The Coca Leaf
Medicine. Food. Sacred.
The impacts of antinarcotic policies on food systems across the globe are often overlooked. In our previous newsletter, we explored the history of cannabis farming, the challenges and opportunities of legalisation the world over, and the ecocide driven by extractivism and narcotraffic in Mexico.
In today’s instalment, we will explore the cultural and historical context of the coca leaf for different Indigenous communities in South America. As we break down how the scientific community in the Minority World* isolated and manipulated one of the plant’s alkaloids, cocaine, we will follow the tracks of how this “new-found” medicine became the elite’s most desired drug. Then, we will unpack the devastating impacts of coca eradication in Andean and Amazonian territories as part of U.S.-designed drug policies. What can we learn from the attempts to regulate or substitute crops in producer countries? To close, we will highlight the struggle of peasant and Indigenous groups who have, for decades, organised and mobilised to defend and reclaim the coca leaf, their lands, and livelihoods.
Shifting our perspective about the coca leaf is essential. Before diving into this piece, we urge you to keep in mind the fact that coca, the plant, is not cocaine, the drug. One is grown, the other is manufactured. In the spirit of drawing the clearest picture of their difference, many resort to the example of grapes and wine. Just as the fruit is transformed to become wine, coca leaves are manipulated and mixed with other elements to create a drug. Just as grapes will never get you drunk, coca leaves will never create addiction, for the cocaine alkaloid comprises even less than 1 percent of the plant’s chemistry.
Differentiating coca from cocaine is first, an act of respect towards the communities that have been historically marked by violence and stigma, and second, the baseline of any conversation that seeks to address the detrimental impacts of the drug and the myriad of tools the plant has to offer our societies.
What can we learn from a plant that, for millennia, has been used to weave and guide the dialogues and visions of Indigenous empires like the Incas? What are the consequences of reducing a plant with deep cultural, spiritual, and medicinal significance to merely the source of an addictive substance? What role have coca monocultures played in the food systems of Andean countries? And how has its eradication affected the lands and livelihoods of farmers?
This is the fourth and last part of our series, The War on Drugs. If you’ve found value in this series and/or wish to share thoughts, resources, and musings our way, please reach out to info@agrowingculture.org.
*Minority World refers to the countries commonly labelled as “developed,” and emphasises that while these countries tend to impose their will on the rest of the world, they are, in fact, the minority. Majority World refers to the countries commonly labelled as “developing,” who in fact make up the majority of the world’s population.
‘Coca leaf’, editorial by Futuro Coca:
“Oval or elliptical, a smooth edge and a rounded tip, heavy enough for the wind to move it and stay on the stem. It’s green, arguably so green that among the ranges of that colour, a particular category would have to be created for its leaf. Coca green. So green that you wouldn't think of white, because although it reflects light, [coca], like rosemary, coffee leaf, mint, or spearmint, has chlorophylls - the ones responsible for photosynthesis in the plant's cells.
It’s a she, woman, female, mother, sister. It’s used to replenish bodies that feel droopy, it allows the crossing of vast lands; it extends time, keeps sleep waiting, and stops tiredness in case the top is far away.
The coca leaf enters the body and makes chemical recombinations that do not alter consciousness. It is food. It waters the digestive tract with its pigment, and it’s like any other herb. It’s responsible for calm and pause, and combined with limestone it brings air to fatigue, anaesthetises pain, and allows the body to adapt to conditions of scarcity. Flour is made from its leaf, which gives more calcium than milk, prevents fractures [...] and allows a broken bone to regenerate from the fall of a swing; It only takes a couple of biscuits or a slice of cake.
The coca leaf decolonises the palate [...], conjures up meetings, soothes thoughts, and stimulates speech. It’s a condiment, a pigment, an infusion, an ingredient. It’s solid, liquid. It’s feminine, healing, bitter, luminous, venous and evergreen.”
From sacred plant to recreational drug
Coca leaves have been used by Andean Indigenous peoples in South America for over 4,000 years. From the birth of the Andes mountain range in Venezuela to the tail of the continent’s spine in Argentina, the plant has been at the heart of ritual and sustenance. The coca plant has had several names given by the territories that embrace it — called “Khoka” by the Peruvian Incas, “Khuka” or “Hanuco” in Bolivia, and “Ayu” or “Hayo” by the Arhuaco in Colombia. Coca was and continues to be central to the harmony and well-being of Indigenous communities — from mortuary rituals like placing a few leaves under the deceased’s tongue to aid their passing to the afterlife, to medicinal treatments for stomach issues, headaches and infected wounds. It’s also a great source of nutrients, historically used as food and a natural energiser.
Spiritually, coca is tied to the realm of thought – traditionally chewed not only to reinvigorate the body but also to clear the mind. In ceremonial spaces, when coca leaves are dried and beaten until powdered, mixed with the ashes of Yarumo leaves, the resulting emerald dust is called “Mambe”. When placed under the tongue or between the gums and the cheek, the saliva slowly dissolves Mambe, releasing the multiple minerals and alkaloids present in the leaves, which smoothly stimulates the nervous system for better focus and articulation. This is why collective decision-making, reflection, and dialogue are usually held while chewing leaves or taking Mambe, as it is believed to “sweeten the word” — to organise and express one’s thoughts clearly, to speak with care and intention.
Spanish colonisers wrote about coca in the early 16th century, registering its ritual, medicinal and daily use. Still, coca consumption was viewed as “pagan”, “savage”, and “diabolical”. As part of the Spanish crown’s campaign to impose Christianity in its colonies, it violently prohibited its use, severing the Indigenous communities’ relationships with land, food, and spirituality supported by the plant. But because coca served as a medicine and means of satiation and energy, depriving enslaved Indigenous peoples of coca spread sickness and death across mines and plantations. Without the plant, communities had little to no means to face new sicknesses brought by colonisers and exhaustion from labour. Pagan or not, chewing coca would be key to sustaining the economic and political stability of the Spanish crown, so it had to regulate access to the plant and provide leaves to Indigenous peoples three times a day. Colonisers had significant control over the planting and distribution of coca by the 17th century, which was mostly cultivated at large haciendas. They even tried to tax its consumption and monopolise its cultivation, but ultimately, these projects failed. In Perú, as Indigenous uprisings led by Tupac Katari spread throughout the country, rebels took control of coca crops to supply their troops and intervene in its trade to fund their struggle.
In the 18th century, the coca’s properties caught the attention of colonisers and travellers who brought the plant to Europe. Botanists in Paris, Vienna and Prussia conducted studies on coca, and over 250 varieties of the plant were identified — only two contained the cocaine alkaloid. This finding led to deeper studies of cocaine, aiming to isolate and commercialise it as medicine in the Minority World, a task succeeded in 1859 by the German chemist Albert Niemann. Since then, the Western gaze and use of the coca plant was reduced to its 1%, cocaine — a highly addictive substance of their own manufacture.
By 1896, cocaine was used as a local anaesthetic. In Europe, cocaine was mixed with wine. “Vin Mariani” was sold as “exotic” and medicinal. Writers, inventors, popes and monarchs across the continent drank the rare spirit. After World War I, pharmacist John S. Pemberton sold a similar mix with higher quantities of cocaine in the U.S., aiming to use it as a treatment for his morphine addiction. He named it “French Wine Coca”, but when his state prohibited alcohol in 1885, Pemberton replaced the wine with sugar, caramel and African kola nuts, naming his new beverage Coca-Cola. Learn more about the company’s history with cocaine and coca monocultures here.
Cocaine use was widespread in the U.S. by the 1890s, found even in grocery stores as cigarettes, soft drinks, inhalants, crystals or solutions. The consequent spike in addiction led to the country’s first cocaine epidemic. Racist narratives and sensationalist articles flooded U.S. media. Policymakers pushed to regulate the drug, which they accomplished in 1914 through the Harrison Act. This legislation banned cocaine’s non-medical use, prohibited its importation and imposed criminal penalties for cocaine users.
By the 1950s, U.S. cocaine abuse declined. Still, researchers attribute the upsurge of the drug in social gatherings to the hippie movement in the 1960s — a decade marked by the widespread use of cannabis, mushrooms, LSD, and other synthetic drugs and substances. Cocaine addiction spiked again, and in 1971, U.S. President Richard Nixon declared drug abuse to be “America’s public enemy number one”, deploying a series of international antinarcotic policies that would ripple across continents for decades. Learn more about the conception of the war on drugs in the U.S. here.
Drug policy in the Andes
Historically, Perú, Bolivia, and Colombia have been the world’s top coca producers. In 1989, the U.S. war on drugs targeted these countries with the launch of the Andean Initiative, a five-year strategy designed by President George H.W. Bush’s administration. This drug policy aimed to halt drug trafficking through forging alliances between U.S. troops and local militaries. US$2 billion was destined as economic aid for the three countries — funds that would only be provided if these countries allowed for the intervention of the U.S. military in their territories.
This militaristic approach resulted in human rights abuses, rising conflict and growing distrust between people and their national army, especially in rural areas. In Perú, the National Intelligence Service received anti-drug aid despite being closely tied to the Grupo Colina death squad, responsible for multiple massacres, torture and extrajudicial killings. In Bolivia, pressure from the U.S. government led to the enactment of Law 1008, which unravelled the prosecution, killing and excessive criminalisation of farmers, especially in the country’s largest coca-growing region, the Chapare. In Colombia, anti-narcotics aid was funnelled towards a counterinsurgency campaign that prioritised the assistance and training of the local military.
U.S.-designed drug policies in Colombia were heavily influenced by anti-communist sentiments of the Cold War, framed as necessary efforts to combat the 'communist threat' and the expansion of leftist guerrillas. In practice, these policies targeted all rural resistance, including peasant movements fighting for land reform and dignified livelihoods, as their struggles were identified as part of the same threat to the state.
Colombia was the third largest recipient of U.S. military aid after Israel and Egypt by the 1990s, and it became the only Andean country to allow the aerial spraying of herbicides over illicit crops. This tactic not only failed to halt coca production, but also destroyed food crops, and polluted waterways. Peasants and Indigenous peoples began showing signs of glyphosate poisoning from skin rashes to different forms of cancer.
Prioritising crop eradication over cocaine seizures and long-term crop substitution programs only perpetuated rural inequality and violence against farmers. Ultimately, anti-narcotics policies like the Andean Initiative helped justify the militarisation and U.S. interventionism in the region.
Rising in resistance
Coca farmers throughout the Andes have embraced the name “cocaleros” as their identity. Besides heavy militarisation, local governments show little to no presence in coca-growing hotspots. Therefore, cocaleros have historically organised their communities together to improve their territories’ conditions — from roads to houses to education, profits from coca harvests have allowed them to build and pay for what the state should provide and support with. In the late 1980s, cocaleros groups across Bolivia ignited a cry for drastic changes in drug policy that rippled across territories. In parallel, the organising power of peasant unions in Colombia and Perú provided space and support for cocaleros’ demands as they were further pushed into internal armed conflicts.
Despite the U.S.’ pressure to stigmatise and prosecute them as internal enemies, the growing mobilisation of cocaleros in the 1990s backed their positionality as a legitimate force of labour and social movement. This made it harder for governments in the Andean region to dismiss their demands.
In 1996, in the wake of the cocalero movement in Colombia, counterinsurgency narratives spread like fire among the peasantry. As thousands of farmers left their lands to march in protest of aerial spraying, militarisation, and mediocre substitution programmes, leaders of the movement spoke in Congress about the growing polarisation that was cornering communities in greater danger:
“We are good and hard-working peasants, we do not represent either of the two: neither the guerrillas nor the drug traffickers, we are only growing coca, nothing more than out of necessity for subsistence, since the area in which we find ourselves is a zone of total abandonment by the State, there is no government presence for this sector of the country”.
With the U.S.-designed Plan Colombia implemented in the early 2000s, billions of dollars were spent on providing jets, helicopters, herbicides, military training and other “solutions” to combat drug production. Despite being framed as an anti-narcotics policy, 80 percent of Plan Colombia’s funding was destined to strengthen the military forces for counterinsurgency purposes, leaving the remaining 20 percent for economic and social investment. As the country’s government surrendered to the weight of Plan Colombia’s funding amidst the worsening internal armed conflict, others in the Andean region saw the rise of cocaleros leading the way for long-term sustainable alternatives.
Organising for sovereignty-based solutions
The pressure of cocalero movements in Perú and Bolivia pushed the revision of their local drug policies in the 2000s. While promises around crop substitution and eradication plans failed to be fulfilled by governments, both countries saw small changes that would eventually open up more opportunities to discuss the plant’s regulation and even legalisation.
In 2006, cocalero leader Evo Morales was elected president of Bolivia. In a political moment ripe for transformative shifts in the nation’s approach to drug policy, perhaps the most effective measure carried through was the Community Coca Control initiative.
This model was first implemented in 2010, following the successful Cato policy, a product of the pressure by cocaleros’ protests. This policy allowed peasant families in the Chapare region to grow one cato (a plot of 1,600 square metres) for legal purposes such as food, tea, medicine, etc. This not only shifted the perspective on cocaleros from criminals to sustenance farmers, but also led to a price increase that provided each family with a monthly minimum wage.
After the successful pilot of the Cato policy in the Chapare, Community Coca Control added layers of benefits and regulations that effectively supported farmers to shift from large plantations to one cato of coca such as:
1. Land titling for coca-growing families
2. Biometric registry of authorised coca growers
3. The registration and recurring measurement of each cato of coca
4. A database to monitor cultivation, transport, and sales.
5. Integrated development projects to complement subsistence income
6. Training for union representatives on database use and community joint action to monitor and maintain coca planting to one cato per family.
While far from perfect, Bolivia’s Community Coca Control has proven to be one of the most holistic models of sustainable transition towards legal economies for cocaleros. A model that can potentially serve as a blueprint for other illicit crop substitution strategies the world over.
As policy change discussions advance across the Andes, Indigenous peoples continue to defend and dignify the millenary use of the coca leaf through community-based initiatives that are cutting through the stigma to reverse its cultural erasure.
Reclaiming the coca leaf
In the late 1990s, Indigenous Nasa student Fabiola Piñacué began selling coca tea at her university in Bogotá, Colombia. Motivated to change the narrative around this sacred plant through food, she’d take the opportunity to share about the plant’s significance and relationship with the Nasa peoples of the Cauca region when the hot beverage sparked the curiosity of customers and bystanders. In 1998, Fabiola founded her company, Coca Nasa. From teas to sodas to beer to spirits and cookies, Coca Nasa has fought for and found a place in the Colombian market amidst the negative veil that covered the plant for decades — a violent frame exacerbated by the internal armed conflict. In the early 2000s, war-driven propaganda claimed that coca was “the plant that kills”. Fortunately, the work and resistance of Indigenous leaders have played a major role in helping debunk the absurdity of fatalist myths about the plant.
Arguing that the word coca should only be used by Coca-Cola, the soft drinks giant sued Coca Nasa in 2007. The Indigenous-owned enterprise appealed and won. But in 2021 a cease and desist letter by the multinational behemoth threatened to take legal action against Coca Nasa again, aiming to push them out of the market for copyright violations and unfair competition. In response, they questioned Coca-Cola’s right to appropriate the name of the sacred plant and have recently asked the national government to revoke the giant’s century-old trademark:
“These business giants arrive thinking they’re entitled to our cultural heritage and that they can then demand that we stop using it. What we’re saying is: ‘We’ve had enough.” —David Curtidor, Co-founder of Coca Nasa
Despite Coca-Cola’s efforts to silence and vanish their work, Coca Nasa has brought the benefits of the plant to urban areas for two decades now, supporting more than 50 peasant families that grow coca in small plots of land in Cauca. Today, their products can be found in over 120 stores across the country. Fabiola and her team actively participate in cultural and educational spaces for the revindication of the coca plant like Futuro Coca.
Regulations and transition plans that disregard the political and socioeconomic pressures under which the peasantry chooses to plant coca are doomed to fail. Just as we’ve seen in the case of Poppy or Cannabis, farmers cannot continue to be targeted as criminals while the rest of the drug supply chain remains untouched.
Since the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, global institutions and Minority World countries have set the elimination of the coca plant as one of their boldest goals. The consequences of international policies that deliberately ignore the abysmal differences between a plant and a manufactured drug have devastated the livelihoods and territories of entire Andean communities.
What would result from the annihilation of coca when numerous Indigenous civilizations have rooted their cosmovisions in its existence? A plant that shapes and guides the social dynamics of vast and diverse territories? A mother, sister, that has fed and healed its kin? Under what logic is its elimination a legitimate goal?
This is the last part of our series on the war on drugs, (read parts one, two and three). We hope this series sparked new questions and perspectives about the lands and peoples that have historically endured the violence of anti-narcotic policies.
It can be hard to grasp how our writing has (we hope) impacted the mindsets, work or curiosities of our readers, but if our pieces have stayed with you, in any scale or form, we would love to know. Please, email us at info@agrowingculture.org! We would love to hear from you!
Coca Leaf: Myths and Reality - A beginners guide to coca by Tom Blickman for the Transnational Institute
Collateral Damage: U.S. Drug Control in the Andes by Coletta A. Youngers for the Washington Office on Latin America
The book Vital Decomposition by Kristina Lyon, recommended in previous installments by our Substack reader Greg Frey.
Every resource produced by A Growing Culture, whether a newsletter, article, post, or design, results from countless hours of research, reflection, and the synthesis of profound conversations held both within our team and with our partners and comrades. Behind the scenes, a wealth of effort goes into making these conversations happen, from overseeing our day-to-day operations, and securing our funding, to forging deep relationships with communities around the world who are leading food systems transformation. These relationships fuel our thoughts, inform our words, and inspire our actions.
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Tis so powerful to know that these little communities and businesses are winning court cases over corporate entities. Your thoughtful approach to writing, I believe, will truly perk even the most heavily fogged stigma to challenge those that read this to get curious about the reality they have been fed. Grateful we have indigenous beings here who know and embody this pure wisdom to plant the seed of change for others.
This is fantastic