HerbalGram Special Coca Issue: A Compelling Case to Reconsider Coca and Its Role as a Health-Promoting Botanical

Coca is most often thought of as being the plant source of cocaine, a medicine and drug of abuse. Coca is also a highly revered traditional medicine used by indigenous peoples of South America as a safe, nutritious, and effective daily source of energy-enhancement, a means to prevent altitude sickness, and as a remedy for a range of other benefits. 

Bringing together internationally recognized experts from multiple disciplines, the special HerbalGram issue (#147) explores in some depth the plant’s fascinating history, traditional uses and ethnobotany, and modern scientific research, along with the legal and regulatory landscape surrounding it.

This is HerbalGram’s first themed issue since issue 124 in 2019, which focused on the effects of the climate crisis on medicinal and aromatic plants. As part of ABC’s nonprofit mission to provide accurate scientific information on herbs and medicinal plants, this special coca issue will help to lay rest to some of the misinformation surrounding the frequently-vilified coca plant and bring attention to the nutritional and therapeutic benefits it provides to indigenous communities in the Andes and beyond. ABC hopes that the articles in HerbalGram will result in a much-needed change in perspective among policy makers, members of the scientific and medical communities, business leaders, and consumers about this beneficial and commercially underutilized plant. 

Featured coca-related content in this issue of HerbalGram includes articles and photography on the following subjects:

• “The Sacred Leaf,” an in-depth feature by renowned anthropologist, ethnobotanist, and author Wade Davis, PhD, on coca’s cultural and spiritual significance in the Andes and Amazon.
• An inside look at Peru’s National Coca Company (ENACO) by “Medicine Hunter” Chris Kilham, examining the organization’s role in the legal coca trade, as well as its connection to Coca-Cola^®.
• An overview of the development of a coca botanical drug candidate written by ethnobotanist Steven King, PhD, of Magdalena Biosciences, exploring current clinical research on coca leaf extract for use as a promising USFDA-approved medicine. He also contributed a book review, photography, and expert feedback on much of the issue’s content.
• A feature on the interdisciplinary Khoka Project by Susana Mejía and Daniel Montoya-Cataño, highlighting the Medellin, Columbia’s initiative’s efforts to change public perception of coca through art and science.
• A comprehensive Coca Herb Profile by Traci Pantuso, ND, MS, of the Beneficial Plants Research Association (BPRA).
• A conference report by ethnopharmacologist Dennis McKenna, PhD, covering a 2025 summit of research scientists and coca experts conducting research on coca.

In addition, ABC’s YouTube channel, HerbTV, is releasing an 11-part video series called “On The Coca Trail,” featuring Medicine Hunter Chris Kilham and his coca-related travels in the Peruvian Andes in June 2026. The series showcases never-before-seen footage of ENACO (Empresa Nacional de la Coca S.A.), the Peruvian national coca company, Kilham and his Peruvian project partner Sergio Cam were given unusual unrestricted access to ENACO facilities in Lima and other parts of Peru. The two were also allowed to photograph and video ENACO coca buyers in the Andes mountains.

View the special coca playlist here, which also features a coca discussion in an ABC interview with coca expert and integrative medicine pioneer, Andrew Weil, MD. 

ABC is an award-winning, independent, nonprofit research and education organization dedicated to providing accurate and reliable information for consumers, health care practitioners, researchers, educators, industry, and the media. ABC’s educational materials cover science-based and traditional uses of herbs, medicinal plants, herbal teas, phytomedicines, essential oils, medicinal fungi, and other natural products, as well as authenticity, adulteration, and sustainability topics. ABC publications and web-based resources are extensively peer reviewed and include a vast selection of articles from ABC’s peer-reviewed quarterly journal HerbalGram, plus periodicals, books, monographs, safety reviews, searchable online databases, and more. These also include HerbTV, an herb-based YouTube channel, and the ABC-AHP-NCNPR Botanical Adulterants Prevention Program, the world’s leading nonprofit consortium producing educational publications to combat adulteration and fraud in the global market for herbs, botanical extracts, and essential oils. ABC is an international organization headquartered in a historic building surrounded by 2.5 acres of medicinal plant gardens in Austin, Texas.