Coca leave Great for your health
 According to archaic indigenous beliefs, coca 'chewing' is essentially harmless. This was given a modern scientific vindication by the Peruvian pharmacologist, Fernando Cabieses Molina, who wrote just after the end of the Second World War that traditional coca consumption has certain features that distinguish it markedly from cocaine abuse. The amount of the cocaine alkaloid is, of course, far lower than in chemically pure extracts from the plant. By introducing the coca leaf orally its psychoactive properties are absorbed slowly and without ill effects by the digestive system. Coca is a naturally occurring mild plant stimulant (see also caffeine; sugar; tobacco; kola nuts) which has many traditional cultural uses in the Andean region, such as chewing or brewing in tea to alleviate stomach upsets and the effects of altitude sickness. Coca leaves can also be used as a highly effective compress on wounds, a well-recognized anti-nauseate (used in pregnancy, by the ill and by those affected by altitude sickness), and as a hunger-suppressant, most frequently utilized by Bolivian miners to prolong working stints. Coca leaves are among the most significant ritual items of the Quechua, Aymara and Mapuche cultural groups (descendants of the Inca civilization, and now numbering around eleven million people in the Andean region), who use them as sacrificial offerings to deities, as well as traditional items of ritual exchange, currency and cookery.
Distinguished visitors to Bolivia, including Pope John Paul II and Princess Anne have drunk coca tea (mate de coca) as it is the traditional way of avoiding altitude sickness. Impartial and scientific investigations have shown that regular use of coca is not harmful and no major social problems are known to have resulted from its traditional, and millennia-long, use in the Andes. This contradicts the claims of its ill-effects contained in reports by the United Nations and other official bodies, which seem to be based more on prejudice, ethnocentric bias, and the desire to portray the natural source of cocaine as negatively as possible in order to justify plans for eradicating coca in its homeland. Just so you know, to create one gram of cocaine, about one ton of coca leaves are needed. It is only possible to chew around thirty coca leaves in the mouth at any one time. The stimulating effects of this amount of coca can last for up to ten hours, if chewed constantly; longer if the wad is stored in the cheek and chewed periodically. The stimulation is roughly equivalent to the effects of two strong cups of coffee, or one over the counter caffeine tablet.
(From The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Substances by Richard Rudgley)
MATE DE COCA: Mate Coca is a medicinal tea made from the leaves of the Coca plant (Erythroxylum). This tea has been used for over four thousand years by the people of South America.
 Coca was and is still used at every stage of the Andean people’s lives. Before giving birth, a woman drinks and chews coca to hasten labor and ease the pain. When a child is born, relatives celebrate by chewing the coca leaf together. When a young man wants to marry a girl, he offers coca to her father. And when somebody dies, Mate De Coca is drunk at the wake and a small pile of leaves are placed in the coffin before burial. From ancient times, these rituals were considered sacred, and as such, the coca leaf continues to have a great significance in the culture of the Andean people. (from peruherbals.com) |
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