COCA: “AND YET … it’s GOOD” …

“And yet … it moves” … so claimed Galileo Galilei about the movement of the Earth around the Sun and the immobility of the star King, supporting the Copernican theory; he was accused of heresy, neglected by his contemporary society and he died alone, abandoned and nearly blind; however nowadays no one would ever contradict the confirmed hypothesis of Galileo.

Erythroxylum Coca is a shrub about one meter tall, with bright green thin oval shaped leaves, a creamy white flowers and reddish oval fruits similar to berries; it grows on the slopes of the Andes going down to the Amazon, between 600 and 2000 meters above sea level, where it is cultivated.

The plant has a very few needs, adapting to any soil, drawing nourishment from even minimal resources; it produces three to four crops a year and one single plant can be productive even for a couple of decades.

The leaves of Coca are harvested creeping gently with the hands along the branches to tear them out, then they are stretched out for a few hours under the sun rays for a natural dehydration; the dried leaves have obviously a duration longer than the fresh ones, easing up their transport, in very good condition for sale, to the markets, especially in pre-Andean and Andean valleys and mountains.

According to the known nutrients and alkaloids of Coca, it is undeniable the relevant variety of its potential benefits, both for nutrition and health in general; I guess this fact is also proved by the survival of Andean People, despite the dramatic ups and downs in the course of their History, which might have easily led them to a genocide, if the sacred green Coca had not been with them and for them, as a constant presence and an inexhaustible source of energy.

About Coca it would be right to say: “And yet … it’s good” … and maybe in a few decades the green products with Coca will be on sale in natural food stores and supermarkets, no one being surprised about, unless a botanical genocide will be perpetrated … which will enter the ranks of the countless devastation of Humanity …

Therefore … ?What happened to throw the natural, cultural and apparently good Coca into the hell – as the one described by Dante Alighieri – where the Andean plant must currently be struggling?

Returning to its ancestral origins, it seems that the tragedy of Coca had been played – and is still played at present time – around a compelling event, namely the rupture or breach of the cultural cosmovision: in fact as long as Coca has been firmly anchored to its role of an Andean cultural emblem, there were no problems, but only benefits for all.

Unfortunately … in Germany, in 1859, Albert Niemann extracted the alkaloid methyl-benzoyl-ecgonine from Coca leaves, naming it … cocaine …

The initially highlighted local anesthetic properties of the alkaloid methyl-benzoyl-ecgonine ended up in a difficult handling, leading to the subsequent creation in the laboratory of synthetic derivatives, safer and easier to manage; however the damage was done, because the cosmovision of the sacred green Coca had been broken and the alkaloid wandered as a potential boomerang, unhooked from its unifying cultural system

Emphasizing the need for a fair and correct use of terms, the methyl-benzoyl-ecgonine, despite labeled as cocaine, remains one of the natural alkaloids of Coca, harmless in the integrity of the leaves. The confusing consonance of terms does not authorize to assimilate the natural alkaloid to the white powder, the protagonist of the circuits of drugs abuse and trafficking.

In the traditional use of Coca the natural cocaine signals its presence with a slight feeling of soreness of the oral mucosa, due to its anesthetic properties; consequently people jump to the conclusion .. diffuse, superficial and prejudicial for Andean People … that the stomach’s mucosa becomes anesthetized, resulting in a decrease of hunger’s sensation.

Luckily … the Science shows up, siding the Tradition, in support of the sacred green Coca; in another chapter the scientific evidences are described, reaffirming and confirming the Andean plant in its dignity, formerly only cultural, but becoming roundly completed by the evident and relevant beneficial values, in the light of the modern scientific results.

Certainly the various modalities of using and processing Coca, all including its natural alkaloid cocaine, depend upon a free choice made in a fully responsible way, nothing being predestinated on the way of Coca towards … GREEN or WHITE.

As a truly true truth … “And yet … it’s good”…