International Journal on Criminology Volume 6, Number 2, Winter 2018/Spring 2019 | Page 13

International Journal on Criminology
assembly was set up. In September 2006, President Morales gave a speech at the
UN general assembly during which he brandished a coca leaf and declared that "It
is not possible that a coca leaf is legal for Coca-Cola, but illegal [ ... ] in our country
[ ... ]." 29 In March 2008, the INCB urged the Bolivian government to prohibit the
growing of coca. In November 2008, Morales responded by expelling the American
ambassador and the DEA from the country.
In January 2009, coca was inscribed into the country's new Constitution
(Article 384), which was approved by 67% of the electoral body. In March 2009,
the Bolivian government sent a communication to the UN Secretary-General, Ban
Ki Moon, suggesting the Single Convention of 1961 be amended by removing two
sections of Article 49 (1c and 2e), which prohibited the chewing of coca leaves.
The United States and fourteen other countries opposed the proposal. In July 2011,
Bolivia decided to leave the 1961 Single Convention, effective as of January 2012.
Bolivia rejoined the Single Convention on January 10, 2013 with the agreement
of two thirds of members (169 countries out of 183 30 ), and managed to protect
the Bolivian custom of holding a pinch of coca leaves in the mouth, a practice
known as el acullico. 31 The fifteen countries that opposed their readmission were
the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Italy, Canada, Germany, France,
Russia, the Netherlands, Israel, Finland, Portugal, Ireland, Japan, and Mexico. The
result brought the following comment from Morales: "Not only have we legalized
[coca-]chewing, but also [coca-]growing, it is a double victory!" He added that it
was "a great sign of acknowledgment on the part of the international community
of our identity and our coca leaf. Since 1961 and the first Convention on Narcotics,
the coca leaf has been internationally punished, demonized, and criminalized.
Coca producers have been accused of being drug-traffickers, and those who
consume it, as drug-takers, when there are universities in the United States and
Europe that have demonstrated that coca leaves are good for health!"
The European Union ambassador to Bolivia, Timothy Torlot, gave his view
in La Paz in 2013. Commenting on the possible resumption of exports of this
time-honored crop, the coca leaf, he pointed out the need to first "remove all the
alkaloids" that are used in the production of cocaine. Torlot repeated his message
at a further meeting with the press in La Paz: “this whole conversation about the
export of coca leaf is very interesting, but it is illegal under the [Vienna] Convention
[ ... ] The 1961 Convention prohibits the export of coca leaf except in very
Our America), an organ created by a treaty of December 14, 2004 by Presidents Hugo Chávez
and Fidel Castro, and described as a trade deal of free peoples, set up in opposition to NAFTA.
29 https://www.servindi.org/actualidad/4724
30 J.-J.G, Le vin tonique Mariani repart à la conquête du monde, Corse-Matin, 2 janvier 2017.
31 It should be noted that in Peru, this practice is also allowed by the authorities. In Colombia, the
constitution only permits Amerindian minorities to consume the coca leaf, similar to the Kogi
and Arhuaco peoples of the Sierra Nevada de Santa-Marta in the north of this Republic. Finally,
in Argentina, law 23737, enacted in 1989, authorized the legal consumption of coca leaves in three
provinces of the north: Salta, Jujuy, and Tucumán.
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