coca

Bolivia to withdraw from 1961 UN Narcotics Convention Over Coca Leaf Ban

The Bolivian legislature has approved a Bill of Complaint filed by President Evo Morales’ government to withdraw Bolivia from the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs in 2012 over its prohibition personal use, consumption, possession or cultivation of the native coca leaf.

In support of the measure, the government cited Article 384 of the Bolivian Constitution passed in 2008, which obligates the State to protect use of the coca leaf as a part of Bolivia’s ancestral cultural heritage and rejects the designation of coca in its natural state as a narcotic.

A review of Cocaine Unwrapped

Cocaine’s path from the fields of Bolivia to City desks is a long one with far more violence, destruction, and ruined lives than you’ve probably realised, according to the latest from documentary filmmaker Rachel Seifert, Cocaine Unwrapped.

In examining the devastation the cocaine trade—and more precisely, the international war against it—generates, Cocaine Unwrapped departs from the conventional drugs documentary approach by focusing on the impact on those at the beginning of supply chain: Latin American farmers, communities, and families.

World Premier of Cocaine Unwrapped at The Open City Festival

World Premier on17th June, at 8.50pm, at LONDON: AV Hill, South Junction, End of Malet Place,Off Torrington Place, UCL, Bloomsbury, London.

Followed by Panel Discussion with Director and Invited Guests.

2nd screening on 18th June, at 2.10pm, at LONDON: Screen 3, Medawar Building, Off Malet Place, Off Torrington Place, UCL, Bloomsbury, London

17th June - buy tickets here.

18th June - buy tickets here.

Cocaine to China and an attack on Bolivia cultural expression

The publication Latin American Newsletters have claimed that the growing new market for cocaine in Asia is linked it to a decrease in cocaine consumption in the United States. This decrease is claimed by US drugs czar Gil Kerlikowske to be a result of action by his office. He is claiming that since 2007 the number of cocaine users in the United States has fallen by 21%. This has been linked to two large seizures of cocaine in Hong Kong in the past year, one of which is claimed to have originated in Bolivia.

United States plans to continue ban on Bolivian cultural expression

Two years ago the Bolivian Government, under the leadership of Evo Morales Bolivia’s first indigenous leader, started the process of trying to change the racist 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs that explicitly banned the centuries old practise of chewing coca leaf. The proposed amendment would remove the ban and bring the 1961 Convention in line with the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Sanho Tree speaks about US eradication policy in Colombia

TalkingDrugs: We are here with Mister Sancho Tree, director of the Drug Policy Studies at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC and we will ask him few questions about coca and cocaine production in South America, and US policies on those issues.

TD: Which countries are producing the most of coca and cocaine?

1st Conference of Dialogs between Medicines. Treatment of addictions with traditional medicines.

1st Conference of Dialogs between Medicines. Treatment of addictions with traditional medicines.

Presentation:
This is the first Conference of medical experts, aimed at exchanging knowledge of different medicines practiced around the world. Traditional medicine exists in all cultures and must co-exist with Allopathic Medicine, which has been adopted by governments world-wide.

Bolivian Government seeks to amend United Nations coca legislation

On Thursday, the 30th July 2009 at the Substantive Session of the Economic and Social Council Bolivia began the formal process to amend legislation concerning coca leaf chewing.

The United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs that dates back to 1961 puts the coca leaf in the same category as Cocaine and states that ‘coca leaf chewing must be abolished within twenty-five years from the coming into force of this Convention’. The Convention was later signed by Bolivia in 1976 during the dictatorship of Colonel Hugo Banzer.

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19th Century Coca Cola advertisement

Nineteenth century America was witness to a host of psychoactive drugs sold as elements in proprietary medicines, pick-me-ups, tonics and so on.

President of Bolivia chews Coca leaf at UN in Vienna Pt 2

President of Bolivia, Evo Morales holds up a coca leaf, puts it in his mouth and chews. "Am I a drug Addict?

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