Will the coca leaf ever lose its stigma?

“The World Health Organization (WHO) has committed an egregious mistake,” insisted David Choquehuanca, former Bolivian Vice-President, his anger and frustration just below the surface. “For six decades we have had our sovereignty as indigenous peoples violated by the United Nations’ international prohibition on the coca leaf. For six decades we have suffered discrimination against our legitimate rights to use our sacred coca leaf for nutrition, healing and rituals.”

Choquehuanca was reacting to a recent WHO refusal to recommend that coca’s international classification be separated from its refined derivative, cocaine. Coca leaf— which contains 1 percent or less of the cocaine alkaloid—still finds itself in the same company as heroin and fentanyl.

Bolivia and Colombia hoped that the international organization would recognize that coca had no place alongside substances that can be abused or are easily convertible into illicit drugs.

The determination by the WHO’s Expert Committee on Drug Dependence (ECDD) came in response to a 2023 request initiated by Bolivia— and later backed by Colombia—to reconsider coca leaf’s status in the UN 1961 Single Convention on Drugs, which currently establishes regulations for 138 different substances and has been ratified by 186 countries. Bolivia and Colombia hoped that the international organization would recognize that coca had no place alongside substances that can be abused or are easily convertible into illicit drugs. 

“This WHO review was a key opportunity to correct the historical wrongs of the past,” said Marie Nougier of the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC). “It spectacularly failed to do so.”