Bolivia Calls for Reflection on the Failure of the War on Drugs
Bolivian VP David Choquehuanca, March 10, 2025. X/ @BoliviaDelgadoZ
March 10, 2025 Hour: 9:56 am
The time has come to make a historic turn towards a drug policy centered on the cult of life, said the Bolivian vice president.
On Monday, the Bolivian Vice President David Choquehuanca defended the traditional use of the coca leaf and called on the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) to reflect on the failure of the “War on Drugs.”
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He advocated for the coca leaf as a cultural asset of the Andean peoples, who have been “stigmatized” by the international community over the past six decades.
“The sacred coca leaf was given to the Indigenous peoples by the great geneticist Mother Earth to preserve the worship of life, and it is the dry seal of the Indigenous peoples,” Choquehuanca stated while holding a coca leaf in his left hand.
The coca leaf is a natural asset of great social, communicational, cultural, medicinal, and nutritional value that, nevertheless, is not appreciated by the Western approaches of modernity and postmodernity.
“The 1961 Vienna Convention, without conclusive scientific evidence, committed an absurdity—an attack on the culture of life. It condemned our history and the dignity of Indigenous peoples by including the sacred coca leaf in Schedule 1 of narcotic drugs,” Choquehuanca asserted, recalling that his government requested in 2024 “a critical scientific review based on four criteria—pharmacological, toxicological, therapeutic, traditional, and epidemiological—to bring the scientific truth to light.”
“No one should confuse the fact that for more than six decades, the sacred coca leaf has been unfairly associated with coca paste and cocaine. By stigmatizing the coca leaf, which is a symbol of life, as if it were poison and part of a death cult, let us remember that Indigenous peoples have been criminalized for more than six decades for a non-existent crime,” Choquehuanca criticized.
This international drug policy “has destroyed human rights in its potential paths of development. The time has come to raise awareness, to deeply reflect on the failure of the war-on-drugs policy based on death, and to take a historic turn toward building a drug policy centered on the worship of life,” the Bolivian Vice President concluded.
teleSUR/ JF
Source: EFE
