WHO Critical Review of Coca Leaf A Comprehensive Overview

During 2024 TNI and its partners in Bolivia, Colombia and Peru, organised consultations on the critical review of coca by the WHO and its potential consequences. A total of 10 meetings were organised, with around 400 participants. The participants consisted of coca farmers, most with native indigenous roots, academics and coca experts, human rights activists and representatives of Indigenous Peoples of the Andean-Amazon region. In the case of Peru several initiatives were taken, by farmers organisations and academics, to call on the government to support the efforts to declassify the coca leaf.

• Consultations in Bolivia about the coca review process, organized with Amigos de la Tierra (ASAT) and the ‘Alianza por la Vida’ (September 2024, in Spanish)
• Dialogue in Mitú (Vaupés, Colombia) about the coca review process with Indigenous Peoples from the Colombian Amazon region, organized with VisoMutop, OHCHR and Senator Julio César Estrada (13-14 January 2025, in Spanish).
• Consultations in Tumaco (Nariño) and Toribío (Cauca) about the coca review process with Indigenous Peoples and people of African descent in Colombia, organized with VisoMutop (October 2024, in Spanish).
• Letter from Ricardo Soberón, former DEVIDA director, to the Peruvian Minister of Foreign Affairs, arguing why Peru should support the Bolivian initiative for a critical review of the coca leaf (August 2024, in Spanish).
• Letter from CONPACCP (National Confederation of Agricultural Producers of the Coca Valleys of Peru) to the Peruvian President and Minister of Foreign Affairs, asking them to support the Bolivian initiative for a critical review of the coca leaf (August 2024, in Spanish).
• Letter from POFEPOPA (Confederation of Peruvian Agricultural Producers of the Monzón Valley) to the Peruvian Minister of Foreign Affairs, expressing their support for the declassification of the coca leaf (August 2024, in Spanish).
• Declaration of the XIX International Congress on the Sacred Coca Leaf, asking for the withdrawal of the coca leaf from Schedule I, 5 August 2024, Pichari, VRAE, Cusco, Peru.
• Peruvian civil society response to the biased report presented to the WHO by the Peruvian government in October 2024, elaborated by a group of Peruvian academics and farmers organisations (December 2024, in Spanish).

In the neighbouring countries of Peru and Bolivia, where coca has been part of daily life for centuries, coca use has increased over the last decades. In Argentina in particular coca chewing has a firm place amongst the population of the Northern provinces, and also Chile has coca consuming Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations. In other Latin American and European countries migrants from the Andean region bring their habits of coca use with them when moving across borders and are regularly confronted with criminalisation.

• La hoja de coca en Argentina: Su resistencia a ser considerada un “estupefaciente”, Alejandro Corda, Intercambios Asociación Civil (Buenos Aires, May 2025).
• The Coca Leaf in Chile: A Review of the Legal Status: Analysis of their legal status based on case studies, Claudia Levine, Lobeliana Foundation (Santiago, Chile, May 2025).
• Video: TESTIMONY: Cocaine and its legal problems in Chile (subtitled in English)
• Coca Leaf in Court: Cultural Rights and the Toxicological Labyrinth, Constanza Sánchez, José Carlos Bouso, Pien Metaal and Roberto Castro, ICEERS (Barcelona, July 2022).
• Migrants and Traditional Use: The Coca Leaf Travels from the Andean Amazon to the European Courts, ICEERS (May 2019).
• A decade of providing legal defence support for coca leaf cases in Spain, Drugs Habits and Social Policy 25(3), Constanza Sánchez and José Carlos Bouso (September 2024).

The UN review of the international status of the coca leaf (IDPC)

Wisdom of the Leaf - Coca Summit (McKenna Academy)

Defending Coca Leaf Traditions in Court (ICEERS)

Minga Koka (Lobeliana)