AFAIU the Amerindians in the Andes did this back under the Incas and are happy to keep doing it to this day despite government “anti-drug” propaganda. So why didn’t white people in the region adopt the practice en masse let’s say in the 19th century, before the government got to passing laws against the practice and enforcing them for whites?
Did whites not consider it to be of much benefit, unlike Amerindians? Did they consider it to be a barbaric practice to be avoided precisely because Amerindians did it? Were early adopters unable to learn safe practices from the Amerindian culture and so became “horror stories” to discourage further experimentation, kind of like extreme alcoholics from cultures not used to alcohol? Did they actually do it widely back then but subsequently abandoned the practice in the 20th century?
Cocaine was widely used in patent medicines in the 19th century. Coca leaves were a common product and, yes, really were used in the very early versions of Coca-Cola. Freud and others used cocaine medicinally and gave it their imprimatur. It was far cheaper to process the leaves for the active ingredient than to import them by the bushel in order to be able to chew them as natives would, so the leaves themselves never were commonly sold in the U.S. to consumers.
Deaths and addictions from cocaine were so common that a 1912 report listed the death toll from opium and cocaine to be 5000. The Harrison Narcotic Tax Act was passed in response and became effective March 1, 1915. Cocaine along with heroin and opium were regulated and taxed out of the public sphere.
The history of patent medicines is the history of drugs. They were a way of getting drugs, including alcohol, into places where the drug itself was forbidden or regulated or disapproved of. Because they were unregulated and the ingredients hidden, overdosing was frequent, overuse was ubiquitous, and poisonings rampant. It was the heyday of libertarianism.
What makes you think they didn’t? What make you think they don’t now? Coca tea and chewing coca leaves are legal in both Peru and Bolivia, and culturally accepted. A few years ago Peru’s president recommended the use of coca leaves in salads.
When I’ve traveled in Peru, I’ve had coca tea in small restaurants and hotels, where it is generally available. Perhaps more people of indigenous ancestry use it; but its use is not limited to them. In any case, indigenous people (45%) and mestizos (37%) make up a majority of the population; those of mainly European ancestry make up only 15% of the population and are found mainly in the coastal cities rather than in the highlands. Since coca tea is especially favored against the effects of altitude, this could tend to minimize its use among those of European ancestry.
I think most of the questions in your OP are based on unfounded assumptions.
got it, Colibri’s answer covers the OP questions well.
Exapno Mapcase’s answer seems to go off on an irrelevant tangent rhetorically battling American libertarianism. What does the American death toll from morphine and cocaine combined (LOL - why not add alcohol into the mix to decrease clarity even further and to make the stats even more exciting for the wowsers amongst us) have to do with the practices of white people living near the Andean highlands.
I think, though (and I’m unsure and am subject to correction) that most mestizos would adopt the main customs of the European ancestry. This may be highly country dependent, but in general “western” cultures are the norm, despite the ancestry.
Possibly. However, in Peru the use of coca leaves to the best of my knowledge appears to be accepted in the mestizo population, whatever its status among those of primarily European ancestry.
Incidentally, the Harrison law went a bit farther with cocaine in particular, completely eliminating it from availability without a prescription. By contrast, at least some of the less potent opiate preparations remained available OTC, much like Schedule V products today, which do not require a prescription unless the local jurisdiction imposes a stricter law.
The Coca-Cola company had removed cocaine from its formula about ten years previously, but has continued to use decocainized leaves for flavor.
1.) I read somewhere, recently (but i don’t recall where) that coca leaves are offered for hospitality in some places down there, and that people will exchange leaves as a sign of greeting. I have to admit that I’ve never been down there, and am unfamiliar with Andean culture, but is it possible that the OP’s assumption isn’t true? That coca use has, to some degree, become part of the culture there?
2.) In Larry Gonick’s Cartoon History series, he has an imagined scene where one conquistador "rides’ another for coca chewing – “What beautiful green teeth you have!” I doubt if something as trivial as discoloration of teeth would stop people (it clearly doesn’t deter coca chewers, or betel nut chewers), but the attitude of “the natives do it” might put significant social pressure on to avoid the practice. In Mexico, i know, social stratification was pretty pronounced, with the peninsulares looking down on the local-born Spanish, who looked down on and had a battery of terms for various types of interbred people and the natives. Assuming, of course, that coca use wasn’t avoided.
People were aware of the consequences of drug use back then. The best way to avoid those consequences is to never start the habit. This would be easier to do if a practice wasn’t part of your culture.
Besides the actual pharmacological effects of the drugs, one should bear in mind that each of the main categories of these drugs was associated with an ethnic minority generally despised by the mainstream white population. Newspapers published lurid, hyped up accounts of “Negro Cocaine Fiends” (sic), and Chinese and Mexican immigrants became the bogeymen in similar items about opium and cannabis respectively. To suggest that the drug prohibitions were imposed by the powers that be purely out of a noble desire to protect the public health is not tenable, IMO.
I wouldn’t equate chewing coca leaves to “drug use” though. In its non-refined and non-processed form, the effects from coca leaves are comparable to caffeine or nicotine. The leaves are not powerfully addicting like purified cocaine is.
Nevertheless, note that this cuts both ways. If you encounter cocaine in the form of a “negro cocaine fiend” you may form a very bad impression of it. Just like you may form a very bad impression of alcohol from seeing final stage alcoholics, minority or otherwise. But if you encounter the apparently mild coca use prevalent among your nice neighbors, the Amerindians in the Andes, you might have an entirely different perception of the issue.
The point about Chinese opium and Mexican marijuana to me seem less relevant because their effects are arguably deleterious even in the very short term. Not only is opium addictive, but the characteristic way it has been used in smoking dens sounds like “getting real drunk, the new and improved version”. By contrast, AFAIU people don’t get drunk on coca, they get more diligent and less prone to hunger.
Then again, presumably the old Coca Cola had a similar effect on millions of satisfied American consumers, and then they banned it anyway. To better fight the negro cocaine fiends or something.