The Many Benefits of Coca — The “Divine Leaf” with 8,000+ Years of Use
In a Nutshell
Coca leaf is a safe, non-addictive traditional Andean medicine used for 8,000 years that normalizes blood sugar, treats GI disorders, boosts endurance, and elevates mood through the synergistic action of 14 alkaloids—not cocaine. Its Schedule I status stems from 1940s racist pseudoscience and colonial efforts to erase indigenous culture, not from evidence of harm, and the resulting prohibition has fueled cartels while blocking legitimate research and commerce. Legalizing commercial coca trade would deliver economic benefits to 250,000 Colombian farming families, open a milder natural stimulant to global consumers, and enable studies on its potential for metabolic disease, stimulant dependence, and safer alternatives to pharmaceuticals.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
After 60 years of the war on drugs and a trillion dollars spent, customs agents still could not distinguish coca from cocaine. This was compared to Elliot Ness seizing potatoes under the Volstead Act, noting that coca is to cocaine what potatoes are to vodka.
A traveler experienced severe altitude sickness upon arriving in Santiago and driving quickly to elevation for skiing. Locals provided coca leaf tea despite questionable legal status in Chile. Symptoms resolved within several hours and did not return, contrasting with slower relief from Diamox and multi-day acclimation periods even with medication.
Coca holds significant religious, cultural, and medicinal value among indigenous groups including the Kogis in Colombia, Peru, and other Andean regions. It functions similarly to peppermint and chamomile in European traditions as a primary medicinal plant.
Andy met coca in 1965 after his first year of medical school. His mentor, Dick Schultes (director of the Harvard Botanical Museum), directed him to chew coca while collecting medicinal plants in Peru. Andy has used coca continuously since then. Indigenous populations rely on it for gastrointestinal disorders, energy during physical labor, altitude sickness, mood enhancement, and metabolic support.
Andean populations often face nutritional challenges and consume high-starch diets with genetic predisposition to type 2 diabetes. Diabetes rates remain low when individuals maintain traditional diets, exercise, and chew coca. Rates increase significantly when people move to lower altitudes, stop chewing coca, and adopt diets similar to the blanco population in Peru. Coca appears to have a normalizing effect on blood sugar and metabolism.
Coca contains 14 alkaloids with similar chemical structures; cocaine is only one. None of the other alkaloids have been studied. The amount of cocaine present is small and extraction on a home scale is impractical, requiring tonnage of leaves. The beneficial effects reported for mental and physical health result from the synergistic action of the full compound complex rather than cocaine alone.
Despite coca's enormous historical, cultural, economic, scientific, and medical importance, research is almost entirely absent. Reasons for this lack of study are addressed later in the discussion.
Indigenous users report that coca treats both diarrhea and constipation. Cocaine alone stimulates the gut, which would help constipation but worsen diarrhea. Other coca alkaloids structurally resemble atropine and scopolamine (gut paralytics found in nightshade plants), creating a pharmacological paradox. The whole plant mixture allows the body to select the appropriate action based on current physiological needs and available receptors, demonstrating differences between whole-plant medicines and isolated compounds.
Coca serves as the primary treatment for all gastrointestinal disorders. Indigenous users also believe it improves nutrient absorption from food, particularly after high-starch meals. Without following such meals with coca, they report poorer metabolism of the food.
One study had Andean Indians ride exercise bikes while measuring blood sugar after a glucose load. Blood sugar normalized at any point when participants began chewing coca. This single older study highlights the need for additional research on metabolic effects.
Richard Evans Schultes was Wade Davis's mentor. Wade worked with Schultes as an undergraduate, which is how Wade and Andy first met.
Historical examples illustrate risks of isolating active compounds. Beta-carotene from foods supports vision, yet isolated beta-carotene supplementation proved problematic. While isolation has applications (such as aspirin versus white willow bark), premature conclusions about isolated compounds can overlook synergistic effects present in whole plants.
Coca has been used by virtually every Andean and Northwest Amazonian culture for 8,000 years with no evidence of toxicity or addiction. Wade's first encounter came through Tim Plowman, who introduced him to Andy. Tim Plowman and Jim Duke conducted the first nutritional study of coca, published in 1975, with Andy participating. The study revealed modest alkaloid absorption through oral mucous membranes, high vitamin and protein content, more calcium than any other plant studied, and enzymes potentially aiding carbohydrate digestion at high elevation.
Efforts to eradicate traditional coca fields began 60 years before any cocaine problem existed. The campaign targeted the cultural identity of indigenous peoples rather than cocaine pharmacology. Physicians in Lima identified social issues (illiteracy, poor nutrition, poverty) and blamed coca instead of addressing economic and land reform challenges.
Peru contains two distinct nations: the white European population centered in Lima using alcohol as its primary psychoactive substance, and the indigenous high-altitude and Amazonian populations using coca. These cultures have been in conflict since the colonial period. For European elites, coca chewing symbolized indigenous culture they sought to eradicate or assimilate.
A 1940s UN commission led by pharmaceutical executive Howard Fonda announced conclusions before departing New York and reiterated them upon arrival in Lima: coca must be eradicated. The commission spent three months meeting military officials, government representatives, and priests without interviewing any traditional users. The language used was explicitly racist. These same individuals authored the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which still governs international drug policy.
Coca leaf remains scheduled alongside fentanyl and heroin as one of the world's most dangerous substances. Efforts seek rescheduling to recognize medicinal potential or complete descheduling to enable a legitimate commercial market. Colombia has 250,000 families growing coca for survival. Legal export markets could generate tax revenue for peace processes after 60 years of war funded by prohibition profits. The global population would gain access to the plant's benefits.
The United States faces significant substance abuse problems, including stimulant abuse and reckless prescribing of stimulants to children.
Coca leaf tea produces a mild stimulant effect—less intense than half a cup of coffee—without subsequent crash. Tea is not the most efficient delivery method. Traditional use involves holding leaves in the mouth, moistening them, adding alkali to promote alkaloid absorption, and allowing slow diffusion into the bloodstream.
Lozenges or chewing gum could replicate traditional buccal absorption. A pouch delivery system similar to nicotine pouches is another possibility. The stimulant effect remains far milder than coffee or pharmaceutical stimulants.
Late 19th-century physicians traveling in Peru, aware of cocaine hazards but not reflexively condemning the leaf, documented remarkable endurance effects. One 78-year-old head of the British Medical Association walked across Scotland, climbed a mountain, and went without food, describing it as an ordinary day. Mortimer characterized coca as "the stimulant that's not a stimulant."
Users experience slight lightness of being, improved well-being, reduced existential anxiety, and enhanced focus without feeling under the influence. Effects support sustained concentration on creative or repetitive tasks throughout the day without harsh stimulation, enabling normal evening activities and next-day repetition. Coca aids weight management by reducing hunger and increasing desire for movement. Mood-elevating effects are significant.
Buccal coca use produces very mild effects. Unlike modafinil or amphetamines (Adderall, Ritalin), coca does not create immediate physical dependence upon cessation after several days of use. Tolerance may develop, but baseline function returns without the rebound requirement seen with caffeine or cocaine.
Coca's legal status has no relevance to cartels, which have profited from shipping cocaine for 50 years under prohibition. Legal commercial export markets would not affect existing controls on illicit cocaine production. Crop substitution programs fail because coca paste is far easier to transport than alternative crops like cacao or bananas. Deforestation has increased dramatically since Colombia's peace agreement as coca production expands into rainforest. Millions of acres of already cleared land could support coca cultivation.
Coca was domesticated three separate times in human history—an extremely rare occurrence. The wild progenitor is Erythroxylum gracilipes growing along the eastern Andean flanks from Venezuela to Bolivia. Domestication occurred in the montaña of Colombia, the Yungas of La Paz in Bolivia and Peru, and the Northwest Amazon. DNA analysis confirms all four cultivated varieties (two species, each with two varieties) descend from this single wild ancestor. In every location, it became the sacred plant of all plants.
Indigenous users create a k'intu—three perfect leaves arranged in a fan shape—blown upon while whispering prayers. When meeting on trails, users form a cruzeta (cross of three perfect leaves), raise it toward the highest sacred mountain, and blow the leaf's energy toward it. The metaphor compares this to clouds condensing to bring rain and fertility. Coca appears in every significant activity: field planting, tool storage, and social contracts. Anthropologist Catherine Allen noted that denying coca constitutes cultural genocide, as one cannot be runa (of the Andes and Pachamama) without proper coca use. Tourists stuffing leaves like horses eating hay cause particular offense.
The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta has the world's highest per capita coca consumption. Men constantly chew hayo (the local name for Erythroxylum novogranatense variety).
Indigenous groups such as the Arhuaco (referred to as novag granitensi) of Colombia and the Kogi (mamos) of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta view coca chewing as central to their identity. Chewing begins at the age when individuals marry and serves as an expression of cultural essence. These societies maintain the belief that their prayers sustain cosmic balance, making the act of chewing coca equivalent to being alive. Denial of coca access constitutes a form of existential eradication.
Indigenous peoples throughout the Americas retain legal rights to use coca in most jurisdictions. However, the illicit market has caused coca leaf prices to skyrocket, leading many communities to lose the tradition due to cost barriers.
The initiative extends beyond traditional use to advocate for the right of all peoples worldwide to benefit from coca. It is described as Latin America's greatest gift to the world, comparable to potatoes, and has been denied in ways that have proven unproductive.
Legalizing coca trade would yield multiple benefits: dramatic positive impact on indigenous land rights, reduced deforestation by eliminating the need to push cultivation to remote hidden areas, and improved economic viability for existing farming communities. Global availability could provide widespread benefits pending additional research.
A concern raised is whether farms could convert to legal trade without farmers becoming targets of cartels dependent on illicit production. The response notes that cartels in Colombia already operate with impunity and will continue producing cocaine regardless. The situation has worsened since the peace agreement, with production skyrocketing and parts of the country becoming inaccessible due to federal leadership failures.
Any transition would involve conflict, but the state would have an interest in protecting legal coca cultivation. The current chaos is not considered a reason to withhold legal markets from farm families who have long awaited this opportunity.
Rehabilitating coca requires a multi-pronged approach. Creating consumer demand in North America is identified as critical—if consumers want the product, the market will shift significantly. FDA-recognized approved uses must be established through research, as none currently exist. Potential applications include treatment of gastrointestinal disorders, substance abuse disorders, possibly ADHD as a safer stimulant alternative, and metabolic indications such as preventing or treating type 2 diabetes.
Most people remain unaware of coca's properties, associating it only with cocaine. A major effort sought UN rescheduling of coca at the request of Bolivia and Colombia, aiming to remove it from Schedule I status. The UN group in Vienna rejected descheduling and maintained the status quo. The rationale—that cocaine can be extracted from coca—was deemed illogical given that cartels already extract cocaine by the ton without restriction.
Coca remains Schedule I internationally despite being Schedule II in the United States. Movement on cannabis and psychedelics, driven partly by veterans seeking mental health treatments, suggests potential for similar progress on coca.
Policy makers, scientists (psychedelic-adjacent or stimulant-adjacent), and entrepreneurs are among potential listeners. Scientists are encouraged to investigate coca as an understudied plant with rich history, cultural relevance, chemistry, and pharmacological effects. Schedule II status in the United States makes research easier and less expensive than Schedule I substances.
Entrepreneurs are told that whoever successfully introduces coca commercially could generate enormous wealth, as it offers a superior natural stimulant compared to coffee—more effective, benign, and useful. Intellectual property claims are difficult given 8,000 years of traditional use. The plant itself is described as having agency and wanting to be known.
A film project is underway to positively celebrate coca and its traditions, framed as social justice, spiritual illumination, Andean prehistory, cultural celebration, and ethnographic richness. It also documents human rights violations and the plant's demonization, connecting to broader planetary relationship issues.
The Beneficial Plant Research Association was founded in the 1970s to research and promote lesser-known medicinal plants, with coca as the primary focus. The organization lapsed but was revived and is now described as robust with strong scientific involvement. The website is bp.org.
Matcha is cited as precedent—introduced years before mainstream acceptance and now experiencing demand that stresses Japanese production capacity. Coca is expected to take longer but is pursued with determination. Green powders are advocated, noting that both matcha and coca fit this category.
One strong scientific study demonstrating effects such as helping people transition from more dangerous stimulants, regulating carbohydrate metabolism, or preventing type 2 diabetes would serve as a proof of concept to catalyze further research and commercial development.
Coca is described as addressing the "monkey mind," moments of neurosis, and mild depression without creating a sense of being drugged or stimulated. Users report feeling simply where they want to be—more productive without the typical stimulant sensation. One speaker notes having written 24 books and made 50 films partly due to regular coca use.
The experience is characterized as a "learned" one. A memorable account describes lying in the sun above San José del Guaviare in Colombia after chewing coca, feeling complete contentment. Another describes walking away from mambe (an Amazonian coca preparation formed into green powder consumed entirely with ash admixture) with a spring in one's step, oblivious to humidity, feeling exactly where one wanted to be.
One speaker, turning 84 on the day of recording, attributes feeling good and receiving frequent comments on appearance to regular coca use.
Chris McCurdy, a medicinal pharmacologist at the University of Florida, serves on the Beneficial Plant Research Association board. He has extensive federal support for kratom studies and has become interested in coca. He is beginning research using whole coca leaves to disentangle effects of different alkaloids, with particular interest in carbohydrate metabolism regulation. He recently received legal leaf supply after navigating significant regulatory hurdles.
An earlier article proposed coca as a means to wean people off cocaine—a significant improvement. The possibility of studying coca for cocaine use disorder is noted, referencing work by Dr. Peter Hendricks on psilocybin combined with psychotherapy for cocaine use disorder.
Even Schedule II status creates complications because researchers cannot synthesize coca as they can with compounds like methylphenidate; they must obtain actual organic leaves, triggering importation and regulatory layers.
Properly powered studies require substantial funding. Early psilocybin depression studies at Johns Hopkins demonstrated that $50,000 could make a significant difference. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has shown willingness to fund coca-related studies. Nora Volkow of NIDA participated in Oval Office discussions regarding psychedelics, indicating potential openness to new research directions.
Canadian regulations are somewhat more favorable than U.S. regulations, though no definitive research developments are reported. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is identified as a potential ally—he was sent to Colombia by his family after his father's assassination, developed affection for the country, has participated in coca chewing with mamos, and understands the distinction between coca and cocaine. He also advocates moving psychiatry away from the biomedical model.
A 2020 Philadelphia International Airport seizure of 15 pounds of "green cocaine" (actually mambe) and brown tobacco paste illustrated ongoing ignorance. Customs agents celebrated the mambe seizure while ignoring tobacco, which kills 400,000 people annually yet remains legal. Analysis revealed only trivial cocaine content in the mambe. After 60 years and a trillion dollars spent, agents still could not distinguish coca from cocaine.
The comparison is made that coca is to cocaine as potatoes are to vodka, or that denying peaches would be justified by cardioactive glycosides in the pit. The war on drugs is characterized as a racist and colonial framework, with original scheduling documents containing language that would be immediately disqualifying today. The same individual (Harry Anslinger) behind reefer madness shaped coca policy.
Coca exemplifies failure in human relations with the natural world—confusing a whole plant with one isolated component and creating enormous problems as a result. Distinguishing whole plants and natural products from isolated compounds is emphasized; complex natural mixtures often work better and are safer than purified compounds.
The race through the mountains is completed through pure exhaustion, turning the physical sacrifice into something sacred. Wade Davis completed this race at age 48 as the oldest man and only outsider ever to finish it, relying on more coca chewed in a single day than anyone in the plant's 8,000-year history. The event expresses obligation and belonging by running the perimeter of ancestral lands, passing sacred mounds called hiktos and mahones where the waka must spin to bring feminine energy to the mountaintop and offer coca to Pachamama. The race functions as a ritual demonstrating both ownership of and responsibility to preserve the land.
Coca serves as a powerful cultural adjunct comparable to ayahuasca among the peoples of the anaconda. The run cannot be completed without coca, which acts as mediator. In syncretic Andean mythology, Antisima Maria was the first to taste the leaves; after losing the Christ child, her grief led her to sample coca, which gave her the spirit to continue. This story represents a fusion of pre-Columbian and Catholic elements but indicates coca's centrality in Andean existence.
Andy Weil identifies the confusion of a plant with one isolated element of it as a major problem in medicine. He wants to educate people about the difference between whole plants and their extracted components. Coca represents a perfect example of how modern society has gone wrong in its relationship with plants.
The speakers explicitly clarify they are not claiming all plants are safe. Whole plants differ fundamentally from isolated components; consuming hemlock tea, for example, remains dangerous regardless of this distinction.
English-speaking countries exhibit extreme fear of nature, with many people believing random backyard plants will kill them. The percentage of plants capable of serious harm is small; most unpalatable plants cause only stomach upset rather than death. An Austrian technical adviser to a major European supplement company observed this fear is particularly pronounced in the UK, Canada, Australia, the United States, and New Zealand, contrasting sharply with German-speaking Europe where nature is viewed as friendly, benign, and helpful, and medicinal plants see widespread use.
Fungalophobia represents one manifestation of this broader fear of nature. Wade Davis cares about coca both for personal benefits received and because it symbolizes everything he values as an anthropologist regarding culture and indigenous rights. He views coca prohibition as one of the most egregious violations of other cultures' rights and a denial of their genius.
When Peru qualified for the World Cup after a ten-year absence, the team captain tested positive for cocaine metabolites in a random drug test in São Paulo and faced removal from the squad. His lawyer contacted Wade Davis, who determined the player came from Lima, had visited Ayacucho or Cusco during Christmas, and stayed at the Monasterio Hotel in Cusco. That hotel maintains large vats of coca tea for altitude sickness, which the player consumed in quantity. The incident nearly became an international scandal due to misunderstanding the difference between the plant and the isolated drug. Peruvians take football extremely seriously.
Coca has always been defined by what it is not—cocaine. Andy Weil brings a plant-centered, ethnobotanical, and medical perspective, while Wade Davis comes from a background as a botanical explorer who became a storyteller, writer, and anthropologist. Coca embraced Davis at age 19 and has never released him; he feels a deep fidelity and considers liberating coca the final act of his professional life.
Davis maintains a profound emotional and spiritual bond with Andy Weil, viewing him as an older brother figure alongside Tim Plowman, both acolytes of Richard Evans Schultes. Davis joined them as the "kid brother." Plowman, the great botanical authority on coca, died tragically young at age 45 from AIDS. While preparing Plowman's eulogy, Davis conceived the book One River, a biography of Schultes. The current work continues partly in Plowman's memory.
Coca-Cola maintains a legal relationship with coca through the Maywood, New Jersey chemical company that manufactures cocaine under special U.S. government permission. The cocaine serves pharmaceutical purposes while the remaining leaves become a secret flavoring extract for Coca-Cola. The word "Cola" derives from the African kola nut, known for caffeine content.
Coca-Cola once operated a secret coca plantation in Hawaii. The only legal coca export from Peru goes to the Maywood facility; the leaves used are low-quality "trashy leaves" and "botanical sawdust" that neither Davis nor Weil would consume. The 1961 UN Convention on Narcotic Drugs contains one specific exclusion for coca solely for Coca-Cola's benefit.
Seven Up formerly contained lithium citrate. Older soda companies incorporated various active compounds into their formulations.
Pablo Oswaldo Wolff served as chief of the addiction-producing drugs section of the World Health Organization and an acolyte of the notorious anti-drug warrior responsible for "reefer madness" rhetoric. Wolff conceived and wrote the language demonizing coca in the 1961 UN Convention. In a lecture to the Royal Society of Medicine in London on the eve of the commission's departure to Peru, he stated:
"The India who does not chew coca leaves is clearsighted, intelligent and light-hearted, willing to work, vigorous and resistant to diseases. The coca chewer on the contrary is apathetic, lazy, insensitive to his environment. His mind is befogged. His emotional reactions are rare and violent. He is morally and intellectually anesthecized, socially subdued, almost a slave. Moral degeneration accompanies the physical. Lying is one of the outstanding characteristics, probably due to a lack of moral equilibrium. Criminality is high and barbaric forms of homicide can only be explained by a certain moral insensibility. We are convinced that coca leaf chewing is a social evil. The chronic consumption of these leaves constitutes a social poison which undermines the physical and mental health of the population. The children of coca chewers are markedly deficient in intelligence. There is no doubt that the habit of chewing coca leaves is one of the most powerful reasons for the backwardness and misery of the Indian population. The last link in a chain of social and medical scourges which include pauperism, bad housing conditions, deficient nutrition, rudimentary or completely absent education, alcoholism, tuberculosis, venereal disease and other infections and promiscuity to mention only the worst calamities and miseries."
Wolff advocated gradual "disintoxication" of native peoples, diminishing production and consumption through education, abolishing belief in the leaves' magical action, and prohibiting initiation of the young. He claimed Christianized Indians no longer lived in wretched conditions and could free themselves from coca. This language underpins the statutes still referenced in the 1961 UN Convention, recently reaffirmed by the UN World Health Organization's refusal to deschedule or reschedule coca.
The failure to conduct nutritional studies on coca earlier was not accidental. The 1970s nutritional study by Weil and Plowman could have occurred in the 1920s but was avoided because authorities did not want evidence affirming the plant's value. This represented a conscious attempt to demonize and eradicate coca for cultural, political, and power-related reasons rather than pharmacological, medical, or social ones.
Policy makers today may be unaware of the actual language in these foundational documents. Awareness of coca's benefits, combined with longitudinal productivity studies of moderate sustained use and properly funded scientific research, offers parallel tracks toward policy reconsideration. The documentary itself serves as an educational tool supporting both awareness and scientific exploration.
Simple physiological measurements, such as blood ketone levels during coca use under conditions of appetite suppression and physical vigor without food, remain unperformed despite being straightforward experiments.
Coca holds cultural, ecological, and economic importance. Conservation, indigenous land rights, health, and performance concerns all intersect with coca. Even individuals uninterested in South American issues might consider coca if they experience negative effects from coffee—fatigue after several cups, insomnia, dependency, and withdrawal headaches. Coca may not become immediately available, but it remains a deeply interesting subject for personal experimentation and education.
Resources include drweil.com for health information and the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona (awcim.org), which has graduated nearly 3,000 physicians and allied health professionals with intensive training including botanical medicine instruction. Wade Davis can be found at daviswade.com, with additional presence as Wade Davis Official on Instagram and @authorwadedavis. His book One River details the experiences of Davis, Plowman, and Schultes with coca.
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