Coca Yes, Cocaine No?
Legal Options for the Coca Leaf
This issue of Drugs and Conflict explains the motives, context and range of the demand to remove the coca leaf from strict international drugs controls, as well as the procedures that need to be followed to reach this objective.
A simple leaf of an ancient plant will feature prominently on the international agenda this year. As international relations and specialised mechanisms for managing the international drugs trade have evolved, a decade-old demand to remove the coca leaf from strict international drugs controls has come to the fore again in recent months.
Time has come to repair an historical error responsible for including the leaf amongst the most hazardous classified substances, having caused severe consequences for the Andean region.
This issue of Drugs and Conflict explains the motives, context and range of this petition, as well as the procedures that need to be followed to reach this objective. For every member of the international community, this year will become a moment to decide whether to maintain coca under the control of the UN Conventions, or to dare recognize this mistake and show the will to correct it.
About the authors
Martin Jelsma
Martin Jelsma is a political scientist who has specialised in Latin America and international drugs policy. In 2005, he received the Alfred R. Lindesmith Award for Achievement in the Field of Scholarship, which stated that Jelsma "is increasingly recognized as one of, if not the, outstanding strategists in terms of how international institutions deal with drugs and drug policy."
In 1995 he initiated and has since co-oordinated TNI's Drugs & Democracy Programme which focuses on drugs and conflict studies with a focus on the Andean/Amazon region, Burma/Myanmar and Afghanistan, and on the analysis and dialogues around international drug policy making processes (with a special focus on the UN drug control system). Martin is a regular speaker at international policy conferences and advises various NGOs and government officials on developments in the drugs field. He is co-editor of the TNI Drugs & Conflict debate papers and the Drug Policy Briefing series.
Pien Metaal
Pien Metaal is a researcher with TNI. She holds a Master of Arts Degree in Political Science and International Relations from University of Amsterdam. She has been a member of the Transnational Institute's Drugs and Democracy team since 2002, though her participation with the Programme dates further back.
She lived in Latin America for several years, spending most of that time in the Andean region. During those years, she dedicated most of her time and energy to research, development and implementation of drug policy, particularly in relation to coca and cocaine, and worked with local and international experts and NGOs. She has written numerous articles, and contributed to various books and publications on the drug policy in Latin America since 1996.
Ricardo Soberon
Ricardo Soberón Garrido, member of TNI's Drugs & Democracy team, is a Peruvian lawyer and analyst on drug trafficking and counter-narcotics policies in the Andean region.
Recent publications from Drugs and Democracy
Human rights and drug policyAn accessible but comprehensive primer on why TNI believes that human rights must be at the heart of any debate on drug control. |
Expert Seminar "Where next for Europe on drug policy reform?"Analysis of the new EU strategy on drugs and its action plan and discussion on ways to improve and innovate European drug policy. |
Working towards a legal coca marketModern use of the coca leaf in Argentina provides a series of examples that could contribute to dispelling many of the myths that have polarized debate about the subject over the last few years. |
Informal Drug Policy Dialogue 2013, WarsawThe tenth meeting of the Informal Drug Policy Dialogue series, organised by the Transnational Institute (TNI) and Association Diogenis, took place in Warsaw, Poland, gathering over 35 NGO representatives, academics, policy makers and practitioners. |
