The program for eradicating the coca leaf will be resumed on October 4th in the Colombian Sierra Nevada region.

 

·         Considering the dramatic repercussions of fumigation on the inhabitants of the zones sprayed as well as this region’s particular environmental characteristics; 

·         Considering as well Commissioner Patten’s divergence with fumigation measures, expressed in the name of the European Commission and in answer to previous Radical Party interrogations, we wish to know:

 

-How does the Commission plan to act in the Colombian government’s confrontation in order to put a stop to fumigations and to promote a series of meetings with the coca growers to discuss alternatives to address this problem?

 

-¿Does the Commission not think that, after 40 years of prohibitionist failures, the time has come to look into the possibility of allowing the therapeutic and traditional or ‘religious’ development of coca leaf derivatives as stipulated in articles 23 and 27 of the 1961 UN Convention on narcotic and psychotropic substances and as proposed by numerous local communities?