Part I How It All Started with Cocaine
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Part I How It All Started with Cocaine Before there was cocaine, in the beginning there was coca, “The divine plant of the Incas”. The section will describe the plant, what it looks like, where it grows, what is in it (i.e. the alkaloids), its history, who uses it and how it is abused. Coca must be considered separately from its principal alkaloid cocaine, because there’s much more to coca than just cocaine. The coca plant, being a rather innocuous looking bush (Fig. 3), is the source of cocaine and several other alkaloids. It is believed that the name originates from the Aymara Indians of pre-Inca Bolivia (prior to the tenth century AD), where coca literally means “plant” or “tree”, suggesting that it entails that “the plant” is even “the plant of all plants”. The only identified coca plants that have attributed to the production of cocaine are the Erythroxylum coca and the Erthroxylum novogranatense plants. In this regard coca is a member of the genus Erythroxylum, in which are found at least 17 species that are known to contain the alkaloid cocaine. The two species that are widely cultivated for their cocaine and other alkaloids are: 1. Erythroxylum Coca (E. coca); the most prized because its cocaine content is the highest (up to 90% of the total alkaloidal content or 1–1.8% of the total weight of the leaf). E. coca is also known as the Huanaco or Bolivian leaf. A variety of E. coca (Ipadu) grows in the Amazon region, but it has a much lower cocaine content. 2. The other principal species of Erythroxylum is Erythroxylum Novogranatense. This plant grows mostly in the mountains of Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. There are several varieties of this species, two of which are: (a) Truxillense (Trujillo or Peruvian leaf) which is the variety used to flavor beverages such as Coca Cola, and the (b) Javanese variety (Java Coca) from Indonesia, which supplied most of the world’s pharmaceutical cocaine prior to World War II. Illicit growers use whatever leaves they can get, and often transplant varieties of coca plants to areas previously not used for cultivation. The Amazon basin is one such area. 6 How It All Started with Cocaine Fig. 3 The coca plant has elliptical leaves commonly with a small white flowering bud Erythroxylum novogranatense is mostly grown in the Colombian and Central America countries. In Columbia it grows in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta Mountains where there is extreme heat and drought. It differs from Erythroxylum coca in its color, texture, and odor. Its cocaine content is much lower then the Erythoxylum coca plant. Although the plants may have different appearance, the cocaine alkaloid in the two coca plants set them apart from others. Erythroxylum coca, widely known as Huanco, grows along the eastern slopes of Bolivia and Peru. It grows in altitudes from 500–1,500 m. It spreads a hay-like odor and only grows in extremely humid and wet conditions. Soil composition and weather conditions determine the strength of the coca leaves as well. The cocaine production comes in 95% from the Erythroxylum coca (Fig. 4). Botanical Characteristics of Coca Leaves 7 Fig. 4 The different countries in South America involved in the production of illicit cocaine Botanical Characteristics of Coca Leaves Coca is primarily a mountain plant, although it has been grown in a variety of climatic zones. These plants live a long time, and are hard to destroy. The bushes are normally cut back to 3–6 ft in order to facilitate picking. There are only a few plants per acre, but a lot of leaves are needed to produce a small amount of cocaine. Attempts to grow E. coca in other soil and different climate conditions failed to produce good yields. Hence, farming in the US and/or Europe was given up. This is unlike some other illegal plants such as marijuana and certain mushrooms, which, because of their yields, have been grown in commercial quantities. Coca plants are usually found on terraced hillsides where they have been cultivated for centuries, and so little grows wild anymore. A farm for growing coca is called a “cocale”, while growers and chewers of coca are known as “coqueros” (Fig. 5). 8 How It All Started with Cocaine Fig. 5 Terrace-like neat rows of coca plants are carefully tended. This is rarely the case in illicit plots found in forest areas or in the jungle. A good “cocale” may have as many as 7,000 plants per acre.