Newsbrief: Bill to Legalize Coca Prepared in Colombia 10/17/03

Drug War Chronicle, recent top items

more...

recent blog posts "In the Trenches" activist feed

SUBSCRIBE TODAY!!!

Colombian legislators have introduced a bill that would legalize the possession, cultivation, and consumption of coca, the Colombian media outlet Actualidad Etnica reported. First presented at last month's National Forum on Drug Policy, the proposed "Coca Law" is aimed specifically at protecting peasant, indigenous, and Afro-Colombian communities from persecution for growing a bush cultivated in the Andes for millennia. The bill would not legalize the cocaine traffic. "The growing of coca bushes and the use of coca leaf for [traditional religious] practices and for industrial, medicinal, or alimentary use will not be considered possession or use of drugs," says the text of the bill.

"The right of traditional licit uses of the coca plant is considered sacred under international and national norms that apply to Colombia," wrote the bill's authors. "It is necessary that this prerogative of taking advantage of the diverse virtues of this plant for food, medical, and industrial use that favors the indigenous communities be extended to all the population. It is necessary to have a law that -- maintaining the distinction between renewal natural resources of vegetal origin (with alkaloids) and the drugs processed from these plants -- legalizes for all the Colombian population the growing and consumption of coca."

The proposal's proponents cite the 1961 Vienna Convention on Narcotic Drugs and Colombian law as providing for the recognition of coca as distinct from cocaine, and also call for legalization of the leaf as a means of protecting the environment and aiding sustainable development. "Upon reducing the number of illicit hectares of coca, the alternative legitimate and licit uses would reduce the environmental harm generated by the use of pesticides and of chemical precursors in land and water sources in the cultivation of illicit coca," argued the bill.

Coca legalization would also presumably lessen the environmental and human toll of the US government-funded coca eradication aerial spraying program, which has covered hundreds of thousands of hectares with glyphosate and other pesticides. But that is the policy of President Alvaro Uribe, and it is difficult to see this bill going anywhere under his government.

-- END --
Link to Drug War Facts
Please make a generous donation to support Drug War Chronicle in 2007!          

PERMISSION to reprint or redistribute any or all of the contents of Drug War Chronicle (formerly The Week Online with DRCNet is hereby granted. We ask that any use of these materials include proper credit and, where appropriate, a link to one or more of our web sites. If your publication customarily pays for publication, DRCNet requests checks payable to the organization. If your publication does not pay for materials, you are free to use the materials gratis. In all cases, we request notification for our records, including physical copies where material has appeared in print. Contact: StoptheDrugWar.org: the Drug Reform Coordination Network, P.O. Box 18402, Washington, DC 20036, (202) 293-8340 (voice), (202) 293-8344 (fax), e-mail [email protected]. Thank you.

Articles of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of the DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.

Issue #307, 10/17/03 Supreme Court Upholds Doctors' Right to Recommend Medical Marijuana | Outgoing California Governor Signs Medical Marijuana Guidelines Bill, But Movement Grumbles Over Plant Limits, Caregiver Provisions, More | Bolivia on the Brink: Strikes, Blockades, Mass Marches, Dozens Killed as US-Backed Administration Teeters | DRCNet Interview: Retired New York Supreme Court Justice Jerome Marks | Newsbrief: California's Proposition 36 Generating Big Increases in Drug Treatment | Newsbrief: Cops Laud "Big Bust" at University of Virginia | Newsbrief: Venezuela Vice-Pres Lashes Out at US Drug Czar, CIA | Newsbrief: Bill to Legalize Coca Prepared in Colombia | Newsbrief: Prosecution of Southwest Virginia Pain Doc Stumbles | Newsbrief: Lame Duck Governor Vetoes Needle Exchange Bill | Newsbrief: This Week's Corrupt Cops Story | Newsbrief: Damages Sought in Mississippi Raid that Destroyed Innocent Plants | Media Scan: Zurita on Bolivia/Coca, Barthwell & Kampia, Boston Phoenix on ONDCP Summit, Clarence Page, Prevention Postcards | Perry Fund Accepting Applications for 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 School Years, Providing Scholarships for Students Losing Aid Because of Drug Convictions | SSDP ED Search Accepting Applications | The Reformer's Calendar

This issue -- main page
This issue -- single-file printer version
Drug War Chronicle -- main page
Chronicle archives
Out from the Shadows HEA Drug Provision Drug War Chronicle Perry Fund DRCNet en Español Speakeasy Blogs About Us Home
Why Legalization? NJ Racial Profiling Archive Subscribe Donate DRCNet em Português Latest News Drug Library Search
special friends links: SSDP - Flex Your Rights - IAL - Drug War Facts

StoptheDrugWar.org: the Drug Reform Coordination Network (DRCNet)
1623 Connecticut Ave., NW, 3rd Floor, Washington DC 20009 Phone (202) 293-8340 Fax (202) 293-8344 [email protected]