An Indigenous Nasa community set out to offer farmers an alternative to the drug trade, but the project collapsed under the weight of U.S. pressure and international prohibitions.
In April, Colombia’s first legal coca-processing laboratory shut its doors. Built in the mountains of the department of Cauca by Nasa Indigenous communities with support from a Canadian start-up, the facility has produced more than 400 tons of organic fertilizer from coca leaves. Named Nasa Wala, the project aimed to offer farmers a legal alternative to the drug economy that has dominated the war-torn region for decades. “This was our opportunity to turn blood into life,” says Victoriano Piñacué, a Nasa leader who spearheaded the initiative. Instead, the laboratory now stands idle on the banks of the Páez River, a closed building surrounded by the same coca fields that feed the global cocaine trade.
The laboratory is located in the Cohetando Indigenous reserve. On the surface, life seems peaceful: small farms, lush mountains, and the roaring Páez River. But behind the calm lies the constant presence of the Dagoberto Ramos Front, a dissident faction of the former FARC guerrilla group. It is one of several armed groups competing for drug revenues in Cauca, a department that contains around 8.5 percent of the world’s coca crop. Residents speak of informal curfews, night checkpoints, and a system of lookouts who monitor every vehicle on the narrow road that leads to the lab. Here, the guerrilleros act as both judges and executioners.
But none of that seems apparent when Piñacué opens the door to Nasa Wala’s modern laboratory: test tubes, flasks, and machines ready for production. Today, there is no electricity, but everything is clean and tidy. It is as if the 30 workers who used to work at the plant were about to start their shift at any moment.
The idea for the project was born during the pandemic, when three neighboring Nasa reserves joined forces with Canadian company Power Leaves to build and supply the lab. Instead of selling leaves for cocaine production, they would turn coca into fertilizer, flavorings, even soft drinks. But there was a catch: under international law, the coca leaf is classified as a narcotic, leaving any derivative product in legal limbo. To move forward, Piñacué would have to convince the Colombian government to open the door to regulation.
From Promise to Paralysis
In 1961, the international community signed the United Nations’ Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs in New York. The treaty classified the coca bush in the same category as cocaine and heroin, ordered the eradication of coca crop, and even banned coca chewing—a long-standing Indigenous tradition.
“The review carried out to justify this was racist and contrary to human rights. It sought to eliminate a species that is part of the world’s botanical wealth and tied to the cultural heritage of Andean and Amazonian peoples,” says Andrés López, a consultant and former director of Colombia’s National Narcotics Fund.
That framework locked Colombia into a prohibitionist model for decades: forced eradication, aerial fumigation, and the criminalization of the entire production chain. Impoverished farmers who grew coca as their only means of survival were caught in the crossfire. “The coca leaf itself is not narcotic,” Piñacué argues. “Cocaine is produced only when it’s combined with other components like ether, caustic soda, sodium permanganate, and gasoline. Should we also ban those products? Why is it our fault that some German scientists created cocaine?”
After decades of persecution, the window Piñacué had been waiting for seemed to open in 2022, when Gustavo Petro took office as Colombia’s first leftist president.
After decades of persecution, the window Piñacué had been waiting for seemed to open in 2022, when Gustavo Petro took office as Colombia’s first leftist president. Petro came to power vowing to end the country’s failed war on drugs—a theme he has carried to global stages from the UN to regional summits—and his development plan included, for the first time, the possibility of regulating non-psychoactive uses of coca. The Cohetando lab quickly became a showcase for this new vision. Vice President Francia Márquez visited the site and praised it: “This sacred and blessed plant must once again be a source of life, not of death,” she told the community.
Interest spread quickly. “It felt good to use coca for the development of our people, not for harm. We were all very excited,” says Jaime Quiguanás, an Indigenous farmer from the Calderas reserve who sold leaves to Nasa Wala. By December 2023, Colombia’s Agricultural Institute (ICA) granted the project the country’s first registration for an organic fertilizer made with coca.
With both political and technical approval in place, the community believed the final green light was imminent. Since Indigenous peoples in Colombia are already allowed to cultivate coca and make traditional products, the Nasa Wala only needed a decree authorizing commercialization nationwide. Two drafts circulated, raising hopes across coca-growing regions. But the final signature never came. In April 2025, Piñacué announced the lab’s closure. Most of those who had sold their leaves to the project returned to selling to traffickers.
The International Prohibition Regime Looms Large
There was no single reason why the government’s decree stalled. People interviewed for this article that are familiar with the internal discussions reported that part of the resistance came from within Indigenous movements themselves, who feared handing over control of the coca leaf to foreign multinationals. Others pointed to the constant cabinet changes in Petro’s government.
But a larger obstacle may have come from beyond Colombia’s borders. “Regulating coca means opening up the possibility of increased cultivation. How will the rest of the world react when the country that produces the most cocaine expands its coca fields—even for legal purposes? Not everyone will stomach that,” argues López.
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Sean Hocking
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