Coca's Comeback

Almost 75 years after the UN called for the ‘suppression’ of traditional coca chewing in the Andes, in July 2025 the World Health Organization is set to publish its ‘critical’ health review of the coca leaf – from which both cocaine and Coca-Cola derive key ingredients.

The mildly stimulating medicinal plant, which is rich in calcium and eases altitude sickness, has an important role in Andean culture and spirituality. But it has been vilified and stigmatized amid US-led efforts to eradicate cocaine production and longer standing metropolitan attempts to ‘civilize’ Indigenous people across the region, who have used the plant for thousands of years.

Early calls to eradicate coca fields in the Peruvian Andes began long before concern about cocaine, as part of a 'mission civilisatrice' led by eugenicist Enrique Paz Soldán in the 1940s. Deemed a ‘social evil’, a ban on chewing the leaf was implemented in 1964. Though the leaf in its natural form is harmless, coca is treated as comparable to cocaine and heroin.

The review, called for by the governments of Bolivia and Colombia, will assess coca’s chemical makeup and therapeutic value before being considered by the WHO’s expert committee on drug dependence. Next, the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs may recommend a reduction in its classification under drug control treaties, or even decriminalization.

In November 2024 the two nations organized a UN panel to challenge the negative connotations attributed to the plant, and highlight how its criminalization generates violence against innocent people across Latin America.

During the panel, Bolivian representative to the UN Diego Pary held a coca leaf aloft and then chewed it. ‘We need to demystify all of the narratives that have been developed over the years about the coca leaf,’ Pary said. ‘The Indigenous communities recognize the coca leaf not just as a plant but as a means… to be in harmony with nature and their ancestors.’

The 2025 review will not change the prohibition on cultivating coca for cocaine, but it could begin to undo the damaging impacts of the plant’s criminalization on Indigenous groups, while also bringing economic benefits to Andean communities.

— Mattha Busby