Latin America

Publications12 November 2025

From forest to dust: Socioeconomic and environmental impacts of the prohibition of the coca and cocaine production chain in the Amazon Basin and Brazil

Intersecção discusses how drug prohibition fuels deforestation, violence, and inequality across the region, linking the 'war on drugs' to the global climate crisis and calling for ecological harm reduction and rights-based regulation.

Events

Rethinking coca: Indigenous knowledge, science, and international drug policy

Vienna, Austria

3 December 2025

Join researchers, policymakers and Andean community voices at CEU Vienna to explore coca’s cultural, scientific and political dimensions — and what the WHO’s review means for global drug governance.

News11 November 2025

Unprovoked lethal strikes by the United States against vessels at sea may amount to international crimes: UN experts

Leading international human rights experts urged an end to the attacks and an independent probe to ensure accountability.

News5 November 2025

Brazil: Civil society releases a “Manifesto for Citizen Public Security in Rio” in response to police massacre

Fiocruz and allied organisations denounce the lethal police operation in Rio, condemn militarised security and necropolitics, and demand citizen-centred policies that protect rights and life.

Events

Uncharted waters: U.S. Military action in the Caribbean

Hybrid Event | 1666 Connecticut Avenue NW or online

5 November 2025 - 5 November 2025

WOLA and Amnesty International are hosting a hybrid event on Wednesday, 5 November 2025, to discuss U.S. military action in the Caribbean.

News3 November 2025

Facts to inform the debate about the U.S. government’s anti-drug offensive in the Americas

WOLA unpicks the human cost of militarised drug control, and calls for an evidence-based, humane alternative.

News28 October 2025

The coca paradox: to regulate or eradicate?

Bolivia regulates via community limits respecting indigenous heritage, while Peru enforces forced eradication - as the WHO reconsiders coca's status, the stakes for farmers are higher than ever.

Events

From forest to dust: Socioeconomic and environmental impacts of the prohibition of the coca and cocaine production chain in the Amazon basin and Brazil-

Zoom

Ahead of COP30, this webinar will discuss the findings of a new report on the impact of drug prohibition in the Brazilian Amazon, showing how criminalisation has prevented meaningful climate justice.

Publications15 October 2025

Scientific distinctions between coca and cocaine support policy reform

White et al. argue that scientific, cultural and legal evidence clearly distinguishes coca from cocaine — and that global drug policy must correct this long-standing misclassification rooted in colonial bias.

News15 October 2025

Descheduling the coca leaf is overdue justice - IDPC statement to the 48th meeting of WHO's ECDD

IDPC urged experts to end a colonial injustice, calling for the coca leaf to be descheduled and Indigenous traditions and rights fully recognised.

Publications14 October 2025

Statement by traditional coca leaf producers and consumers to the World Health Organization

Traditional coca leaf producers and consumers from Peru reject their government’s stance before the WHO, urging the organisation to deschedule coca, recognise its cultural and medicinal uses, and support research and rights-based policies

News14 October 2025

Coca isn’t just for cocaine, Bolivia wants the world to know

Bolivia's campaign to remove the coca leaf from the list of the world’s most dangerous drugs highlights the plant's cultural, medicinal and economic importance — and its potential to reshape global drug policy.

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