Log in to see images!

Erythroxylum coca is native to north-western South America. The plant plays a significant role in traditional Andean culture.

The pharmacologically active ingredient of coca is the alkaloid cocaine; other alkaloids, including methylecgonine cinnamate, benzoylecgonine, truxilline, hydroxytropacocaine, tropacocaine, ecgonine, cuscohygrine, dihydrocuscohygrine, nicotine and hygrine are also present in the leaf. When chewed, coca acts as a mild stimulant and suppresses hunger, thirst, pain, and fatigue.

Although coca leaf chewing is common only among the indigenous populations, the consumption of coca tea (Mate de coca) is common among all sectors of society in the Andean countries.

Traditional medical uses of coca are foremost as a stimulant to overcome fatigue, hunger, and thirst. It is considered particularly effective against altitude sickness. It also is used as an anaesthetic to alleviate the pain of headache, rheumatism, wounds and sores, etc.

Coca is used industrially in the cosmetics and food industries. Coca-Cola, which contained cocaine until 1903, is now flavoured with “spent” coca leaves — those that have been through a cocaine extraction process — prepared by the Stepan Company in Maywood, New Jersey, using a process monitored by the Drug Enforcement Administration. Coca leaves are also a natural flavouring ingredient in Red Bull Cola, launched in March 2008.

Something I have long wondered: Wouldn’t a by-product of de-cocainized coca leaves be… cocaine? What is this Stepan company doing with all of that “byproduct?”