Coca, the most misunderstood plant.
Coca, native to the Andes Mountains, may be the most misunderstood plant in the world. When you talk about coca, you will definitely think of cocaine. According to the 2017 World Drug Report, cocaine is the fifth largest drug in the world. In 2015, there were 17.1 million people using cocaine in the world, accounting for the total 6.7% of the population using drugs. In the United States, 6,784 people died of cocaine overdose in 2015 alone. In our country, cocaine is classified as a first-class drug along with heroin, morphine, and opium. The penalties are the heaviest whether it is manufactured, possessed, sold, or ingested.
The areas where coca is grown in Central and South America are mainly Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia. In order to solve the drug problem, the United States and Colombia launched the “Project Columbia “ in 1998–1999. They sprayed the coca-growing area with glyphosate (trade name: Nianchun 年年春). As a result, the coca developed resistance to glyphosate.
Cocaine is so terrible, should coca really be eliminated permanently? People in South American would disagree on that. In fact, coca is the sacred tree of the Incas. Before the fall of the Inca Empire, chewing coca leaves was only allowed for nobles, monks, soldiers, and messengers who performed missions. The history of the Incas chewing coca leaves can be traced back to the third or fourth millennium BC; the chewing of coca leaves can generally be added with potassium carbonate made from quinoa and lime. In this way, the ingredients in coca leaves — including cocaine and other aromatic compounds — will be released more thoroughly. Since half of the territory of the Inca Empire is located at a high altitude, Cusco, the capital, is located on a mountain at an altitude of 3,557 meters; chewing coca leaves can not only help resist mountain sickness, but also increase concentration and reduce food requirements. Even when Pope Francis visited Bolivia in 2015, he first drank coca leaf tea to prevent mountain sickness! Not to mention that the Inca monks merged with the gods by chewing on coca, so it is absolutely indispensable in the festival.
After the fall of the Inca Empire in November 1532, because coca was related to the religious ceremonies of the Incas, the Catholic Church soon decided in the Synod of Bishops held in Lima in 1569 that coca was harmful and should not be used.
Although the Catholic Church wanted to ban coca, due to the need for mining, coca was not banned, but was adopted by Spanish mine-owners in large numbers; especially after the discovery of the Potosi silver mine located on a mountain of 4,000 meters , The use of coca has become more widespread. The mine owners soon discovered that as long as the Inca miners’ coca leaves were given, the work efficiency was increased by 40% to 60%, and the demand for food was reduced by one-fifth to one-fourth. In addition, the introduction of the amalgam method by using mercury to dissolve the silver out of the ore can increase the output of silver by five times immediately. However, the use of mercury and coca severely harmed the lives of the Incas; between 1560–1620, about 10,000 Incas died every year.
When Friedrich Gaedcke (1828–1890) separated cocaine in 1855 and Albert Niemann (1834–1861) improved the extraction process in 1860, Europe could finally start producing cocaine. In 1884, Carl Koller (1857–1944) discovered that cocaine can be used for eye anesthesia, and later discovered that cocaine has other anesthetic functions, which made coca immediately worth a hundred times. In 1885, Parker-Davis Company sent the botanist Henry Rusby (1855–1940) to the jungles of Bolivia to find coca and other medicinal materials. The coca species found are planted in Java, Caribbean Islands, North America and other regions.
At that time, cocaine was thought to treat many diseases, and even Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), the founder of psychoanalysis, used it! The 28-year-old Freud decided to try the medicine after reading the report on the use of cocaine by the Germans in the Battle of Bavaria. After taking it, he felt good. Not only did he continue to use it, but he also prescribed cocaine to the patient. It was not until his friend Ernst von Fleischl-Marxow (1846–1891) died of a cocaine overdose that Freud stopped using coca.
In addition to medicinal purposes, coca is also used in beverages. In 1863, French chemist Angelo Mariani (1838–1914) soaked coca leaves in wine and named it “Mariani”. Due to the popularity of Mariani, John Pemberton (1831–1888), a pharmacist in Atlanta, USA, imitated Mariani to make “French Wine Cola” in 1884. Unexpectedly, Atlanta soon decided to ban the sale of alcoholic beverages. Pemberton had to improve the formula and rename the beverage “Coca cola”. Although the original Coca-Cola contained coca leaf extract, it has been eliminated from the current formula since 1903.
The use of cocaine is addictive, why would the Incas chew coca leaves without becoming addicted? The key is that they only chew young leaves, not mature leaves. Young leaves have lower cocaine and more of other aromatic compounds; these aromatic compounds are also good for the body. Coca leaves contain vitamin A, vitamin B2, vitamin B3, vitamin C, iron, phosphorus, and calcium. Just chewing two ounces is enough to provide a day’s vitamins. Among them, calcium content is especially high. Even a Bolivian minister once suggested that coca leaves should be used as a nutritional supplement for school children!
However, since the beginning of the chemical revolution, the western people believed that the effective ingredients of any substance can be reduced to a single compound. As a result, the cocaine that was extracted from the coca leaves became a drug, and it was so sad that the sacred tree of the Incas suffered injustice!
