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‘Coca leaf is life itself’: Andean growers’ hopes fade as WHO upholds global ban
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2026
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The situation with cocaine is really fucked though. I think what could be a solution is to allow the sale and trade of coca leaves, but not the extracted substance.
Alcohol has serious issues as well and regulations are too lax. But cocaine, as opposed to cannabis and the popular psychedelics, has serious health risks regardless of your own preconditions.
Anyhow, prohibition has never worked anyways, so there's that.
I think that makes a lot of sense. If people try to make cocaine in their own country they would need ridiculous amounts of leaf matter to make anything beyond personal use.
Might be kind of bad for the environment though if that starts to happen at scale. Much less CO2 to ship a Kilo of something than like 500 Kilo of something.
Coca leaf is not bad for you as such. It's fairly mild when it's not purified into the active ingredient.
It's about personal freedom, and respect for cultures. The WHO is a bullshit organization that should get the kaibosh for a great many reasons. They exist to exploit low wage workers in foreign dictatorships and regimes, they exist to in effect enslave the populations of poor foreign countries, and in the process sell out high labor standards in the developed world.
The US left though.
I was thinking of the WTO, but the whole constellation, WTO, IMF, WorldBank, and WHO are all corrupted. The WHO obviously is attacked by the president for not being bad enough, so naturally the reactionary liberals following the lead of democratic establishment politicians will defend everything about it. Me, I will defend against unfair attacks, but would not ruin my credibility by ignoring the many problems of an organization or person because others are trying to make it worse, and you shouldn't either.
Making plants illegal is one such thing that this international organization dedicated to health has no business getting involved in. Zero. It reeks of malign influence.
To demonstrate that these organizations all have the wrong people working for them, look no farther than the World Bank, that has their western appointed leaders forcing people off of their lands for for profit projects in Africa and elsewhere, and otherwise doing the opposite of what they are supposed to. Or we could look to the IMF, making countries that politicians borrowed money and didn't pay back kill subsidies to farmers out of some free market absolutist ideology, that destroys their ability to feed themselves, to say nothing of stealing pension funds and the like, to make sure investors don't lose money.
The WTO is perhaps the worst of the lot, with enforcement mechanisms for members to sue other members to protect international investments, and is the consulate they have brought poor countries with oppressive governments into the enslavement of their people for western corporations. Paying off their leaders and their new oligarchs to set up factories paying workers a pittance for working 12 hours a day 6 days a week with no protections, no social services to speak of, under the boot of oppression, while they dump their toxic byproducts in the ditch and vent it into the air, poisoning entire swaths of the country.
The WHO is part of that constellation, and while their sins aren't as bad as the IMF or WTO or WorldBank, they are making plants illegal that should not be, and or are trying to, and defending that about them because the president attacked them for covid stuff is how people like the president get power in the first place. We all know these things they attack, however unfairly, aren't great, that they fail in their statutory duties, lying about it destroys your credibility, and makes it appear like the only one trying to reform the broken system is the politicians attacking them. We all know people by and large don't know better. Either you reform it, or they will. Those are your options, and you, America, and the West, have chosen to let the Far Right reform everything, despite their plans on fixing elections, trusting the status quo when the world clamours for reform.