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Ending Coca Prohibition Should Become a Priority…
Ending Coca Prohibition Should Become a Priority for UN Indigenous Forum
Position paper of the Transnational Radical Party
for the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, New York 10 – 21 May, 2004
prepared in collaboration with the International Antiprohibitionist LeagueFour years ago, the Economic and Social Council of the UN established a Permanent Forum to discuss indigenous issues “relating to economic and social development, culture, the environment, education, health and human right”. The Forum shall “provide expert advice and recommendations on indigenous issues to the Council, as well as to programmes, funds and agencies of the United Nations, through the Council” and raise
awareness and promote the integration and coordination of activities relating to indigenous issues within the UN system.”Overwhelmed by a variety of topics that go from the environment to social justice, from languages to religions, for almost four years, the debate within the Forum has never addressed an issue that is crucial to
many indigenous groups: that of coca bush. The Transnational Radical Party (TRP) believes that Coca is a central, if not vital, element of the very life, tradition, culture, religion and economy of dozens of indigenous peoples that live throughout the Andean region.The main reason for this lack of focus is due to the fact that, unfortunately, coca is one of the plants that have been strictly regulated, and at times systematically prohibited, by the 1961 UN Single Convention
on Narcotic and Psychotropic Substances.Over the last decade, the international community has addressed coca-related issues promoting a series of projects of “supply reduction” as well as “alternative development” to eradicate the “evil” plant from the face of the earth. All those efforts have proven to be unsuccessful in eliminating and/or substituting coca with other licit crops. Many of these eradication programs, like the aerial fumigations in Colombia, have
been carried out, often through violent means, and have had a tragic impact on the health of thousands of people as well as on the environment of the concerned regions. In other eradication efforts, money has been
promised to campesinos for their voluntary eradication and/or eventual substitution of coca. Despite some timid positive results, duly documented by the UN in Bolivia and Peru in the late 1990s, in the medium-long
term all those anti-coca programs have miserably failed.Different is the story of “alternative development” projects. While in theory the idea of promoting licit crops as an alternative means for the development of those societies where the plants used for the production of narcotics are grown is a good one, in practice the substitution has never proven to be fully self-sufficient in the medium or long term. In fact, once the international community pulled out of those projects,
the progress achieved disappeared in a matter of months, leaving local communities without the means provided by the “artificial” international support to sustain the alternative crops and ready to go back to
cultivating the illicit plant.Furthermore, the usual alternatives to coca bush have been palm hearts and other crops in vogue at the time, products that, over the last years, have seen a surplus in the world production that has caused a drastic decrease in their profitability – annulling all the economic arguments in favour of the substitution. Lastly, when it comes to agricultural products, the tariff system imposed by North American and European
countries places an unfair burden on developing nations closing rich markets to products from the “south”.With time passing, the situation in the Andes has become unbearable for local communities, the general development of their countries the wellbeing of the entire Latin American continent, and has provided an
incredible source of easy and big money for all sorts of illegal groups, from the narcos to terrorist as well as paramilitary networks. This dramatic situation is always addressed with the same formula: Prohibition; a
formula that has not produced the desired results and needs a radical revision.The TRP believes that the time has come for the United Nations, In the framework of its work towards the promotion of “alternative development”, to carry out a feasibility study to assess the possibility to allow the development of original uses of the plants that are used to produce narcotics, starting from the coca bush. In fact, coca leaf can be used to produce medicines of different sorts, but also, as it has done for hundreds of years, coca can be used in the production of goods such as tea, flour, toothpaste, soap, condiments, fabrics, chewing gum as well as different dietary supplements and, last but not least, the means to alleviate the abuse of the chemical substances processed from its leaves.
If the UN is really committed to improving the socio-economic quality of life of targeted populations through “sustainable development projects”, the original use of these illicit plants should indeed be integrated in the programs not to prevent, reduce and eliminate the production of illicit drug crops, but to diminish the production of illicit narcotics.
Comprehensive alternative development projects should address the broader economic situation of farmers, who cultivate “drug crops” due not only to “rural poverty”, “lack of access to markets for legal products”
and “unsuitable soil for many other crops” as stated in dozens of UN official documents, but also because the plants that were outlawed 40 years ago, are an integral part of the cultures, traditions and religions of the indigenous peoples living in those regions where these agricultural products are endemic.The TRP believes that the Permanent Forum should look into the possibility of reflecting coca-related issues in its annual report, where it issues recommendations to the ECOSOC for its distribution to relevant UN organs, funds, programs and agencies. Such an inclusion could make a substantial contribution to indigenous issues, making them become questions of concern for the world at large. The TRP is aware of the fact that It may be too late for this year’s session, but starting to raise the issue at the 2004 session, may launch a preparatory process that could indeed include coca as an item for discussions for next year.
Putting an end to prohibition on coca should become a priority for all those that genuinely struggle for freedom and human rights and that are working towards the establishment of a system that functions on the
force of law and not the law of force, a law that does not prohibit, but facilitates, the cohabitation of peaceful peculiarities including, ultimately, indigenous issues.The original use of the illicit plant of coca may trigger positive outcomes:
· it will remain within the local culture and tradition (at times sacred) of dozens of groups, including ethnic minorities, that live throughout the Andes;
· it will not imply an “intrusion” in a region’s economy with techniques and or producing habits that do not belong to that part of the world;
· it will provide a particularly environmentally-friendly and ecological industry that could facilitate the development of rural areas and their eventual/possible industrialization in a context that respects local customs and practices;
· it will take away the business from the criminal networks that today control and blackmail peasants that are involved in illegal activities;
· a conversion of programs of supply reduction to curb the production of illicit crops into alternative development of the illicit plants, would also be instrumental in ceasing the negative impact of eradication techniques, which cause dramatic health and environmental problems in several areas of the Andes.
Documents presented by the TRP before the 60th UN Commission on Human Rights
In the framework of its UN-related activities, the TRP has tried to present its views on the drug questions also in other UN fora. Below are excerpts from a couple of written statement on the “right to development” and issues pertaining to “economic, social and cultural rights” that were submitted as written statement at the 60th session of the UN Commission on Human Rights, which took place in Geneva, from 15 March to 23 April, 2004. They also contain some arguments that are related to indigenous issues.
Abstract from a written statement on item 7 “the right to development”
The Transnational Radical Party (TRP) wishes to bring to attention of the Commission how sometimes efforts to curb illegal activities might pose an impediment to the development of entire societies. In particular the TRP wishes to emphasize how several policies stemming from the three UN Conventions on Narcotic and Psychotropic Drugs have become an obstacle in the development of communities where the raw materials that are eventually used in the preparation of narcotics are grown.
While it is doubtless necessary to adopt and enforce effective measures to control the production, consumption and sale of narcotic substances, the TRP is concerned by the fact that also the plants utilized in the preparation of drugs suffer a regime of total prohibition.
The TRP remains deeply critical of current drugs policies all over the world as it believes that prohibition has not been able to produce the desired effects, i.e. Reduce or contain the production and use of narcotics. These considerations are made on a critical reading of the figures produced annually by the United Nations itself. The TRP believes that,after some four decades of prohibition, the time as come to reconsider the philosophical and political approach on the drug question. the whole legal arsenal of the three UN Conventions is in dire need of a radical revision.
The decision to include coca bush and cannabis derivatives in Schedule I of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, has had a devastating impact on the life, tradition and culture of ethnic and religious groups all over the world. In the Andes as well as in several regions of Asia and the Caribbean, both products have been considered a basic part of local culture, medicine and cuisine, not to mention religion, their prohibition has outlawed a significant part of those communities’ tradition and heritage.
In 1998, at ten years of the adoption of the 1988 convention, the United Nations General Assembly convened a special session to address the drugs question. The forum agreed on a plan of action that set 2008 as the target date for a “Drug Free World”. Last year, the 46th Session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, far from taking into consideration the lack of progress in eradicating narcotics the world over, convened a ministerial segment where the entirety of the policies launched in 1998, where reaffirmed. Among these, there are dozens of programmes of so-called alternative development.
The United Nation Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), formerly known as United Nations Office on Drug Control and Crime Prevention (UNODCCP), has been active in the implementation of measures to promote alternative development in Latin America and South East Asia for many years now. Contrarily to what hoped, none of these programmes have been successful in containing the production of coca bush or cannabis. Moreover, once international aid to promote alternative crops, mainly coffee and bananas, was withdrawn those experiments failed remain active and running.
The TRP believes that prohibiting the production of coca bush and cannabis, but also opium for that matter,has proven to be a substantial obstacle in the full and sustainable development of peasants communities in the Andean region as well as in huge parts of Africa and Asia.
Furthermore, prohibition has no serious scientific grounds. The TRP urges the Commission to reach out to the World Health Organization – which in 1995 prepared a study on coca leaf and cocaine, where the legal uses of the plant where presented from a scientific viewpoint, and which in 1997 produced a paper on cannabis and its derivatives – to establish a dialogue on the possible ways to promote the alternative development of those plants. Alternative to the production of narcotic substances that is. Such a dialogue should also interest the Commission on Narcotic Drugs to finally compile a document to call for an assessment of current drug control policies in view of an evaluation of the effectiveness of prohibitionist measures.
TRP’s concerns go beyond the right to development of communities in Latin America. In fact, the TRP believes that the lack of freedom to cultivate a plant that is considered sacred and that is traditionally fundamental in the culture of the Andes, and the failure of alternative development programmes, have been a cause for worrying instability and violence in the past years in the region. The TRP believes that allowing alternative development of traditional plants can not only address the legitimate demands of entire communities to live a decent and legal life, but also defuse the tensions that could lead to violent and bloody confrontations. Legally controlled production of coca leaf could also deprive guerrilla, para-military and terrorist groups from a major source of income.
Same should apply for poppy seeds in Central and South East Asia, where not only it remains the most lucrative cash crop, but also it has been, and to a certain extent still is, the major source of financing for terrorist groups. In a study issued in may 2003, by the International Monetary Fund on Afghanistan, it is said that Opium-related revenues amount to almost half of the Gross Domestic Product of the country. This, the TRP, believes, could be addressed in creating a legal market for the raw substance. The alternative development of opium could have an impact in the production of heroin.
Measures to allow a more traditional development in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa and Asia, should also be paralleled by a different approach to the consumption of narcotics. The TRP believes that a balanced approach to both ends of the question might indeed trigger a much needed and awaited different control of narcotic and psychotropic substances all over the world.
The TRP hopes that the Commission will look into the issue also from the perspective suggested in this paper, with a view of initiating a more comprehensive and secular debate on the matter of drug control involving other UN bodies and specialized agencies in the exercise.
Abstract from a written statement on item 10 “Economic, social and cultural rights”
The TRP is also particularly concerned by the lack of freedom to live, develop and prosper according to their ancient cultures and traditions for dozens of communities living in central and Latin America, where plants used for the production of narcotic drugs grow. In fact, the international legal arsenal created with the adoption of the 1961, 1971 and 1988 UN Conventions on Narcotics prohibits the cultivation of coca bush in the same way cocaine is prohibited.
The TRP, which has always been particularly critical of prohibition on drugs – as it believe that after some three decades of failures, the time has come to initiate a process of comprehensive reform of current drug control policies – believes that coca bus, as well as poppy seed and cannabis, should be reclassified from schedule I to schedule IV of the 1961 Single Convention of Narcotic and Psychotropic Substances in order to allow thousands of peasants to grow their traditional product legally for its production of goods other than narcotics. Coca bush can be used to produce flour, condiments, medicines, dietary supplements, tea and paper, among other things.
Coca leaf, but also cannabis derivatives, is also part of many religious traditions in the Andes, its prohibition has also a dramatic impact on the cultural rights on thousands of people, who, often times, live at the margin of their countries’ social life. The TRP welcomes a more pragmatic approach shown by some countries during the last few years, but remains particularly concerned by the fact that the Commission on Narcotic Drugs has not taken them into due consideration and has refused to foster a debate along the lines of economic, social and cultural rights concerning those regions where raw materials are grown.
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