When Americans are presented with the word “coca,” their mind likely jumps to cocaine. In fact, the two are often conflated as one and the same: a dangerous drug banned by law and whose production and sale are subject to intense criminal regulation globally. While the leafy plant is indigenous to the Andean region of South America and is an essential ingredient in cocaine, coca alone is not dangerous. When chewed or brewed into tea, its leaves have a mild stimulating effect akin to caffeine. More often, it is used medicinally as a numbing agent in toothpaste or as a natural treatment for nausea, altitude sickness, and asthma.
In 1961, however, the UN listed coca, separate from cocaine, as a Schedule 1 drug in its Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. This policy subjected all uses of coca to intense international bans and scrutiny. As the world’s third-largest producer of coca, Bolivia was particularly impacted by these restrictions. Bolivia has a deep-rooted history with the plant, and in Bolivia’s major coca-growing regions of Yungas and Chapare, these restrictive policies have spurred a call to action for the nation’s largely Indigenous coca farmers, known as cocaleros. Their movement, backed by the major Bolivian political party Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), seeks to divorce regulation of the coca crop from imperialistic US control, boost agricultural production, and restore coca’s reputation as a safe medicinal plant. Success for the cocaleros may initiate a new era of fully autonomous, community-based drug regulation in South America.
Coca has been cultivated and consumed throughout the Andes for over 8,000 years. For at least the past 1,500 years, a portion of that coca has been grown in the Aymaran Yungas region of Bolivia, which remains predominantly Indigenous today. During the reign of the Incas, coca was considered sacred by both peasants and the aristocracy, who chewed dried coca leaves for their mild stimulating effects and ability to stave off hunger and thirst. However, upon the arrival of Spanish colonizers in the early 16th century, the leaf was demonized for its importance in local rituals, which were viewed as blasphemous under Christian doctrine.
Coca cultivation was nearly impossible to ban and an incredibly profitable way to exploit Indigenous labor. While the Spaniards did not consume coca, they began exporting it around the world, placing high taxes on the product and dividing the Yungas region into several Spanish-owned haciendas, or large landed estates. Ironically, for many years, the coca leaf was considered “a historic instrument of colonial oppression” before transforming into a symbol of the Indigenous working class, particularly due to its importance in sustaining soldiers in the Chaco War with Paraguay in the 1930s. After the Bolivian National Revolution in 1952, however, the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement sought to minimize coca usage and cultivation, viewing the practice of chewing coca as an impediment to Bolivian progress and modernization.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, as part of their ongoing ‘War on Drugs,’ the United States became involved in instituting a series of interventionist, anti-coca policies in Bolivia meant to target the cocaine trade. In 1988, Bolivia passed the Law of Coca and Controlled Substances, which designated coca zones as either “traditional” (small plantations in regions where coca has been traditionally harvested) or “nontraditional” (anywhere outside those areas). Known as Law 1008, this piece of legislation sought to eradicate all coca crops from the “nontraditional” zones. The policy was ineffective. It placed many Bolivians in prison with drug charges, and critics of the act note its lack of focus on trafficking organizations. Eradication only increased the price of coca and made it more appealing to cultivate in an illicit market—especially among an already financially vulnerable farming population. The policy was enforced by government forces that frequently violated Bolivian law, bringing brutality, social unrest, and economic hardship to the nation. In the early 2000s, desperate and starving Chapare cocaleros would stage roadblocks against incoming eradication efforts only to be met with violence and further oppression.
US-backed policy on coca cultivation in Bolivia did not shift until 2008 with the election of former President Evo Morales of the MAS party. As the nation’s first Indigenous president and a former cocalero activist himself, Morales stood staunchly against US intervention in coca production and shone as a beacon of hope for many cocaleros. Notably, Morales instituted a “Coca Yes, Cocaine No” (CYCN) policy that legalized certain levels of coca cultivation on designated “nontraditional” farms, which were to be monitored by an established network of cocalero unions. In this revolutionary act, cocaleros would police each other’s farms, ensuring no farm was growing more than the designated amount. Cocaleros were held accountable by a vigilante honor system.
Unsurprisingly, CYCN was a victory for coca farmers, as their quality of life improved in terms of economic security and legal persecution. The initiative also highlighted the importance of strong community organizations—such as labor unions—as effective agents for policy enforcement. CYCN proved that cocaleros could successfully regulate themselves and that law enforcement was not necessary to control illicit crop production. For perhaps the first time in decades, Morales affirmed that the regulation of Bolivia’s coca industry was not open to international involvement.
Backed by the leaf’s historical significance to Bolivia’s Indigenous populations and heritage, deregulating coca has come to represent an impassioned movement for anti-imperialist influence in the state and economic autonomy. To quote one cocalero, right-wing, imperialist political parties have “always demonized our coca leaf. They have always said that coca is cocaine, but for us, coca is… a culture.” Still, while the coca leaf has emerged in some respects as a symbol of pride for Bolivia’s Indigenous communities that have long cultivated the plant—as evidenced by the January 11 national celebration of the “Day of Coca Leaf Tradition”—the broader movement cannot lose sight of the fact that, for cocaleros, the coca leaf, when stripped of its symbolic value, is a means of making ends meet. As a significant cash crop, coca has served as a backbone for the Bolivian economy, especially within the nation’s most rural enclaves. Coca is both literally and figuratively crucial to Bolivia’s existence as a population and as a nation itself. Recognizing this tie, CYCN and other coca legalization reforms in Bolivia have promoted coca consumption as a symbol of Bolivian pride while simultaneously hoping to boost its economic value amid high poverty rates.
Today, the future of CYCN remains uncertain. Former President Morales’s attempted coup d’etat and tumultuous removal from presidency in 2019 led Interim President Jeanine Añez of the opposition party to repeal Morales’s CYCN policy, ignoring widespread condemnation from cocalero unions and human rights activists. Although current President Luis Arce, a member of the MAS party, has reinstated many of Morales’s reforms, cocaleros must recoup their losses from this setback before renewed progress can be made. Bolivians in favor of deregulation must continue the momentum for the sake of coca as a symbol of a broader movement against imperial interests and as the lifeblood of resilient, rural, Indigenous communities. With time, CYCN’s continued success may demonstrate to the rest of the continent that the road less traveled of drug regulation—that is, one led and policed by community organizations and without US intervention—is not only possible but also the key to both cultural and economic prosperity.