If for some reasons previous Answer doesn't work, like in my situation, try this (as a root or with sudo):
nano ~/.bashrc
and then put to the end of the file this:
alias laravel='~/.composer/vendor/bin/laravel'
Source
P.S.
btw I am using
Debian GNU/Linux 7.8 (wheezy)
PowerMac8,2
ppc64
