Coca Leaf: Myths and Reality

Coca Leaf: Myths and Reality

1. What is coca?
   
   Coca is a plant with a complex array of mineral nutrients, essential oils, and varied compounds with greater or lesser pharmacological effects – one of which happens to be the alkaloid cocaine, which in its concentrated, synthesized form is a stimulant with possible addictive properties.
   
   The coca leaf has been chewed and brewed for tea traditionally for centuries among its indigenous peoples in the Andean region – and does not cause any harm and is beneficial to human health.

The traditional method of chewing coca leaf, called acullico, consists of keeping a saliva-soaked ball of coca leaves in the mouth together with an alkaline substance that assists in extracting cocaine from the leaves.

When chewed, coca acts as a mild stimulant and suppresses hunger, thirst, pain, and fatigue. It helps overcome altitude sickness. Coca chewing and drinking of coca tea is carried out daily by millions of people in the Andes without problems, and is considered sacred within indigenous cultures. Coca tea is widely used, even outside the Andean Amazon region. Coca has an established use spread among all social classes, in two Northern provinces of Argentina. There is an increasing use of coca flour as a food supplement.
   
   Because of its stimulant effect coca leaf was originally used in the soft drink Coca Cola. In 1903 it was removed and a decocainized coca extract is one of the flavouring ingredients.

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• Further reading: Coca Myths, Drugs & Conflict Debate Papers Nr. 17, June 2009 

2.  What is its relationship to cocaine?
   
   While the coca leaf in its natural form is a harmless and mild stimulant comparable to coffee, there is no doubt that cocaine can be extracted from the coca leaf. Without coca there would be no cocaine. The 'ready extractability' of cocaine from coca leaves is currently the major argument to justify the current illegal status of the leaf in the 1961 Single Convention. The cocaine alkaloid content in coca leaf ranges between 0,5 and 1,0 percent.

Cocaine, was isolated about 1860 and was synthesized to be used in manufacturing popular patent medicines, beverages and "tonics" until the early years of the 20th century. Concern about cocaine use began in many countries in the 1910s and 1920s, centred on dependence on the drug and subsequent "moral ruin", particularly among the young. Laws restricting the availability of cocaine saw a drop in consumption in most of the countries surveyed from the 1920s until the 1960s.