The coca plant is native to western South America and for thousands of years has been an important plant to the Andean people of Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Argentina.
To the rest of the world coca is best known as the source of cocaine. To the people of the Andes, coca is both a practical and a religious plant that is used nearly everyday. In fact, coca leaves have been found with mummified corpses in burial sites that are over 3000 years old in various locations all over Peru and Bolivia.
The coca leaf is frequently used for medicinal purposes. It acts as a mild stimulant as well as suppresses hunger, thirst, pain, and fatigue. Coca has also been documented to help those suffering from the effects of high altitude.
Technically, the coca plant itself is not a drug. The coca leaf contains .8% cocaine and the cocaine cannot be isolated from the leaves without a complicated chemical process. However, since coca is the raw ingredient of cocaine, it is highly regulated in Peru; it can only be legally sold through a government agency that licenses individual stores to sell coca leaves for acceptable uses.
In eastern Peru, I had the opportunity to visit one of the government approved coca farms and learn about this plant and how it is used in the Andes (and around the world).
Usually coca leaves are chewed. According to a study from 1978, 92% of men in the Andes and 82% of women in the Andes chew coca leaves. Archeologists have found pottery from many different cultures depicting human figures with lumps in their cheeks to symbolize the chewing of coca leaves even in ancient times.
However, coca leaves can also be used in tea or ground into flours and used in cookies and candies, as well as many topical products such as lotions and lip balms.
Coca leaves are harvested by hand several times per year. The leaves are then dried in the sun on plastic sheets for several days.
After they are dried, the leaves are sold to large industries or individual users. Of course, much coca is sold illegally as well.
Coca was chewed for over 4500 years in the Andes without problems. It wasn’t until 1858 that a German chemist (Albert Neimann) isolated the cocaine alkaloid from the coca leaf. Not long after, problems began to arise with the coca plant. Interestingly, there is an Andean legend: “When the white conqueror touched the coca leaf all he found was venom for his body and madness for his mind.”
It takes 297 grams of dried coca leaf to make one gram of cocaine. It also takes a complicated chemical process which includes powdered cement, gasoline, and sulfuric acid.
There is much debate about whether the coca leaf by itself is a problem. In recent times, the governments of Peru, Bolivia and Venezuela, have defended and championed the traditional uses of coca, as well as the modern uses of the leaf and its extracts in household products. The Presidents of these countries have frequently said: "la coca no es cocaína"(the coca leaf is not cocaine). However, in most non-Andean countries, possession of coca leaves is considered the same as possession of cocaine (despite the fact that cocaine has to be extracted chemically).
One more interesting fact: even if you think you’ve never tried coca, I’m sure you have!
In 1887, John Pemberton of Atlanta, Georgia, created the popular beverage Coca-Cola and named it after its primary ingredient: coca leaves. Rest assured, since 1904, the cocaine alkaloid has been separated from the coca leaves before they are purchased by the Coca-Cola company. But coca leaves are still used today to flavor your favorite Coke!
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