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Cocaine Addiction In Peru, the Indians viewed coca as a natural dietary supplement that supplied needed calories, proteins, carbohydrates, as well as vitamins and minerals. Coca contained less than 1% cocaine, a drug that alleviated hunger and fatigue for human chewers and the same time repelled most insects and herbivores. They claimed that chewing coca was natural whereas stuffing your nose with the white powder was an unnatural, disgusting, even dangerous, practice.

The Indians took things as they were, heeding the bitter warnings of the more concentrated powder, respecting the natural packaging in the leaf. Coca became a useful medicine, and as far as we know no Indian ever died or even had a serious medical problem from eating the leaves.

Coca and Khat (to natives in northeast Africa and the Arabian peninsula Khat is the "flower of Paradise") stimulate the mind and ward off hunger and fatigue with almost no toxicity or abuse; the bitterness limits use to just so many leaves. But in countries where cultural recipes do not encourage leaf chewing, few would volunteer to take a step backward to the original plant, however safe that retreat would be.

It is possible, however, that such cultural phobias apply only to chewing the leaf. Millions of Americans found coca tea acceptable during a three-year national experiment that started in 1983. The experiment was the brainchild of the Peruvian government's National Enterprise of Coca. This agency controls Peru's coca industry by licensing producers and providing coca leaves to native consumers as well as to international pharmaceutical companies. They were seeking new markets in order to channel the country's enormous coca production into legal products and away from the illegal drug market. It was decided to export the native mate de coca, to the United States. The Peruvians were clever enough to add lemongrass and other flavors to make the taste acceptable to North American palates.

Importers in New York and other U.S. cities were told that the tea had been decocainized. Millions of tea bags with such labels as Health Inca Tea were sold through mail-order ads and in grocery and health-food stores. In San Francisco the National Addiction Research Foundation provided patients with as much of the Tea as they desired while detoxifying from cocaine. They reported that the tea was helpful in satisfying the patient's craving for cocaine itself. That result was hardly surprising due to the fact that the tea had not been decocainized. Each tea bag contained approximately five milligrams of cocaine, the same dose normally found in a single, small coke spoon of street cocaine. Rather than detoxifying, the patients were simply adjusting to a lower and slower-acting dose.

An article was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1986 revealing that by drinking an average of two cups per day, the effects indicated mild stimulation, mood elevation, and increased pulse rates but the intoxication was harmless. In spite of the findings the tea was declared illegal and the experiments with this over-the-counter cocaine package was over.

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