🌿 The Battle for the Coca Leaf: Decolonizing the Global Drug Control System
The decades-long global prohibition against the coca leaf is a historical injustice rooted in colonial prejudice, not science. This issue is now at the forefront of the international drug policy debate, driving a crucial, two-part movement to reform the entire United Nations control system.
At Ágora, we connect the urgent campaign to reclassify the coca leaf with the new mandate for systemic review, advocating for a future where indigenous rights and scientific evidence determine global drug policy.
🔬 The Coca Leaf Review: Challenging a Historic Injustice
The cornerstone of this movement is the ongoing Critical Review of the Coca Leaf being conducted by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Expert Committee on Drug Dependence (ECDD), requested by countries like Bolivia and Colombia.
The coca leaf was wrongly placed in Schedule I of the 1961 Single Convention alongside drugs like cocaine and heroin—a classification based on flawed, racially biased reports from the 1950s that ignored millennia of traditional, medicinal, and cultural use.
-
Scientific Mandate: The WHO review is compiling evidence that overwhelmingly supports the leaf's use in its natural form as a benign, nutritious, and culturally vital crop, with no serious public health risk comparable to its extracted alkaloid, cocaine.
-
Human Rights Imperative: The current classification criminalizes the traditional practice of acullico (coca chewing), directly violating the rights of Indigenous Peoples in the Andean-Amazonian region. The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) and the OHCHR have repeatedly condemned this conflict.
Status Check: The WHO's technical findings are set to inform a formal recommendation (expected in late 2025/early 2026) to the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), which holds the final power to change the coca leaf's status in the treaties.
🇨🇴 The Systemic Crack: The CND Expert Panel
The political momentum for coca reform received a massive boost from the approval of the Independent Expert Panel to review the implementation of the international drug treaties at CND68. This Panel, championed by Colombia, creates a unique political opportunity to legitimize the findings of the coca review.
-
External Scrutiny: By mandating a review from experts outside of Vienna’s traditional drug control institutions, the Panel validates the need for a non-prohibitionist perspective—precisely the perspective needed to correct the colonial bias against the coca leaf.
-
Linking Failures: The Panel's mandate to assess the failure of the prohibition system to reduce crime and violence provides a powerful institutional framework to argue that the criminalization of a benign, traditional crop has been a core cause of that failure.
-
Breaking Consensus: Colombia’s historic success in forcing a vote at the CND against US opposition has broken the decades-long tradition of consensus that long protected the coca leaf's Schedule I status. This clears the way for a vote on the WHO's eventual descheduling recommendation.
The diplomatic pressure exerted by Member States like Bolivia and Colombia is being supported by rigorous analysis from international civil society. Organizations such as the Transnational Institute (TNI) have highlighted the historical basis and detrimental effects of the coca leaf's current status. Their work, documented in their "Coca Chronicles," underscores the institutional responsibility of the World Health Organization (WHO) for the erroneous classification of the leaf in Schedule I of the 1961 Convention, a decision based on reports from the 1950s that contained racial and colonial biases and ignored traditional use. This approach not only demands a scientific review of the alkaloid but also positions the WHO review as a test case for the UN drug control regime's capacity to overcome its colonial legacy and align with human rights principles and respect for Indigenous traditional practices.
The struggle for the de-scheduling of the coca leaf is inseparable from the need to reform the global drug control system as a whole. Ágora has actively worked to link the coca leaf agenda with other imperatives of justice, including environmental justice. As part of this effort, we convened the side event "DRUG REGULATION: REPAIRING THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF THE WAR ON DRUGS" during the 68th session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND68) in Vienna. The experts gathered there (Dr. Camilo Eduardo Umaña, Iyari Balderas, and Dr. Gregory Hooks) demonstrated how the current militarized prohibition not only violates the rights of Indigenous Peoples but also drives deforestation, illegal extractive activities, and ecological degradation in the Andean-Amazonian region. This debate underscores that the de-scheduling of the coca leaf is an essential step toward dismantling a system that is unsustainable not only socially but also environmentally, opening legal pathways for restoration and community-led governance.
The decades-long global prohibition against the coca leaf is a historical injustice rooted in colonial prejudice, not science. This issue is now at the forefront of the international drug policy debate, driving a crucial, two-part movement to reform the entire United Nations control system.
At Ágora, we connect the urgent campaign to reclassify the coca leaf with the new mandate for systemic review, advocating for a future where indigenous rights and scientific evidence determine global drug policy.
🔬 The Coca Leaf Review: Challenging a Historic Injustice
The cornerstone of this movement is the ongoing Critical Review of the Coca Leaf being conducted by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Expert Committee on Drug Dependence (ECDD), requested by countries like Bolivia and Colombia.
The coca leaf was wrongly placed in Schedule I of the 1961 Single Convention alongside drugs like cocaine and heroin—a classification based on flawed, racially biased reports from the 1950s that ignored millennia of traditional, medicinal, and cultural use.
-
Scientific Mandate: The WHO review is compiling evidence that overwhelmingly supports the leaf's use in its natural form as a benign, nutritious, and culturally vital crop, with no serious public health risk comparable to its extracted alkaloid, cocaine.
-
Human Rights Imperative: The current classification criminalizes the traditional practice of acullico (coca chewing), directly violating the rights of Indigenous Peoples in the Andean-Amazonian region. The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) and the OHCHR have repeatedly condemned this conflict.
Status Check: The WHO's technical findings are set to inform a formal recommendation (expected in late 2025/early 2026) to the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), which holds the final power to change the coca leaf's status in the treaties.
🇨🇴 The Systemic Crack: The CND Expert Panel
The political momentum for coca reform received a massive boost from the approval of the Independent Expert Panel to review the implementation of the international drug treaties at CND68. This Panel, championed by Colombia, creates a unique political opportunity to legitimize the findings of the coca review.
-
External Scrutiny: By mandating a review from experts outside of Vienna’s traditional drug control institutions, the Panel validates the need for a non-prohibitionist perspective—precisely the perspective needed to correct the colonial bias against the coca leaf.
-
Linking Failures: The Panel's mandate to assess the failure of the prohibition system to reduce crime and violence provides a powerful institutional framework to argue that the criminalization of a benign, traditional crop has been a core cause of that failure.
-
Breaking Consensus: Colombia’s historic success in forcing a vote at the CND against US opposition has broken the decades-long tradition of consensus that long protected the coca leaf's Schedule I status. This clears the way for a vote on the WHO's eventual descheduling recommendation.
🎯 Our Unified Call to Action: From Leaf to Law
The descheduling of the coca leaf is not an isolated policy shift; it is the first and most vital step toward decolonizing the global drug control system.
Ágora calls on civil society, governments, and UN agencies to align their efforts:
-
Demand Full Descheduling: We must push for the WHO to recommend the complete removal of the natural coca leaf from the 1961 Convention. A transfer to a less-restricted schedule (like Schedule II) is insufficient, as it would still impose undue control over traditional and commercial uses.
-
Ensure Panel Accountability: We must advocate to ensure the Independent Expert Panel explicitly examines the human rights implications of the coca leaf's classification, thereby linking the outcome of the WHO review to the broader goal of systemic reform.
-
Protect Indigenous Autonomy: Any reform must establish a legal framework that is designed and controlled by Indigenous Peoples and local communities, safeguarding their rights to cultivation, use, and the economic benefits of a legal market from corporate capture.
-
Mobilize the Vote: We must coordinate with reform-minded CND Member States to secure the necessary majority vote when the WHO's recommendation reaches Vienna, ensuring that evidence and justice prevail over historical inertia.
Join the Global Campaign to Liberate the Coca Leaf!
Help us transform this injustice into a triumph for Indigenous rights, science, and a truly humane global drug policy.