“This is a substance that can be of enormous benefit to humanity,” says Davis. “To equate coca with cocaine is to equate potatoes with vodka,”
Doubleblind
Dennis McKenna and anthropologist Wade Davis are working together to organize a movement dedicated to ending the vilification of the coca plant, and the persecution of its consumers.
ennis McKenna, the ethnopharmacologist, is on a mission to end the prohibition of coca. “I’m not known as an advocate for coca,” he says, noting that much of his recognition has been for work on ayahuasca and psilocybin mushrooms. “But this is a tremendously important medicinal plant. It’s at the heart of Andean culture and spirituality, and it’s been unfairly vilified and stigmatized. It could be developed in positive ways.”
Already, in Latin America, coca is being manufactured into products such as teas, chewing gums, beers, cosmetics, and perfumes, as well as Coca-Cola, which uses part of the leaf to form its signature flavor. But coca, the source of cocaine, is perhaps the most misunderstood plant of all. Despite its long history of harmless – but beneficial – Indigenous use in the Andes, it was internationally prohibited and classified as a Schedule I Drug along with cocaine in 1961. (Coca’s naturally occurring cocaine content is less than 1 percent of the leaf’s dried weight.)
The US led a violent crackdown on coca farming in Latin America – with fields sprayed from the air with glyphosate, an herbicide known for its role in weed control, despite fears that it could cause cancer among humans – and the traditional use of the plant suffered. But countries with a long history of coca use have increasingly pushed back against its complete criminalization and the World Health Organization is to announce its review of coca’s legal status in July. Campaigners hope it will lead to global decriminalization.
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Dennis McKenna Is on a Mission to End the Prohibition of Coca