coca leaf
Coca leaf is different from cocaine and should not be classified as a drug. This is the conclusion of a new Harvard study, which argues that coca leaf be removed from List of substances – where it appears alongside fentanyl.
A study this Wednesday in Science states that scientific evidence indicates that coca leaf is a benign and useful plant, distinct from its purified alkaloid, cocaine. For this reason, should not be considered a narcotic.
One published by Harvard University (USA) explains the “new international perspective” and argues that coca leaf be “removed from List of substances I – where it currently appears alongside cocaine and fentanyl – according to the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs”.
“Or history of safe use and cultural importance of coca contrast sharply with the harms of purified cocaine,” said the study’s lead author, Dawson M. Whitepostdoctoral researcher in Harvard’s Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, cited in the release.
“Recognizing this difference is essential for evidence-based policies and alignment with the goals expressed by the South American communities most affected by the ban,” he added.
The authors draw on evidence from anthropology, evolutionary biology, biochemistry, pharmacology, economics, and social sciences to distinguish the coca plant from cocaine, highlighting that coca has been cultivated for more than 8,000 years and used safely as a mild stimulant, medicine and ritual element in more than 100 cultures.
The conclusions indicate that global drug policy reform needed.
WHO reviews coca status
The World Health Organization (WHO) is currently reviewing the legal status of coca, having commissioned a scientific review that “confirms both the absence of health harm caused by the coca leaf and the actual harm due to its prohibition”.
The WHO Expert Committee on Drug Addiction (ECDD) will meet in Geneva, from the 20th to the 22nd of this month, to formalize a recommendation to the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs.
“This meeting is a rare opportunity for the WHO and the UN to correct a classification rooted in colonial biases and outdated science,” White said.
The investigation considers that removing coca from the list of controlled substances will allow correct a long-standing scientific and legal misclassification.
For the authors, the declassification of coca could enable medical research into its various bioactive compounds and create new sustainable economic opportunities in rural regions.
The study also refers to a recent declaration signed by traditional coca producers, indigenous representatives and allied organizations in support of petitions from Bolivia and Colombia, which urges the WHO to recognize the cultural, medicinal, nutritional and social value of coca, the reject their stigmatization based on cocaine use and recommend their removal from international control lists.
“Efforts to reform coca policy must begin with the people who know the plant best (…) Indigenous peoples have sophisticated knowledge systems that have used coca to maintain balance in their communities and territories for millennia,” said the Peruvian anthropologist Claude Guislain, from the Indigenous Medicine Conservation Fund, mentioned in the statement.
Ricardo Soberón Garridoformer president of Peru’s National Commission for Development and Drug-Free Living, which coordinates drug policy and coca development strategies in the country, declared that “the coca leaf is not a narcotic, but a sacred and nutritious plant with deep cultural roots”, adding that removing it from the aforementioned list “would defend indigenous rights and align global policy with modern science”.
