Dennis McKenna is on a mission to end the ban on cocaine

Dennis McKenna, the ethnopharmacologist, is on a mission to end the prohibition of coca. “I’m not known as a proponent of coca,” he says, noting that he has gained recognition primarily for his work on ayahuasca and psilocybin mushrooms. “But this is a hugely important medicinal plant. It’s central to Andean culture and spirituality, and it’s been unfairly maligned and stigmatized. It could be developed in positive ways.”

In Latin America, coca is already used in products such as tea, chewing gum, beer, cosmetics and perfumes, as well as in Coca-Cola, which uses cocaine. part of the leaf to create its signature flavor. But coca, the source of cocaine, is perhaps the most misunderstood plant of all. Despite its long history of harmless—but beneficial—native use in the Andes, it was banned internationally and classified as a Schedule I drug along with cocaine in 1961. (The naturally occurring cocaine content of coca is less than 1 percent of the dried leaf weight.)

The US has launched a brutal crackdown on coca cultivation in Latin America – with fields sprayed from the air with glyphosate, a herbicide known for its role in weed control, despite fears it could cause cancer in humans – and traditional uses of the plant have suffered. But countries with a long history of coca use are increasingly resisting its full criminalisation, with the World Health Organisation due to announce its review of coca’s legal status in July. Campaigners hope this will lead to global decriminalisation.

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In February, McKenna Academy, in partnership with anthropologist Wade Davis, is hosting a multidisciplinary summit on coca called The Wisdom of the Leaf just outside Cusco, Peru. The organization hopes the event — which will feature former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos alongside author Dr. Andrew Weil and local indigenous leaders — will help highlight coca’s benefits and promise for the world.

“This is a substance that could be enormously beneficial to humanity,” Davis says. “To equate coca with cocaine is to equate potatoes with vodka,” he adds. “Coca is not only benign, but it’s also loaded with nutrients.” While coffee often has a strong effect on the stomach and makes people jittery, coca encourages a gentler focus and offers a more balanced sense of contentment, Davis says, suggesting that coca-based drugs could also offer an alternative to current amphetamine-based ADHD medications.

Coca entered the Western pharmacopeia in the late 19th century when pharmaceutical companies began exploring Latin America for new drugs. There were coca wines and cocaine toothache drops, and Coca-Cola originally contained cocaine. But when the addictive nature of cocaine became apparent, there was a backlash and there were few such products in Europe and North America after World War II, although cocaine-based drugs are still used in hospitals for some medicinal purposes.

Aside from the medical benefits, ending coca prohibition would ultimately restore justice to the people in the coca-growing countries of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia – most of whom have never seen, let alone consumed, cocaine, Davis says – and would open up more legal avenues for selling coca to rural farmers.

In Colombia alone, the war on drugs has led to the deaths of 400,000 people, with millions more internally displaced, “because of cocaine use and the failure of other countries to eliminate the black market through legalization,” Davis says. “There are 150,000 families in Colombia who grow coca to survive, and right now their only markets are the cartels. Why can’t we give them a legal product so they can start building their lives?”