Bolivia Bid To Decriminalize The Coca Leaf Chewing
Bolivia has asked the United Nations Economic and Social Council to amend a provision of the United Nations Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961, which is a narcotic coca leaf and invites countries to eradicate coca leaf.
The application was filed about 18 months and will be approved unless another country to oppose the application before January 30 October 2011.
Bolivia to defend coca leaf is so serious that Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca is currently on a visit to five European countries to try to persuade them not to lodge objections.
Washington said that, but Bolivia, Tuesday, got help from Spanish Foreign Minister, Trinidad Jiménez, who offered to act as mediator in the UN "to try to help find an agreement," said a spokesman for the Spanish Ministry Foreign Affairs.
President Evo Morales, who is also the regional union of coca growers, is an ardent supporter of the multiple uses of the coca plant.
Stresses that he is, Morales has also chewed coca leaves in 2009, the United Nations meeting. "If this is your medicine, I stop," challenged them.
Since 2009, the Bolivian coca Constitution describes as "cultural heritage, a renewable resource and a key element of diversity, which helps to maintain" social cohesion in Bolivia. "
Coca (Erythroxylum coca) is a part of everyday life of people in the Andean region. An estimated seven million people in the region, which extends from southern Colombia through Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, northern Chile and Argentina, chewing coca leaves, as well as their ancestors back many generations.
To promote the well-known properties and blood oxygenation, a small green leaf is packed with 14 vitamins and alkaloids.
chewed coca releases a mild narcotic used to combat altitude sickness and fatigue hunger.
Cutipa Luis, head of the government office that industrialized the coca leaf in Bolivia, said the UN should recognize that the coca leaf is not a crime, and that the practice has existed for thousands of years.
The coca leaf has been used to go back as far as Lake Titicaca Tiwanaku empire founded 4000 years ago.
"The coca leaf is an important part of indigenous cultures of origin," said anthropologist Aymara Esteban Ticona.
"The coca leaf contains more vitamin A than any fruit, and two times more calcium than milk!" Jorge Hurtado added, an expert on coca and a doctor from La Paz-based.
However, Coca is the raw cocaine, which is derived from a process in which the processing of huge amounts of chemicals leaf.
"Coca Yes, Cocaine No!" manages a government slogan, saying that Morales wants to sell the plant and to curb drug trafficking at the same time.
Bolivia's third largest producer after Colombia and Peru, has spent about 30,500 hectares (75,370 acres) for cultivation in 2008 - more than 12,000 hectares of state reserved for the use of legal coca "and an increase of six percent from a year earlier, according to United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Coca is currently used as an ingredient in Bolivia, soft drinks, tea, flour, toothpaste and liquor.
Bolivia on Tuesday launched a soft drink manufacturing plant called "Coca Brynco" the aim of competing rival the more famous American cousin, the Coca-Cola.
Drinking is another competitor in the local-based Coca - Coca Colla introduced in 2010.
Coca-Cola Company has little ground to complain of a breach of copyright when it comes Colla name refers to the indigenous inhabitants of the region of the Aymara country.