“Our coca leaf is ancient, sacred and represents strength, integration, and life,” Culture Minister Sabina Orellana said at a press briefing to which Prensa Latina was present.

The coca plant is a symbol of the identity of Bolivia’s native indigenous people.It is also part of religious and agricultural rituals, and has been present in the struggle for social demands before the arrival of the European colonialists, during the colony, the Republic, and the Process of Change (with President Evo Morales since 2006).

That regulation was enacted on January 11 of that year to recall that in 2013 Bolivia joined again the 1961 United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, with a reservation on the chewing of coca leaf within the country.

Deputy Minister of Coca Leaf, Arlen Lobera, and authorities of the Council of Peasant Federations of Los Yungas in La Paz attended the event.

Orellana stated that this plant provides a spiritual food that allows contact with the divinities of the Pacha Mama and is linked to ancestral customs.

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