VIENNA (AFP)--Bolivia's President Evo Morales chewed on a coca leaf Wednesday, while calling for it to be removed from a 1961 list of banned narcotics at a U.N. drugs conference in Vienna.

"If it's a drug, then you should throw me in jail," said Morales, who is himself a coca producer and has been "a consumer for 10 years."

"Coca leaves aren't cocaine, they don't harm your health, don't have any psychological effects and aren't addictive," he told the 53 member states of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, at the start of a two-day meeting in Vienna.

Coca leaves have been cultivated in the Andes mountains for 3,000 years and are part of the culture and identity of the people there, Morales said.

He thus called for their removal from the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, while asking that coca paste be added to the list instead.

"As a producer and as president, I have certain responsibilities, I must defend an identity: the coca leaf is sacred," Morales said, noting that some 10 million people in the Andes chew coca leaves.

The International Narcotics Control Board has called for years for a ban on coca leaf chewing.

In Bolivia, the world's third largest producer after Colombia and Peru, some 28,000 hectares of land are used to grow coca bushes.

  (END) Dow Jones Newswires
  03-11-09 0935ET
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