Coca Leaf's Back (It Never Left)

A cure for migraines, diabetes, insomnia? In La Candelaria, a sign on a stand selling coca leaf products boasts of their supposed health benefits.

Relax. Now you can legally consume coca leaf products, again. Well, almost all of them.

In February 2010, the INVIMA, Colombia's food sanitation agency, issued an alert declaring the sale of all products made from coca leaves illegal outside of indigenous territories.

No matter that many coca leaf products, such as teas and balms, have been consumed without incident for decades, if not millenia; No matter that the coca leaf is quite nutritional and, at worst, benign; No matter that every coca leaf made into food, drink or medicine is one which won't end up as cocaine.

Bags of coca leafs for sale.

"The INVIMA calls on the citizens to abstain from consuming or commercializing products such as tea, aromatics, cookies or any other food containing coca leaf among its ingredients," the agency said. "These products lack Sanitary Registry and their medicinal, curative and therapeutic benefits are not authorized or supported by the INVIMA."

Certainly, one should be cautious with any nostrum or other 'health' food - but not paranoid. Potential buyers can look for INVIMA's seal on the package and decide for themselves. They can also decide how much stock they put into the hygiene policies of a government which requires businesses to label the sink 'lavamanos' so that nobody confuses it with a lamp or an oven, but turns a blind eye to air pollution.

Coca tea, and coca rum for sale.

This week, the Council of State annuled the INVIMA ruling, pointing out that coca leaf products have received the approval of entities such as the nation's Ombudsman and the Institute of Anthropology and History.

'The use of coca leaf by part of indigenous communities makes up a fundamental part of their millenial traditions and has great medicinal and nutritional benefits," the council wrote.


Of course, coca leaf products never stopped being available throughout Colombia, both on and off of indigenous territories. Prohibition has never worked.

Try a coca tea.

This is all actually a return to the past. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, before prohibitionist drug laws, coca leaves and cocaine were seen as sorts of miracle drugs, and placed into all sorts of products, including a wine supposedly endorsed by the Pope. (Back then, the colonial powers established coca plantations in far-flung places like Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Java, making me ask why narcotraffickers, who display tremendous in the ways they traffic drugs, don't plant it outside three Andean nations.)

So, consume your coca leaf products if you want to.




By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Cesar Gaviria's Quixotic Campaign

Cesar Gaviria

Colombian ex-President Cesar Gaviria has been carrying on something of a speaking campaign against drug prohibition. The other week, he, Mexican author Carlos Fuentes and others argued in favor of drug depenalization at El Tiempo's symposium celebrating its 100 years of existence. (Will newspapers see another century? Another half century?)

Carlos Fuentes

With guys like these, as well as ex-presidents of Brazil and Mexico, who should know something about drug problems, broaching the subject, one might hope that some major world political figure would grab the idea and run with it. After all, gay marriage, abortion rights, environmentalism, tobacco control laws and other causes which seemed fantastical a few years or decades ago are now public policy in many nations and firmly in the public debate in many others.

Bogotá DAS HQ bombed by Escobar

If anybody's seen the damage from the drug trade it's Gaviria, Colombia's president from 1990 to '94, when drug cartels terrorized Colombia and cocaine made Pablo Escobar one of the world's richest and most violent men. Escobar killed Liberal presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan and, when Gaviria succeeded him as the Liberal candidate, tried to kill Gaviria as well by bombing a passenger airplane. Under Gaviria's watch, U.S. and Colombian police hunted down and killed Escobar in 1993.

So, you'd hope that at least one major figure, such as a European president or prime minister, or at least a health minister, would seize the flage of drug decriminalization and wave it. But if it's happened, I haven't heard about it (besides Holland and Portugal, which don't make much noise.) Prohibitionism has patently failed, and the alternative is out there, just waiting to be grabbed.

Apparently, many leaders, like Gaviria, wait until they're out of office to come out of the closet as supporters of decriminalization.

What really frustrates me is my belief that many national leaders, probably including U.S. Pres. Obama, ex-U.K. P.M. Tony Blair and others must certainly recognize that the War on Drugs has failed, but won't say so. They are war leaders, after all, and admitting defeat in any war, even a lost one, just doesn't look good.

The U.S. just announced that it's cutting Plan Colombia aid. That's sensible. But it doesn't likely mean a reassesment of its goals here.

Update: Ex-President Ernesto Samper has also called for drug decriminalization.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Drug Prohibition Stays Strong in Latin America

Prohibit and it'll go away?

This interesting overview of drug laws across the continent shows how little headway depenalization has made in the continent which has likely suffered the most from the war on drugs.

Is this because of the region's conservative Catholic heritage? Because of the influence of the U.S.? Because drug prohitionism has succeeded in reducing use and associated crime?

Well, it certainly can't be the third choice...

In Colombia's own case, it's gone backwards. Despite backing for decriminalization from its major newspapers here, here and here, Congress last year eliminated the 'personal dosis law,' which permitted the possession of small amounts of any drug for personal use.

With billions of dollars in aid during the past decade, Colombia has reduced the number of hectares of drug crops - but those have shifted to Peru and Bolivia. Meanwhile, Colombia's drug-fueled violence seems to have shifted to Mexico.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours