In December 2025, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declined Bolivia and Colombia’s request to reclassify the coca leaf – a culturally significant plant for Indigenous and campesino (rural farmers) communities in the Andes and the raw material for cocaine – as a controlled substance under international drug treaties.
The WHO’s decision came at a critical time for activists, academics, and human rights defenders in Colombia who have been fighting against the stigma of coca leaf and saw the outgoing progressive government of Gustavo Petro miss an opportunity to make a lasting change.
On 7 August, right-wing president Abelardo de la Espriella just assumed power, and the path forward for the regulation of coca leaf looks bleak.
De la Espriella has been clear about his view of coca cultivation as a criminal and security issue, going as far as to claim that “where there is coca there is death,” and many of those fighting to change the stigma around coca are less than hopeful about the next four years.
The long road of coca regulation
Attitudes towards coca in Colombia have changed as traditional and alternative uses of coca leaf have become more widespread in recent years, but these changes have yet to materialise in policy decisions.
“It was an issue that was quite absent in the public debate. It was very difficult to speak about coca without speaking about cocaine,” said Pien Metaal, Coordinator of the Drugs and Democracy Program at the Transnational Institute.
“In the early 2000s, there were some Indigenous groups and campesino organisations that tried to promote alternative uses, but they were largely ignored,” remembers Sanho Tree, Director for the Drug Policy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies.
At a policy level, the Petro government picked up a conversation that began in 2016, and Colombia’s adhesion to Bolivia’s 2023 request to the WHO to reclassify coca leaf further showed the government’s willingness to reprise its role as a leader in international conversations about drug prohibition.
However, despite the WHO highlighting the therapeutic and cultural uses of coca for indigenous and campesino communities, the organisation cited concerns about increasing coca cultivation and cocaine production to deny the request.
“The political pressures that they felt were obviously part of the equation as cocaine production surged and cocaine-related problems grew in Europe as well,” said John Walsh, Director for Drug Policy and the Andes at the Washington Office on Latin America.
Although the reclassification would not have changed the existing controls on cocaine production, the cultivation of coca leaf for illicit drugs is something to reckon with.
“[Regulation] is not a panacea, you’re still going to deal with cocaine, and there’s simply too much ungoverned or relatively sparsely populated territories in which to grow these crops, and you have an inexhaustible reservoir of poor campesinos willing to take the risk,” said Tree.
In 2025, the country had 261,000 hectares of coca crops, according to UNODC figures. For experts, reclassifying coca leaf, while not a solution to the illicit drug issue, is an important part of rethinking drug policies.
“It involves distinguishing between coca and cocaine as a way to start changing the narrative, but not as a strategy to reduce the supply of coca for cocaine,” explained Maria Alejandra Vélez, Professor of the School of Economics and Director of the Rural Development and Illicit Economies Area at CESED in Universidad de los Andes.
Loosening controls over coca leaf for traditional and alternative uses would have little impact on the illegal market, said the experts. “If it’s possible to have large fields of coca and illegally manufacture cocaine under current conditions, why would anybody in their right mind look to legally cultivate and process coca leaves as a basis for then creating or producing cocaine?” asked Walsh.
Furthermore, even under less strict controls, countries would still be responsible for prosecuting the production, transport, and sale of illicit substances under the current international treaties.
At a national level, the push for internal regulation of coca was aimed at allowing local products to be sold in the internal market, explained Vélez. But the hopes they had in the Petro government also failed to materialise.
“The outgoing government had the initiative to push [coca regulation] forward, but the decrees never made it past the drawing board, and nothing was actually implemented,” said Vélez, a sentiment echoed by Paula Aguirre, Director of Elementa, a human rights organisation in Colombia: “Progress has been minimal,” she said.
Bracing for a new government
Now, experts and communities alike are steeling themselves for the new government. “There’s no progress to be detected in anything that this new president is saying and it’s very worrying,” said Metaal.
During his campaign, Abelardo De la Espriella was vocal about resuming aerial fumigation of coca, claiming he could eradicate the plant in 18 months. Aerial fumigation was banned by the Constitutional Court in 2015 due to the negative health and environmental effects associated with its use. In 2019, the Court also set forth several requirements for resuming the practice, including establishing an independent oversight committee and prior consultation mechanisms with affected communities.
While it is unlikely that the new government will succeed in restarting fumigation programs, activists around coca regulation are concerned about setbacks in the conversation and a return to old narratives around coca leaf. “We can easily imagine that this government will have zero support for that kind of initiative and, to the contrary, will demonise coca in the same breath as cocaine,” said Walsh.
“Drug policy tends to move in cycles,” explained Tree. “We had a good trend under Petro and Evo Morales before him, getting some dignity for these farmers and these indigenous peoples…but there’s a rightward swing of the pendulum now, and there will be rollback,” he added.
In this context, the conversation is unlikely to move forward. “We cannot count on any of the main Andean governments having any interest in this,” said Walsh. “I think it’s going to be a time to defend the rights of coca growers, and other citizens in the region, and take the steps that are going to be needed to lay the groundwork for progress down the line,” he added.
Aguirre has a similar view: “We believe that, in terms of public discourse, this will once again be a government with which we will have to be very careful to safeguard our commitments, our progress, our projects, and our initiatives,” she said.
While political will may be lacking in the coming years, there is still work to be done: “It’s time for those who have sought these changes but been disappointed not to give up but to lay the groundwork for what might be done eventually,” said Walsh, stressing the need for continued engagement with civil society and indigenous and campesino communities to drive lasting change.
