# Why isn't the Coca tree cultivated outside South America? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 30, 2003, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-coca-tree-cultivated-outside-south-america/172118 "2003-04-30T11:47:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![owlstretchingtime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/958977/32.png) [@owlstretchingtime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/owlstretchingtime)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2003, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-coca-tree-cultivated-outside-south-america/172118/1 "2003-04-30T11:47:50Z")
Will it not grow anywhere else in the world? What about under glass, which given the profit margings on cocaine would surely still be cost effective? All other narcotic plants are grown widely, opium in the middle east and the far east, and parts of old Russia, Marijuana everywhere including bedroom cupboards and so on, yet Coca seems to be only cultivated in S America. Why? ps I’m not advocating cultivating it, just asking why it isn’t ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2003, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-coca-tree-cultivated-outside-south-america/172118/2 "2003-04-30T12:00:57Z")
I heard this on Radio 4 a few weeks ago - 1. the conditions it needs to grow are very specific and difficult to replicate even in greenhouses; 2. the amount of coca plants needed to make a usable amount of cocaine is huge, making detection more likely; 3. a lab is needed to process the leaves afterwards. In other words, it’s not like growing weed, which can just be picked, dried and sold/smoked. ---
**Author:** ![owlstretchingtime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/958977/32.png) [@owlstretchingtime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/owlstretchingtime)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2003, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-coca-tree-cultivated-outside-south-america/172118/3 "2003-04-30T12:05:39Z")
So, for instance, an allotment in Putney wouldn’t be any good? There goes my scarface fantasy. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2003, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-coca-tree-cultivated-outside-south-america/172118/4 "2003-04-30T12:11:33Z")
Where can you get good Inca peasant farmers in Putney these days, anyway? ---
**Author:** ![Yossarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/9de0a6/32.png) [@Yossarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yossarian)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2003, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-coca-tree-cultivated-outside-south-america/172118/5 "2003-04-30T12:13:13Z")
Plus, Cocaine doesn’t come packaged with its own starter kit (i.e., seeds) like Marijuana does. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2003, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-coca-tree-cultivated-outside-south-america/172118/6 "2003-04-30T13:06:18Z")
The better question is: Why isn’t the cacao tree cultivated outside South America? Mmmm…a chocolate tree in the backyard. ---
**Author:** ![chukhung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e79b87/32.png) [@chukhung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chukhung)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2003, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-coca-tree-cultivated-outside-south-america/172118/7 "2003-04-30T13:13:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BrotherCadfael \* > **The better question is: Why isn’t the cacao tree cultivated outside South America?** Huh? You can find cacao grown just about anywhere in the tropics if it’s wet enough. From this site, [http://sres.anu.edu.au/associated/fpt/nwfp/cacao/cacao.html](http://sres.anu.edu.au/associated/fpt/nwfp/cacao/cacao.html) > [@](#): > > As the demand for cocoa increased in Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, cacao became a pan-tropical crop. Firstly, cacao spread to Trinidad and other islands in the Caribbean from where it was taken furthur to the Philipines and the East Indies, and then to Sri Lanka, Brazil and West Africa. This meant that there was some level of production of cacao in most humid tropic countries. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2003, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-coca-tree-cultivated-outside-south-america/172118/8 "2003-04-30T13:31:38Z")
Yeah, but it won’t grow in Vermont! ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2003, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-coca-tree-cultivated-outside-south-america/172118/9 "2003-04-30T13:41:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by owlstretchingtime \* > \*\*So, for instance, an allotment in Putney wouldn’t be any good? > > There goes my scarface fantasy. \*\* “Mother of God, … is… this the end of owlstretchingtime?” ---
**Author:** ![Dogface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@Dogface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogface)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2003, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-coca-tree-cultivated-outside-south-america/172118/10 "2003-04-30T20:28:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BrotherCadfael \* > **The better question is: Why isn’t the cacao tree cultivated outside South America?** The Ivory Coast (Africa) produces more than 50% of the world’s cacao (much of it with slave labor). [http://www.thestreet.com/pf/options/futurestensetsc/10079661.html](http://www.thestreet.com/pf/options/futurestensetsc/10079661.html) [http://ezdragon.cortland.edu/log/us/us828/us828.htm](http://ezdragon.cortland.edu/log/us/us828/us828.htm) [http://www.american.edu/TED/chocolate-slave.htm](http://www.american.edu/TED/chocolate-slave.htm) Of course, France is working very hard to “stabilize” the area. That they end up installing a friendly puppet government in control of more than 50% of the world’s cacao has nothing to do with it, nossirree. ---
**Author:** ![sunstone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunstone/32/3372_2.png) [@sunstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sunstone)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2003, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-coca-tree-cultivated-outside-south-america/172118/11 "2003-05-01T01:08:01Z")
I think you need to realise that the Coca tree produces the “beans” that are used to produce chocolate. Chocalate is legal everywhere as far as I know. Cocaine is the produce from an entirely different plant. Observing my wife, I think chocolate may be a habituating drug too. ---
**Author:** ![occ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8c91f0/32.png) [@occ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/occ)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2003, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-coca-tree-cultivated-outside-south-america/172118/12 "2003-05-01T01:15:55Z")
Another reason, perhaps the main one, is that it’s very difficult to start a coca plant. Coca seeds are apparently very difficult to keep alive for any amount of time; its not the kind of plant where you could simply buy a little packet from Burpee and toss the seeds in the ground. You’d probably need to smuggle an existing plant out of an area where its currently grown, and keep it nice and healthy until you got back to your place. In other words, you’d need to walk up to customs with a live coca plant, after having come from a country notorious for producing coca plants. Keeping the plant from being destroyed pretty much equals keeping it visible to anyone who takes two glances. I have no cite for this, unfortunately, but I’m fairly certain I remember seeing a similar question on the boards at one point. ---
**Author:** ![effac3d](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@effac3d](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/effac3d)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2003, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-coca-tree-cultivated-outside-south-america/172118/13 "2003-05-01T04:10:11Z")
Isn’t it a bush instead of a tree? It wouldn’t be hard to hide a coca bush in your yard,they look fairly beinign,not like cannibis’s distinctive look 😉 And what would the affect be of smoking or ingesting coca leaves? Very,very mild cocaine? I remember reading about the Incas chewing the leaves as a mild stimulant. ---
**Author:** ![Dogface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@Dogface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogface)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2003, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-coca-tree-cultivated-outside-south-america/172118/14 "2003-05-01T05:39:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sunstone \* > \*\*I think you need to realise that the Coca tree produces the “beans” that are used to produce chocolate. Chocalate is legal everywhere as far as I know. > > Cocaine is the produce from an entirely different plant.\*\* You are mistaking “cacao” with “coca”. Cacao is _Theobroma cacao_ and produces pods that are the source of chocolate. Coca is _Erythroxylum coca_ and cocaine can be purified from its leaves (or from the leaves of many other species in genus _Erythroxylum_. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2003, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-coca-tree-cultivated-outside-south-america/172118/15 "2003-05-01T06:01:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sunstone \*I think you need to realise that the Coca tree produces the “beans” that are used to produce chocolate. > > Observing my wife, I think chocolate may be a habituating drug too. I once tried to tell my mother that since it came from “beans”, chocolate counted as a ‘vegetable’. And that I needed 5 servings a day. Didn’t get very far with that argument. ---
**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2003, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-coca-tree-cultivated-outside-south-america/172118/16 "2003-05-01T09:16:10Z")
Try the same with Coca and lettuce. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2003, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-coca-tree-cultivated-outside-south-america/172118/17 "2003-05-01T12:40:43Z")
I’m well aware of the difference between coca and cocao. I’m even cognizent of the fact that cocao is indeed grown outside of South America. I just wish I could have a chocolate tree in my backyard. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![owlstretchingtime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/958977/32.png) [@owlstretchingtime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/owlstretchingtime)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2003, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-coca-tree-cultivated-outside-south-america/172118/18 "2003-05-01T13:24:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by astro \* > \*\*“Mother of God, … is… this the end of owlstretchingtime?” \*\* Probably not. It just means that I am going to have to continue working for a living. Drat. ---
**Author:** ![JillGat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9fc29f/32.png) [@JillGat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JillGat)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2003, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-coca-tree-cultivated-outside-south-america/172118/19 "2003-06-04T02:19:06Z")
Cocoa grows in Trinidad and Tobago, sometimes in the wild where plantations used to be. Interestingly enough, the pulpy fruit around the cocoa seeds is really sweet and good, too. Not chocolaty though, more like a soursop fruit.