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Argument: Coca in its natural state is not a narcotic

Issue Report: Legality of coca production and consumption

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Evo Morales “Let Me Chew My Coca Leaves.” New York Times Editorial. March 13th, 2009: “What is absurd about the 1961 convention is that it considers the coca leaf in its natural, unaltered state to be a narcotic. The paste or the concentrate that is extracted from the coca leaf, commonly known as cocaine, is indeed a narcotic, but the plant itself is not.”[1]

The new Bolivian Constitution says that the: “State protects the original and ancestral coca leaf as part of the cultural Heritage … in its natural state it is not a narcotic.”[2]