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Weekly Report - 17 January 2013 (WR-13-02)

BOLIVIA: Morales hails big drug victory

President Evo Morales is trumpeting a significant victory with regard to his Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) government’s “coca sí, cocaína no” drug policy, which distinguishes between the raw coca leaf, an important symbol of Bolivian indigenous culture, and cocaine, the illegal narcotic. Last week the UN announced that Bolivia would rejoin the UN 1961 Vienna Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, with a special dispensation recognising coca chewing as legal in Bolivia. As well as dealing a blow to the US, which opposes Morales’ policy, the announcement could have implications for other countries in the region where traditional uses of the coca leaf are also permitted and whose national laws clashed with the Convention.

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