correct them. It is time for the international community to reverse its misguided policy toward the coca leaf.

Evo Morales Ayma is the president of Bolivia.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/opinion/14morales.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
Found via www.BoRev.net

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Time for a SANE drug policy! As with so many other things--transparent vote counting, universal health care, peace, social justice, fair trade, respect for Mother Earth--the South American left is leading the way to a healthier, more democratic society and world.

No need for "wars"--whether the "war on drugs" or the "war on terror." Our need is for common sense, good government, and the end of corruption, militarism and a culture of death. The "war on drugs" is one of the most corrupt and destructive projects that the U.S. government has unleashed here and abroad. Time to END this dreadful "war" along with all our other "wars"!

[EFerrari]

1. Evo!

K&R