Pharmacology 101: Why the Effects of Coca Are Different to Cocaine

Transcript Abstract

The condemnation of coca chewing in the 1950 UN-ECOSOC report, as well as the subsequent deliberations at the WHO which led to the inclusion of coca leaf in List 1 of the 1961 Single Convention, studiously avoided – in their treatment of coca chewing – any discussion of the marked differences in the route and rate of absorption of coca alkaloids by this method, as opposed to the much more rapid methods of assimilation of cocaine in hydrochloride or free-base form. As well as notable dissimilarities in the composition of whole leaves and refined chemical products, these pharmacological differences in “uptake” go a long way to explaining the surprising contrasts in subjective effects, as well as the marked discrepancies in cultural attitudes to coca and cocaine. The absence of any consideration of a “drug user’s perspective” in early official documents is now being redressed by active campaigns in defence of the coca leaf, and is leading to a long overdue reconsideration of its potential benefits as a substitute for cocaine. This paper will address the policy ramifications of the emergence of new patterns of coca use in the last thirty years – some of them entirely innovative, but many based on long-standing historical and ethnographic precedents.