Comments on: “La hoja de coca no es droga”

By: twinstrollerreviews

twinstrollerreviews — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 11:17:52 +0000

I lived half a year in a little village at 4200 metres altitude in the Bolivian Altiplano. Drinking tea made out of coca leafs was an everyday routine. We also chewed them as a relief for the soroche, the altitude sickness.

Coca is very much part of the Andean culture adn I doubt the US programs will be any more successful in erradicating coca in the future!

By: hans

hans — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 23:19:50 +0000

Hi I’m looking 10 or 15 kilos of coca leaves for chewing and to make tea. and would like to order 2 or 3 times a year
thanks Hans

By: Edwin

Edwin — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:24:54 +0000

Wanted to bring your attention to a new drink made from the “coca leaf.” It’s called Kuka, a coca leaf beverage, launching in NYC. would appreciate feed back, http://www.kukadrink.com.

By: GE releases 4Q earnings « Life in Peru

GE releases 4Q earnings « Life in Peru — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 13:48:46 +0000

[...] the final analysis, you may think I’m naive, just plain wrong or have been drinking too much coca tea. But GE and the rest of corporate America already know how to do business in the 20th century, so [...]

By: wwelvaert

wwelvaert — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 23:36:49 +0000

One of my students at ICPNA wrote this about the legend of the PICAFLOR of MachuPicchu:

In a lot of communities in the valley of Urubamba it is said that the Inka Pachakuteq ordered to build Machupicchu because the gods asked him for a place where they could have meetings. Pachakuteq accepted the order and entrusted the project to Haytapuma and Choquetarki, two famous architects in the Tahuantinsuyo.

But the men couldn’t bring the huge stones up the mountain to build MachuPicchu, and the architects told Pachakuteq. The Inka consulted the gods what to do about the problem the men were having.

One night, Pachakuteq had a dream with a little bird, a PICAFLOR. It was the PICAFLOR who told him the best way to build Machupicchu: the bird showed him the COCA, a sacred plant you must use to have energy.

The next day Pachakuteq told the Tahuantinsuyo his dream and they started the project

By: Norman Bie

Norman Bie — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:31:59 +0000

I have studied this issue for decades. The coca leaf chewed & made into tea (Erythroxylum coca) is known as Trujillo coca. It is harmless & legal in the United States. It is used to flavor Coke & Pepsi. Many people mistakenly think Coca-Cola stopped adding coca, but in fact, the company stopped adding the drug cocaine to the children’s soft drinks. Cocaine is no longer in Coke, but coca IS the main flavoring in both Coke & Pepsi. Coca tea tastes good & is very healthful. (Kola nut tea is also very good; it’s high in caffeine & similar compounds.) Trujillo coca contains minute amounts of cocaine; its effect is mainly from the other coca alkaloids.
The subspecies Erythroxylum coca boliviana, on the other hand is high in cocaine. It grows only in a 12-mile wide area high on the Eastern slope of the Bolivian Andes. No one chews it, because it is guarded by men with machine guns. No one defoliates it, because these paramilitaries use anti-aircraft weapons. (See the book Cocaine Politics.) The U.S. directs the defoliant ONLY against Trujillo coca, the harmless, non-drug kind. However, some of the Trujillo coca & other crops defoliated in Colombia are replaced by coca boliviana (as documented in Wired magazine). Based on this situation, the oldest coca boliviana crops in Colombia are only 10-years-old: Not old enough to produce cocaine yet. 15-year old coca boliviana crops IN Bolivia produce cocaine, but experts doubt if these transplanted coca crops can indeed produce commercial quantities of cocaine when they mature, because their latitude, altitude, climate & other growing current conditions are significantly altered from the natural habitat. In addition, any cocaine made from coca grown in the Agent-Orange-infected soil could be toxic.
For 25 years I have worked for the Church of the Tree of Life, which uses Trujillo coca as a sacrament, though it is usually unavailable in the United States EXCEPT in soft drinks. I know that Trujillo coca is harmless: I myself have consumed over 145 grams at one sitting, to no ill effects. Sincerely, Norman Bie.