The difference between coca leaves and cocaine, a Peruvian friend once expressed, is like comparing traveling on a mule to flying a jet airplane. It is a witty comparison, but it misses an important point: the effects of the leaves and the drug are not comparable. To equate coca with a raw alkaloid is a mistake, like believing that the flavor of peach pulp equals the hydrogen cyanide contained in the pit of the fruit. Nevertheless, for more than a century, this has been the prevailing legal and policy framework in most countries and international organizations.
Such policies only make sense within a particular ideological model rooted in the toxic and racist legacy of colonial elites and the failure of the «War on Drugs» for more than half a century. As Smithsonian anthropologist Katherine Allen notes, attempts to deny Andean indigenous peoples access to coca are not simply a ban on, say, beer in Germany, or coffee in the Middle East, or betel chewing in India. It is a form of cultural genocide, another attack in a clash of civilizations that began as far back as 500 years ago with the Spanish conquest.
Fortunately, this situation may be about to change. In 2009, Bolivia formally petitioned the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) to remove provisions from the 1961 Single Convention requiring the eradication of coca within 25 years. Leading the movement was Evo Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous president, elected just three years earlier. In the 180 years before him, 64 presidents had been in power, most of them representing the business and landowning elites that had dominated the country since independence in 1825. Morales, by contrast, was an Aymara, a labor leader who devoted his life to supporting families dependent on the legal coca crop in the Chapare region, an area long targeted by eradication efforts in the U.S.-sponsored war on drugs. His courageous stand against the UN made him the first Latin American leader in history to emphasize the importance of coca as a symbol of his people's cultural heritage and well-being.
This decision was the impetus for a lengthy diplomatic dialogue that resulted in Colombia joining Bolivia in 2023. That same year, the World Health Organization (WHO) agreed to conduct a «critical review» of the coca leaf, with the results to be published in October and final recommendations to be voted on at the annual session of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), scheduled for March 2026 in Vienna.
Bolivia's goal, announced on March 10, 2025 by Vice President David Choquehuanca at the 68th session of the CND, is to «liberate the sacred coca leaf from the shadow of crime and delinquency». He emphasized that placing coca on Schedule 1 drugs, along with heroin and cocaine, is an «absurdity» committed without scientific basis that has encroached on culture and way of life. After more than six decades of injustice, persecution, threats and rights violations, Bolivia's petition to WHO seeks to shed light on a scientific truth — one that indigenous peoples have known for millennia.
A plant that belongs to a sacred
Coca is not just a source of pleasure, but rather a form of meditative practice. When travelers meet in the mountains of the southern Andes, they stop and share coca, three perfectly arranged leaves folded in the shape of a cross. They then turn to the Apusas, the protective mountain deities who hover over each community and control the destinies of those born in their shadows. Looking up to the peaks, they hold the leaves to their mouths and blow quietly, a ritualized invocation that sends the energy of the plant back to the land, the community, sacred sites and ancestral souls.
The exchange of leaves is not only a social gesture, an acknowledgement of human connection, but also an act of spiritual reciprocity. «Blowing the phukuy» (as the ritual is called) symbolizes giving back and mutual enrichment, because by selflessly giving the plant to the earth, one ensures that the energy of the coca will eventually return in a circle, like rain falling on fields and returning as clouds.
Halpai etiquette, the whole act of eating coca is not only an exchange and greeting, but also an expression of reverence and respect. In the very process of putting the leaves in one's mouth and treating them with reverence, an understanding of what it means to be a ranakuna, a child of Pachamama, is formed. In the Andean world, as Allen notes, «one cannot function as a social being unless one participates in ritual, and one must do it properly». It is unseemly to look like a tourist who stuffs his mouth with leaves like a hay horse-it is an insult to tradition.
Chewing coca, no matter the situation — in the presence of a friend or a stranger, alone or with a community — means overcoming oneself and becoming part of a social, moral and spiritual system that gives meaning to life. Coca leaves allow direct communication with the divine. Legend has it that St. Mary, the mother of Christ, who lost her holy child, chewed the leaves to comfort her grief. For Andean people, giving up coca is not only a social or spiritual death, but also an excommunication from the essence of their existence.
Genetic analysis indicates that the progenitor of all domesticated species and varieties is the wild Erythroxylum gracilipes growing in the lowland forests of western Amazonia. Despite its seeming complexity, the finding that three cultivar lineages — Colombian hayo, Amazonian ipadu, and Peruvian coca — evolved independently is evidence of parallel inventions. It is an amazing story, demonstrating how different cultures independently came to hold this plant sacred, honoring it as a sacred gift.
All this begs the question: what is it about coca that attracted the attention of those who cultivated it? Not once, but three times — on the slopes of Colombia, in the northwestern Amazon and in the mountains of Peru and Bolivia — people tasted the leaves and came to the conclusion that there was something special about this plant. Their loyalty to coca persisted for centuries because the plant had been both domesticated and surpassed. For at least 8,000 years, in lands from Costa Rica to Chile to Argentina, people of different cultures and languages have viewed coca leaves not just as a source of food or medicine, but as a sacred symbol, a messenger of the gods. Coca became part of their spiritual lives, touching and transforming them all.
Obviously, the physical properties of the plant attracted the first people. In 1975, American scientists Tim Plowman and Jim Duke conducted the first study of the nutritional value of coca. They compared the content of 15 nutrients in the leaves with that of 50 popular Latin American foods and found that coca was superior to most of them in calories, protein, carbohydrates and minerals. Coca leaves contain many vitamins and more calcium than other crops, which is especially important for Andean communities where dairy products were virtually non-existent. The leaves also contain enzymes that increase the body's ability to digest carbohydrates at high altitudes, making them a valuable addition to a potato-based diet. Despite years of discrimination, studies have confirmed that coca leaves are a mild and beneficial stimulant that promotes health and nutrition.
In the 1970s, Dr. Andrew Weil, a medicinal plant specialist at Harvard, became involved in the study of coca. He was one of the first physicians to use coca in medicine, conducting preliminary research among cocaleros in the Andes and Amazon. Weil found that the plant promoted good health, aided digestion, and helped with altitude sickness. Its leaves were used to treat rheumatism, dysentery, stomach ulcers and nausea, as well as improve breathing and cleanse the blood of toxins, including uric acid. Daily consumption of the leaves increases mental clarity, improves mood, strengthens the digestive system and promotes longevity.
He notes: «Based on more than 50 years of research, I believe that coca has significant therapeutic potential and should be legally available for medical use». In addition to stimulation, it quickly elevates mood, helps with gastrointestinal disorders and affects metabolism. In the U.S., coca is listed as a Class II controlled substance, and although it is legal for medical use today, there is no supply. Weil is convinced, «Coca is a gift from heaven meant to improve the lives of people around the world».
This is probably where its sacred status lies. Despite its obvious usefulness as food and medicine, its spiritual significance cannot be fully explained without taking into account the traditions and beliefs of the Andean peoples. Coca is perceived as a divine gift that makes life better, because it contains a special, subtle energy — one that manifests itself through daily and ritual use.
This is best evidenced by the observations of European scientists and travelers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who, despite knowing the harms of cocaine, were not prejudiced against the use of the leaves. Their records convey a subjective sense of the light, subtle effects of a natural stimulant that is not, in fact, a classical stimulant, although it gives a similar impression.
The American physician William Golden Mortimer, author of The History of Coca (1901), called the plant a panacea, noting its medicinal, tonic and nutritional properties. He especially appreciated the mild effects of coca, which, while stimulating, did not produce a pronounced sensation. Physician W. С. Searle wrote in 1881: «Although coca is a stimulant, it has a very weak effect, and in a person leading an ordinary life, chewing coca does not cause special sensations, except that the desire to eat and sleep disappears». It is only with unusual physical or mental exertion that the effects become noticeable.
Andrew Weil, who first tried mambe in 1973 in the Amazon, noted that the effects of coca are so subtle that it is difficult to compare them to other natural remedies. He describes how at night he felt a pleasant state that lasted long after use, and how in the morning, after exchanging powder with locals, he felt an increase in energy, ease of movement and an inner warmth spreading throughout his body.
These properties that appeal to modern audiences were characteristic of the ancients as well. People have long felt that coca helps fight inner ailments, increases energy, mental clarity and creativity. In it they saw not just a plant, but a source of strength and divine support.
What could be more welcome or promising in any era than a beneficial natural product that facilitates focus and concentration, even while inducing a subtle sense of contentment and well-being? Truth be told, coca is and has always been the ideal companion for any creative endeavor, be it the weaving of cotton and wool, the carving of stone, or the writing of digital code. Coca works, and it works for everybody, which is precisely why every culture and civilization that knew the plant deemed it to be sacred, deserving of veneration.