#871: The “Divine Leaf” with 8,000+ Years of Use — Exploring the Many Benefits of Coca with Dr. Andrew Weil and Wade Davis

26:41So I think that's something we could do. By the way, I should also mention that through an accident of history, coca is in Schedule 2 of the Controlled Substances Act, not Schedule 1 like cannabis and psychedelics. And Schedule 2 is substances that have a high potential for abuse but have recognized therapeutic application. It's only there because cocaine has limited uses as a medical drug in ophthalmology and dentistry. But that makes it a little easier, you know, to leverage coca out of that controlled substance box. It's just a matter of demonstrating that there are therapeutic applications that the FDA could approve.

27:21Tim Ferriss:All right, so I want to fill in a gap and then come back to problem solving. But before we get to the problem solving and policy work, I'll plant a seed, which is if these farmers suddenly could legally ship product for export or domestic use in the form of coca, could they actually get around the cartel or would they be putting a bullseye on their forehead? That's a question, not for now, but for later. What I'd like to talk about first is the indigenous cultural context in which coca is used and its importance, right? Because as you mentioned, I mean, it's not exactly ubiquitous in South America, but in a handful of countries, coca is considered, for lack of a better term, a master plant and a sacred plant.

28:12First of all, there are four different varieties that Tim Plowman identified of cultivated coca, and two species each with two different varieties. And we now know that from DNA analysis that the progenitor of all four varieties was a wild coca called Erythroxum grassolipis that grows along the eastern flanks of the Andes, in the Ceja de la Montaña, all the way from Venezuela down to Bolivia. And what this means is that at three times in pre-Columbian history, human beings came upon this delicate little shrub in the forest with all fruit the color and the size of rubies and beautiful little white flowers and delicate foliage and said, ha, that's the one.

28:59And it was domesticated three times in the montagna of Colombia, in the yungas of La Paz in Bolivia and Peru, and in the Northwest Amazon. And that is extremely rare in the history of plant domestication. And not only was it domesticated three times, everywhere it was domesticated, it was deemed to be the plant of all plants, the sacred plant. And that was its status through all of at least 8 ,000 years and remains its status amongst those who use the plant today. Today, you know, if you watch Indigenous people using coca, very often they make what's called a quinta, which is an offering. They take three perfect leaves and put them together in a fan shape and blow on them and will whisper prayers to them.

29:51And this is very common. It's more than that, Andy. When people meet on the trail, they make a cruceta of leaves and then they lift it to the highest sacred mountain.

30:00Tim Ferriss:What is a cruceta just to provide context for people? little cross of three leaves, three perfect leaves. And you, first of all, you point it to the mountain and then you blow the energy of leaf to the mountain. And the metaphor is the energy leaf like in the same way the cloud condenses to bring rain and fertility to soil. So too, this is creating your sort of connection to landscape. And every single thing that happens in the Andes, a field is planted, coca is sprinkled, tools are brought back in the evening, coca is given to them. Coca appears as a symbol of the social contract and the social nexus of people.

30:40This is why it's so important, as the anthropologist Catherine Allen said, is that to deny people coca in the Andes is not like denying the Germans beer or the British tea or the French coffee. It's actually an act of cultural genocide because you cannot be runa kuna. You cannot be of the Andes, a pachamama, if you do not use the leaves, and you must use them properly. And nothing causes more offense than tourists who stuff their leaves, as the people say, like horses eating hay. And in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, where the highest consumption of coca in the world, men are constantly chewing hayo.

31:22Tim Ferriss:What is hayo? Hayo is the name of coca in Zambia. That is erythrox of Novogranitensi. a variety of Nova Granitense, which is a coca of Colombia, and the coca used today by the mamas of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. But they contemplate the day to come. They contemplate the day that they've lived. You begin to chew leaves when you are of an age to marry. And so the chewing of leaves is the expression of the essence of who you are as a people. And that happens to be a culture that believes that their prayers literally maintain the cosmic balance of the world. And so in all these societies, the act of chewing coca is an act of being alive.

32:02And to be denied the use of coca is to suffer a kind of existential eradication that is complete. Now, to be fair, indigenous people throughout the Americas have the right to use coca in most jurisdictions. But of course, the cost of coca has skyrocketed with the illicit market. And so there are many communities where the tradition of using coca is being lost simply because of the price of the leaves. But again, the issue for us, I think, in our initiative is not just the traditional use of leaf, but the right of all peoples in all places in the world to benefit from the incredible gift that this plant represents.

32:44It's Latin America's greatest gift to the world, and it's one that's been denied in a way that's been incredibly unproductive.

32:51Tim Ferriss:I want to ask a follow-up. I guess potatoes are a pretty good gift too, right? So let me come back. I promised to do a call back to the question that I had bookmarked. Doing homework for this in conversation with you guys, also lots of text messages and so on. I mean, it seems like there are many reasons that if one could wave a magic wand to create a licit trade of coca, it would be a good idea. You would have dramatic impact on indigenous land rights. You would curtail deforestation because things wouldn't be pushed to the outer edges where they can be better hidden. Certainly the sustenance and viability of these communities who are already operating farms, not to mention the potential global impact.

33:33Tim Ferriss:If this were to be more widely available, certainly pending or parallel with lots more research, there's a lot of good that could come of it. Could these farms be converted to legal trade without these farmers having a bullseye painted on their head by cartel who are dependent on them for producing their product? It's not as if the cartels are going to roll over and say, oh, go great, sell your tea to Andy Weil Inc. On the other hand, the point is that the cartels are already out of control in Colombia and doing whatever they want anyway. And they will continue to grow coca as they want to grow coca and continue to produce enormous quantities of illicit cocaine.

34:17Whether or not individuals will be free to grow coca with impunity, obviously there's going to be conflict. If the state has a national interest in the cultivation, illicit cultivation of coca, they'll have an interest in protecting those who are growing the coca. It's not going to be some kind of smooth transition. But the point is the situation in Columbia, for example, is already completely chaotic. The production having skyrocketed since the peace agreement and parts of the country now being inaccessible. And that's really a failure of leadership by the federal state. I don't think that's a reason not to move forward with creating illicit product for the farm families who have been waiting for this.

35:02Tim Ferriss:Andy, maybe you could speak to this next just to rotate here. What is the wedge in the door? This would be a big long-term undertaking to rehabilitate coca. So what are sort of tangible next steps you think would move the needle in a positive direction? Is it funding research? Is it pilot programs of some type for legal products? What do you think? I think it's got to be multi-pronged. One is creating consumer demand for it, you know, creating a market in North America for coca. If people want, if consumers want it, that will move the needle quite a bit. Secondly, there have to be FDA recognized approved uses of it, which there now are not.

35:42And that has to be demonstrated, has to be supported by research. Some obvious ones are for the treatment of GI disorders or treatment of substance abuse disorders. I think possibly for treatment of ADHD, for example, with a much safer stimulant. I think the metabolic indications that there's great potential there, that needs some research to demonstrate that. But if this shows potential for preventing or treating type 2 diabetes, that would be enormous. And I think we can make a list of these things. So I think we've got to work on all these fronts. But to me, the first thing is making people aware of what coca is.

36:22Most people don't know anything about it. And if they do, they just think of it as the source of cocaine. So that's where we're starting. There was a big effort and a very hopeful effort to get the UN to reschedule coca. And this was done at the request of both the Bolivian and the Colombian governments. And the hope, as I mentioned, was that coca would be taken out of schedule. Andy mentioned that coca is in Schedule II in the United States, but by the international statutes of the UN, it's still Schedule 1. And the goal was to try to get it completely descheduled as a benign plant that it is.

37:00The group that met in Vienna decided against that and to maintain the status quo to the disappointment of all advocates. And the rationale was a little strange. The reason that coca remained the equivalent of fentanyl is that cocaine could be extracted from coca. Well, everybody knows that. and the fact that nothing stopped the cartels extracting cocaine by the ton. So it made no sense, that logic. But because of that, coca remained scheduled. That was a big disappointment, but that effort continues. But we are seeing movement in the U.S. There's been movement with cannabis. There's been movement with psychedelics.

37:38A lot of this has been, I think, promoted by veterans demanding access to these treatments for mental health conditions. But things finally have loosened up. And maybe as part of that momentum, we can introduce discussions of coca and getting some movement there as well.

37:57Tim Ferriss:I think it's possible. My sort of pragmatic hat is always wondering, well, if we have many, many, many people listening to this podcast, they're probably policymakers. There are individuals certainly who say to themselves, hey, I would love to cut down on my coffee. Maybe give coca a spin. Sounds mild. Maybe doing a few days of that would be wonderful. but I don't know what then their next step is or how the demand or interest is harnessed in a way that leads to broader change. Do you have any thoughts on getting specific stakeholders to take any next steps? Chances are you have people from every possible walk listening to this.

38:38Tim Ferriss:You likely have scientists who are perhaps psychedelic adjacent. Maybe they are stimulant adjacent who are interested. Of course, there's a fundraising question, but that's solvable, I think. I would be willing to help fund some research. What else can be done? Well, to the scientists, I would say, you know, this is an incredibly interesting plant with a fascinating history, cultural relevance, chemistry, pharmacological effects, and it hasn't been studied. You know, it's just waiting there. This would be a rich subject for investigation. So I would think that people, scientists who are curious about things of this sort, medicinal plants, medical botany, natural products, would want to take a look at this.

39:24Tim Ferriss:I'll just say because it's Schedule 2 versus Schedule 1, it makes presumably the process for researching it much easier and much less expensive. But I would say, Tim, to the entrepreneurs who might be listening, the person who manages to crack this nut has the potential to make enormous wealth. Because I think the qualities of Coca are such that they could very easily compete on the level that coffee is presented to the world. It's just a much, much better natural stimulant, a more effective one, a more benign one, a more useful one. So when the dam breaks, it will be enormous. And again, you have issues of intellectual property, but this is a plant that's been used for 8 ,000 years by everybody.

40:09It's very difficult for anyone to claim the intellectual rights to this plant. And as some good friends of mine say, in this case, the plant itself has agency, you know, and the plant wants to be known to people. And the other element of this is storytelling. I mean, Andy and I are in the midst of raising funds to make a film that will celebrate, in a positive sense, coca and the whole tradition. And it's a story of social justice. It's a story of spiritual illumination. It's a story of Andean prehistory. Incredible story of cultural celebration, ethnographic richness. And I think if people embraced this story, they would be deeply moved.

40:51And at the same time, it's also a story of incredible violation of human rights. And the egregious way by which this plant has been demonized speaks to larger issues that we face as we try to find a way to live on this planet. So I think the story is so rich. And Wade and I have been involved in an effort to rehabilitate coca for some time. In the 1970s, I started a not-for-profit foundation called the Beneficial Plant Research Association, whose aim was to conduct research, make people aware of lesser-known medicinal plants. And the main one we focused on was coca. We were way ahead of our time, but we had wonderful people involved in this effort.

41:37And the group lapsed, but I revived it a couple of years ago, and it's now very robust. We have some really great scientists behind it. I would urge listeners to check our website, which is bpra.org, and read about the COCA project and what we are involved with.

41:56Tim Ferriss:Bpra.org, is that right? Yeah. If people were interested in potentially supporting the film, is that where they should go to contact folks? Yes. Okay. All right. So that's one that people can latch on to. Now, Wade, you were delivering a summons, a call to action to entrepreneurs. As luck would have it, we may have an entrepreneur in our midst known for True Food Kitchen, not only matcha curry. So, Andrew, if you were going to market and you're like, you know what, let me pave the way. I'm not saying that's your plan, but if you decided I want to be the first to introduce coca, coca curry, you could come up with, I'm sure that you could do a line extension.

42:38Tim Ferriss:Fantastic matcha for people who are interested. By the way, matcha and coca are both green powders. So I'm an advocate of green powders. And, you know, matcha has just, when I, this is another one that I got interested in way before its time. And I tried for a number of years to introduce it here unsuccessfully. And now it has become, I mean, it is just unbelievable. It's the worldwide demand for it has completely stressed Japan's capacity to produce it. So, you know, that took maybe 15, 20 years for me to get that going. Coca is probably going to take a little longer, but I am determined. All right.

43:12Tim Ferriss:So what would be the levers or perhaps dominoes is a better metaphor that you would want to tip over on the path to introducing Coca as a commercial product? Even just one good study clearly demonstrating one of these effects that we've talked about of helping people get off much more dangerous stimulants or regulating carbohydrate metabolism, helping to prevent type 2 diabetes. Wade, what do you think? Focusing on what Andy and I know from our personal experiences is how fantastic Coke is, how it works. I think all of us, Tim, as conscious human beings, suffer from these kind of afflictions that the Buddhists talk about.

43:56You know, this little monkey mind, these sort of little moments of neuroses or even depression. Oh, you're lucky.

44:02Tim Ferriss:Moments. Thank God. I would pay to have moments. And, you know, I know I'll say something very personal. I mean, I have two daughters and they have both of them for different reasons have been on some of these serotonin uptake inhibitors, you know, Prozac and never Ritalin. But, you know, I've watched that. And what I experienced in my life, which is a very productive life, is that I function perfectly well without coke. Just like old Schultes used to say, he chewed coke every day in the Amazon. He didn't chew it in Boston. I find that if I run out of coke, my life goes on. It's just not as nice a life and it's not as productive a life.

44:38But what I find is that I'm as susceptible as anybody to mood swings, to existential despair, whatever we call it. I think this is part of the human condition. In the same way, the death is the price we pay for the glory of being alive. I think some of these little mental fuck-ups are what we pay for for the price of being conscious. And that's the whole thing about coca is that it takes care of that. Without having any sense that you've been drugged or even stimulated, you just find that stuff flitting your way. And it just makes for a more productive life. I've written 24 books, Tim, and I made 50 films.

45:15Oh, he's so productive. And I just smile like this. Yes, your cat. Of course I am. And Andy knows exactly how and why. I think probably, Andy, I both share a certain frustration that you can't talk people into this sort of show, don't tell. And it's so subtle. I remember the first time I ever really got behind Coke. It was in Paramo above Sibandoy in Colombia. And Tim and I had gotten a bunch of leaves in Sylvia. And Tim was never one to rush a situation that was himself inherently pleasant. And so he just laid back in the sun. And, you know, I had been with the mamas, but I hadn't really discovered the plant.

45:54I mean, Andy will tell you, you have to, you create a learned experience with these plants. And suddenly, I just felt like I was just where I wanted to be. And that's what Andy says. When Andy, and I've quoted him many times, first went to the gubeo in, it was 73, wasn't it, Andy? Yes. And there's a beautiful passage in one of Andy's essays where he exposed a mambi for the first time. Mambi, by the way, for the audience, is just an Amazonian form of coca. it becomes a green powder like matcha and you don't use it with an admixture the admixture is the ashes placed in the preparation so you end up swallowing the whole the whole thing and you absorb the nutrients and so on but anyway so Andy had been exposed to Mambi and the next day with the men they gather around this calabash and he you know he walks away as I walked away in the northwest Amazon with a spring to your feet oblivious to the humidity as Andy said in that wonderful passage, swinging my machete and feeling that I was just where I wanted to be.

46:58And I think that's a really great summation of the subjective effects of cocoa. And can I say, I attribute at least some of my well-being to regular use of coca. By the way, today is my birthday, and I'm 84, and I feel pretty good. Yeah, you look great. Yeah, people always comment on how good I look and so forth. And I have to say coca has contributed to that.

47:26Tim Ferriss:All right. I have many more questions, but I'll try to contain, I could probably use some more coca to get this ADHD, OCD under control. But are there, for people who have heard and maybe latched onto something you said earlier, which is one good scientific study, right? But I'm a firm believer in this because I've been very active on trying to establish firsts, pilots that might be a proof of concept that then catalyze more research, etc. Are there any particular researchers who people could look to fund? Let me mention one who was on our board of beneficial plants, and that's Chris McCurdy, who is a medicinal pharmacologist.

48:10How do you spell the last name? M-C, capital C-U-R-D-Y, Christopher McBride. He's University of Florida. He is the main person who's researched Kratom and has a lot of federal support for his studies of Kratom. And I met with him and got him interested in coca. And he was determined to, you know, do a study of this. Now, I will just tell you, it has been a very torturous route for him to get leaves legally to study. But he finally, just this week, got his supply. I mean, you would not believe the red tape. Why is it so hard? Because this is the problem with coca, you know, that it's just all these regulations and fear about it and confusion with cocaine.

48:50Anyway, he's a very interesting person to talk to, but he has set up, he's just about to get going. He's doing animal research first, but is going to check, is using whole coca, trying to disentangle the effects of the different alkaloids. But one of his interests is looking at this possibility of regulating carbohydrate metabolism. He's the main person at the moment that I know of who is doing research in this area, and he's very good.

49:16Tim Ferriss:Yeah, I was wondering, I looked him up while we were talking. Might not be a fit, might be a fit, but Dr. Peter Hendricks has done some interesting work, mostly looking at, well, I shouldn't say mostly, but perhaps best known for looking at the potential use of psilocybin combined with psychotherapy as a promising treatment for cocaine use disorder. So there might be room for looking at, as strange as it might sound to people, coca for cocaine use disorder. That might be too hard to sell. I proposed that in an article that I wrote long ago saying that this would be one of the possible uses to wean people off of cocaine onto coca.

49:55That would be a big step up.

49:56Tim Ferriss:you know i had not even thought about and i feel foolish realize that even if it's schedule two if you are say using methylphenidate aka ritalin or something else you just synthesize the damn stuff whereas if you have to get actual organic coca leaves that adds a whole different layer of headache in terms of procuring it right because now you're dealing with importation and this, that, and the other thing. Yeah, I hadn't even thought about that wrinkle. There's always a wrinkle. Okay. And for someone like Christopher McCurdy, how much do research studies like this cost? Do you have any ballpark for folks?

50:38Tim Ferriss:In my experience, it's like, okay, the number of subjects determines a lot of the cost. So if you want to power the study, if you want to try to get a properly powered study, maybe you want to increase the scope for more people to participate, et cetera. But do you have any idea? And I know you're not speaking for him, but do you have any idea what something like that might cost? More than you would think. So, you know, that is a challenge. But, you know, Chris has found that the federal government and National Institute on Drug Abuse is willing to fund these studies. So that's very promising.

51:10Tim Ferriss:Yeah. I had Nora Volkoff of NIDA on the podcast a couple of years ago, and it was a really good conversation. and she was in the, I don't know if this is public, might have to scratch it, but she was in the Oval Office for the executive order related to psychedelics. And I was like, man, that's awesome. And she's so brilliant. So I don't know what her current status is within NIDA. She might still be running it, but there seems to be a sea change afoot. So the timing could be very serendipitous to try to kick something off now, particularly on the research front. For people who might be wondering, I'll just throw out some numbers.

51:49Tim Ferriss:I mean, early on, this is 2015, helping to fund some of the initial psilocybin studies looking at depression at Hopkins. I mean, for 50K, you could make a huge, huge, huge difference. It's not necessarily millions of people. It depends on, again, the size, the ambition, and you don't want to be penny wise and pound foolish, right? If you can fund more and you want to drive the possibility for a statistically meaningful outcome that is suitable for publishing and defensible, then maybe you write a bigger check. Especially if you're going to wait all that time because science is pretty slow when it's done properly.

52:28Tell us anything about what's going on in Canada because the regulations in Canada are a little more favorable than they are in the U.S. And there are some research interests up there. There's nothing really definitive. I mean, I think one opening in the States could be Bobby Kennedy. I've been with Bobby, few people know, but when his father was killed, was sent by the family to Columbia, and he fell in love with Columbia. And I've been in Columbia with Bobby with the mamas chewing coca. He totally understands the plant, and he certainly understands the distinction between coca and the alkaloid cocaine.

53:01So I think there's an opening there, which could be very promising. And one area that I very much agree with him on is his initiative to change psychiatry and move it away from the biomedical model, which I think has really failed us. I mean, I think this whole Coca story, you slam up against the whole failure of the war on drugs and the ideology of the war on drugs. There's a very funny account where in October, end of October 2020, there was this bust at the Philadelphia International Airport of 15 pounds of what was called green cocaine. and the customs agents sort of heralded this great sign of the vigilance of their colleagues and so on.

53:47And anyone who knew anything about anything could see that that green cocaine was mombay. And also in the bus was a brown paste, which everybody knew would have been a tobacco paste. Now, tobacco kills 400 ,000 people every year, but it's legal. So this was not of concern to the agents, but the green cocaine was. and they analyzed it and discovered it had some cocaine in it. Trivial amounts, so that if anyone had tried to snort the mamba, they just sort of plugged their nose most unpleasantly with a powder, the consistency of talcum powder. But the thing that was so disturbing about the bust is that after 60 years of war on drugs, you had customs agents who still didn't know the difference between coca and cocaine.

54:34after expending a trillion dollars on this failed campaign. And that was really the equivalent, if you think about it, of Elliot Ness busting a truckload of potatoes in violation of the Volstead Act. Coca is to cocaine what potatoes are to vodka. That's a good comparison.

54:52Tim Ferriss:I like that. Or a peach. We don't deny us the right to enjoy the luscious fruit of a peach because of the cardioactive glycosides found within the pit of a peach, right? not to kind of push the metaphor, but they're truly apples and oranges. When you combine that kind of in-the-moment idiocy, together with the really pernicious history by which this plant has been demonized, I mean, Andy said earlier that these countries remain countries of conquered and conqueror. And in this era where we're so sensitive to language, if people were aware of the language, and I wrote a long piece for Rolling Stone called The Secret History of Coca, The language being used by those who crafted the very documents that we live by to this day is so hideous that it would cause anybody to be immediately dismissed from any position in our country today.

55:49And yet that language, accusing COCA users of being pornography, I mean, you can't, because they make this stuff up. And it was all driven by the same guy, Enslinger, who gave us reefer madness. And so we're still living by that mindset, which has been utterly exposed as a racist and colonial conceit that it was. And also, I think that coca is the most perfect example of how we've gone wrong in our relations with the natural world. You know, really failing to see that plant for what it is, confusing it with this one component of it, and then getting ourselves in enormous amounts of trouble. And in my career as a physician, I have worked for years and years to help people understand the differences between whole plants, natural products, and isolated compounds.

56:40I mean, I think isolated compounds have their place in medicine, but very often I see that these complex natural mixtures work better, are much safer, often have effects that we don't have, but pure compounds that work for. Coke is a perfect example of that. And Andy, when you say that, you know, relation to the natural world in a social sense, it's expressed in Peru as well. I mean, one of the great rituals I've participated in is called the Mojimiento. It's out of Cusco, where once each year, the fastest young boy in every hamlet is given the gift of becoming a woman. And he has to lead all able-bodied men on this ritual run.

57:16But it's not your ordinary run. You start off at 11 ,500 feet, run down to the base of the sacred mountain, Antiquilca, 9 ,000 feet. then you run to over 16 ,000 feet, and you fall over two soaring Andean ridges. Over the course of this 24-hour race, it's less a race than a ritual of ordeal. And the idea is that as you enter this race through pure exhaustion, you make the sacrifice that makes it sacred, as from the Latin. And I did that race at the age of 48, the oldest man ever to do it, and the only outsider to do it. And I only got through that race by chewing more coke in one day than anyone in the 8 ,000-year history of the world.

57:57But the point is, what Andy's saying about our relationship with the natural world, what that race is really about is expressing a sense of obligation and belonging. You're running the perimeter of the land. There are sacred mounds of earth, hiktos, mohones, where the wailaka must spin to bring the energy of the woman to the mountaintop, where coke is given to pachamama. And so the race becomes a ritual of belonging. You're demonstrating your ownership, but also your obligation to preserve that land. So you see, coca in that sense is as powerful an adjunct to culture as ayahuasca might be amongst the peoples of the Anaconda.

58:35You know, you can't do that run without coca, Tim. Coca is the mediator. You know, they often say that the first to taste the leaves was Santissima Maria in the kind of syncretic myth of origins. When she lost the Christ child and her grief, she sampled the leaf and that gave her the spirit to continue. Well, obviously that's a syncretic fusion of pre-Colombian and Catholic ideas, but that's an indicator of its centrality in the stream of existence in the Andes.

59:06Tim Ferriss:So let me ask just a personal question of you guys, which I'm sure has occurred to a lot of listeners or viewers. And that is, why do you care so much about this in the hierarchy of reasons? Like, what's at the top? What is it for you, Andy? For me, it is the confusion of a plant with an element of it, which is a problem that I see in medicine greatly, that we just fail to understand those differences. And I would like to help educate more people about that. And as I said, I think coca is a most perfect example of how we've gone wrong in our relationship with a plant. And also just to, I suppose, underscore one thing, which is not what you're saying.

59:48Tim Ferriss:You were not saying that all plants are therefore safe, right? That whole plants are therefore, like you don't want to go out and start chugging a bunch of hemlock tea. There's plenty of stuff. However, piece versus whole, component versus entire plant are different. By the way, you know, I think in our society particularly, I think there is great fear of nature. And we tend to see nature as hostile. And many people I know think if you just go out and randomly munch plants in your backyard, you'll likely die. You know, the percentage of plants that can seriously harm you is pretty small. I mean, there aren't many hemlocks out there.

1:00:26There's a lot of things that, you know, don't taste it. There's a lot of things that might give you an upset stomach. But there's not a lot of things that can kill you or cause serious harm. I once had dinner with the chief technical advisor to one of the big European supplement companies. He was Austrian. He had traveled all over the world. And he said that one thing that struck him was the extreme fear of nature in the English-speaking world. I mean, I'd never heard anyone say that. But he said this is an attitude that he found very common in the UK and Canada and Australia and the US, New Zealand.

1:00:58And he said, very different to what you see, for example, in German-speaking Europe, where people tend to regard nature as friendly, benign, helpful. You know, in German culture, there's great use of medicinal plants and natural forms. They're very different from what we have here. So that's just an interesting perspective. I'd never noticed that. Where do you think that comes from? Any ideas? I wonder. Wade, any suggestions? I mean, you certainly see it amongst, you know, fungophobes, as you always talk about, Andy, you know, the fear of mushrooms. But Tim, back to your question, you know, for me, I revere coca because of what it's done for my life.

1:01:35But also it symbolizes for me everything I care about in terms of cultures and anthropologists and everything I've ever fought for in terms of the rights of indigenous people. And it's, to me, one of the most egregious violations of the rights of other cultures. and it's also a denial of the genius of other cultures. So it sort of symbolizes for me everything that I've stood up against in my career and it happens to be a plant that has brought benefits to me, enormous benefits. But I'll give you, if I could share one anecdote that shows how creative this all is. I don't know if you remember, but some years ago, Peru qualified for the first time in 10 years for the World Cup and I saw the victory match on a screen in Cusco, it was played in Lima.

1:02:21and then the captain of the Peruvian team who played for a squad in Sao Paulo in a random drug test was shown to have metabolites of cocaine in his urine and he was going to be kicked off the team and this was going to make a huge international scandal and his lawyer called me from Sao Paulo and I said well wait a minute doesn't he come from Lima yeah well they just went through Christmas Didn't he go to Ayacucho or Cusco? Yeah. Oh, he must have stayed at the Monestario Hotel in Cusco because that's the nicest hotel. Yeah, that's where he stayed. Well, that hotel has huge vats of coca tea available at all times for its clientele for altitude sickness.

1:03:04And that's what he had done. He had drunk copious amounts of coca tea. And because of the idiocy of our understanding of the difference between the plant and the drug, this could have been an international incident because you well know that Peruvians, like all Latin Americans, take their football very seriously. But we got them off.

1:03:25Tim Ferriss:Yeah, very seriously. Andy, it looks like you were going to say something. Do you have anything to add to that? Nope. I think, you know, for different reasons, we come from different places, we both are very passionate about this issue. Coke has always seemed to be defined as what it is not. It's not cocaine. And presenting this plant in all of its glory, I mean, it's interesting, you know, I mean, Andy's a real plant guy. He's a real ethnobotanist, a real physician who's always had plants in his practice. And I went through a period of time where I was very much a botanical explorer, but I'm fundamentally a storyteller, a writer, an anthropologist.

1:04:05But this plant wrapped its arms around me when I was 19 years old and has never let me go. And I have a kind of deep fidelity. It's hard to explain. I don't normally speak in this kind of language, but this plant has given me so much and has allowed me to explore and have such extraordinary experiences in the field in pursuit of its mysteries and its wonder that I feel that liberating coca is the final act of my professional life. I feel that very sincerely. And it also brings me back to Andy, because Andy was like always my big brother. Andy and Tim Plowman, who were great friends, both acolytes of Schultes.

1:04:48And for me, I was able to come along as their kind of kid brother. So the relationship with Andy to me is enormously important emotionally, spiritually even. And if Andy and I, in the memory of Tim, who tragically died way too young at the age of 45, the great botanical authority on coca. He died of AIDS. And incidentally, as I was reading and doing his eulogy that I conceived the book One River, which is a biography of our great professor Richard Evans Schultes, we're doing this in part in memory of Tim. I'm sure Andy would agree.

1:05:22Tim Ferriss:We've covered a lot of ground. What I'm going to do also to try to consolidate next steps for people, for anyone listening or watching is I'll create tim.blog slash coca. So on my website, that'll lead to this episode. And at the very top of the show notes, we'll have a link to the bpra.org. We'll have a link to some of the researchers who were mentioned, including any others that you guys might think of after the fact. A link to some of the pieces that Andy and I have written would be really great. We'll put a bunch of stuff at the top with a bias for people who are listening. If they're like, this is all great.

1:06:01Tim Ferriss:I don't want to be purely a passive consumer of education or edutainment. I actually want to put a dent in the world. Then we'll have that at the top because I don't want to bury that stuff in terms of possible next actions for people. Folks, that'll be at tim.blog slash coca, C-O-C-A. Just like Coca-Cola. Not a coincidence, by the way. Yeah, I'll read you. This is a piece on Eater. People can look it up. Maybe I'll link to it, actually. an unassuming set of buildings in Maywood, New Jersey, less than 10 miles from Manhattan, holds a surprising secret. It's what might be arguably called the cocaine capital of the United States.

1:06:34Tim Ferriss:Here, a chemical company manufactures cocaine legally with a special permission from the U.S. government, all in service of a familiar company, Coca-Cola. Cola, by the way, just for people who like little bits of trivia, comes from Cola, K-O-L-A, well, in English at least, African nut known for its caffeine content. And by the way, Tim, Coca-Cola notoriously had a secret coca plantation in Hawaii. No kidding. Scoundrels. Look at that. And you know, that is the only legal export of coca from Peru is to that chemical company, Stepan Chemical in Maywood, New Jersey. And the cocaine is extracted and sold for pharmaceutical use.

1:07:13And the rest of the leaves are made into an extract, which is a secret flavoring ingredient in Coca-Cola. And what's more, in the 1961 UN Convention on Narcotic Drugs, there was one specific exclusion of Coca solely for that company. And I got to go in Peru to where they were getting their leaves from. And they were trashy leaves. I mean, it was literally the sweepings of the poor stuff that Wade and I would not chew.

1:07:43Tim Ferriss:Drinking sawdust. Yeah. Botanical sawdust. well another bit of trivia for folks if they care seven up used to contain lithium citrate oh yes right right back in the day yeah those old soda companies had some stuff figured out well gentlemen is there anything else before we start to wind to a close that you would like to add certainly i would love you guys to mention where people can find you online if you'd like them to go in any particular direction. And anything else that you would like to add, Andy? My website is drweil.com, D-R-W-E-I-L.com. There's a lot of health information there. And I am the founder of the Andrew Weil University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine.

1:08:30We train physicians and health professionals on that. Website is awcim.org. And I'm very proud lot of our work there. We've graduated almost 3 ,000 physicians of allied health professionals from our very intensive trainings, which include really good instruction on botanical medicine. I love it.

1:08:52Tim Ferriss:And people can also find you on Instagram, X, et cetera, at Dr. Weil. And presumably you don't have a tap into the back of your brain for that. So I'm sure there's nice, good publishing of valuable content coming out there so people can check that out. And then Wade? I just wanted to say, Tim, if I could just insert this in case you could use it, is that I've made a lot of reference to the egregious language by those who are responsible for the language of the UN Declaration. But maybe I could just read that the key figure was an acolyte of Enslinger, who was sort of a notorious anti-drug warrior that we almost joke about with for madness.

1:09:31But this man's name was Pablo Osvaldo Wolf. He was the chief of the addiction producing drugs section of the World Health Organization. He not only conceived, he wrote the language of coke demonization in that. But listen to what he says. This is from a lecture to the Royal Society of Medicine in London. On the very eve of that commission led by Fonda going to Peru. The indio who does not chew coca leaves is clear-sighted, intelligent, and light-hearted, willing to work, vigorous, and resistant to diseases. The coquero, on the contrary, is apathetic, lazy, incensurate to his environment, his mind is befogged, his emotional reactions are rare and violent, he is morally and intellectually anesthetized, socially subdued, almost a slave.

1:10:26Moral degeneration accompanies the physical. Lying is one of the outstanding characteristics, probably due to a lack of moral equilibrium. Criminality is high, and barbaric forms of homicide can only be explained by a certain moral insensibility. We are convinced that coca leaf chewing is a social evil. The chronic consumption of these leaves constitutes a social poison which undermines the physical and mental health of the population. The children of coqueros are markedly deficient in intelligence. There is no doubt that the habit of chewing coke leaves is one of the most powerful reasons for the backwardness and misery of the Indian population.

1:11:10The last link in a chain of social and medico-social scourges, which include pauperism, bad housing conditions, deficient nutrition, rudimentary or completely absent education, alcoholism, tuberculosis, venereal disease, and other infections, and promiscuity, to mention only the worst calamities and miseries. I never heard that, Wade. I never heard that.

1:11:38Tim Ferriss:It's quite a list of offenses. This is quoted in my Rolling Stone piece, Andy. You just can't believe the language. The remedy of the moment is gradual disintoxication of the native, Diminishing the production as well as the consumption of coca by means of a suitable education. By abolishing the superstition of the magic action and the well-being of the leaves. By prohibiting initiation of young, you know, goes on and on. Only with skill and patience can coca addiction be abolished, but it can be done. Christianized Indians no longer live in the former wretched conditions and thus show themselves physically and mentally capable of freeing themselves from coca, leaf, chewing, and addiction.

1:12:22And you have to think, this is the man who wrote the statutes that we turn to today in the 1961 UN Convention on Narcotic Drugs. This is the language that the UN World Health Organization has recently affirmed by refusing to deschedule or reschedule COCA.

1:12:45Tim Ferriss:Might be time for an update. It's that bad. Can you think of any other policy that we would live by today? It's like policies have been written by, I don't know, Herman Goering or Goebbels dictating religious policies today in the United States. of America. And yet this is what we are trying to deal with and confront. And it is so dark and so evil. Well, it sounds like A, terrible. B, time for an update. C, I'm sure a lot of the people who are adjacently or indirectly affirming this have no idea what it actually says, right? They have not read what you just read aloud. So worth another look, like a lot of things.

1:13:29Tim Ferriss:And not saying it's a panacea, not saying that there shouldn't be guide rails or guardrails, but that it's worth another look. I do think the wedge in the door to pull from language earlier probably is a awareness of the benefits. And I think you guys do a pretty damn fine job of showcasing the longitudinal productivity gains of moderate sustained use and separately getting some science funded. And I think those are parallel tracks and the film itself being used as an educational tool to support the, I would say both of those, the latter and the scientific exploration, because it strikes me. I mean, look, I'm not a doctor.

1:14:20Tim Ferriss:I don't play one on the internet, nor am I a scientist, but I like to spend time with a lot of scientists. It's like, I think about some of the effects of coca and the appetite suppression, but the physical vigor in the absence of food. And I wonder, man, I would love to just take blood ketone measurements of these people. Simple stuff. So simple. So, so, so straightforward. Guys, this has been wonderful. Any last closing comments, concerns, complaints? Thank you for providing a forum to talk about this. I would like to add, Andy, just one comment on what Kim just said and what you responded, how easy these experiments could have been done.

1:15:00And I think we have to remember that it's not an accident that they weren't done. In other words, the nutritional study that you and Tim did in the 1970s could have been done in the 1920s. It wasn't done because people did not want anything that would affirm the possibility that the plant was anything but the demonic entity that they claimed it to be. So it's important in all of this to remember this wasn't just sort of an accident of history or a casual neglect. This was a conscious attempt to demonize and eradicate a plant, and not for pharmacological reasons, not for medical reasons, not for social reasons, for cultural and political reasons of power.

1:15:41Yeah.

1:15:42Tim Ferriss:I wouldn't want to, by association, make policy makers feel like they need to carry the burden of what was truly a travesty, if they are in part those whose help we would like. but understanding the history is important. I mean, we'll link to the Rolling Stone piece and also Andy, anything else that you would like linked for people who want to check it out at tim.blog slash coca. I mean, coca has been of incredible interest to me for decades now. It is of such cultural importance. It is of ecological importance, economic importance. If you care about conservation, if you care about indigenous land rights, if you care about health and performance, period.

1:16:30Tim Ferriss:Let's say you don't give a damn about what happens in South America, but you just say, wow, I feel like pounded dog shit after three cups of coffee, and then I can't sleep at night, and then I'm dependent and I have a headache when I try to stop. It's worth digging a little deeper and educating yourself on coca. It may not be available tomorrow, may not be available next year, but it is deeply, deeply interesting and And endlessly fascinating as a possible subject of, or focus of experiments. So I will leave it at that for now. We can always, and I'm sure we'll be chatting more via text, but thank you guys very much.

1:17:06Tim Ferriss:Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn't remind you, Wade, that people can find you at daviswade.com. Is that right? Yeah, that's my website. That's the main place. Anywhere else you would like to point people? We got Wade Davis official on Instagram, ex-author Wade Davis. I think people would be intrigued by the book One River, which is really the account of Tim and I and Coca and Schultes. It's a great book. It is a great book. That book in particular would open people's eyes. Yeah, perfect. All right, check out One River, folks. Again, we're grateful for your support. Very much so. It can make a big difference.

1:17:41Tim Ferriss:Yeah, thanks so much, Tim. My pleasure. Very grateful. Yeah. I love, this is important stuff. And it's also, while I have this before AI gobbles every podcast, I would like to surface subjects that are of importance that have not yet been reputationally de-risked. I don't have to report to any corporate overlord who can fire me or throttle my sponsors or whatever it might be. So I have the incredible accidental luxury of being able to, and joy of being able to have these conversations with folks like the two of you who are bringing in decades of expertise and research. So always appreciate the time.

1:18:25Tim Ferriss:Always nice to see you both. and for people listening as always show notes check it out tim.blog slash coca coca will go straight to this episode and give you more information on where you can learn more and until next time be just a bit kinder than is necessary to others and to yourself compassion oh yeah that applies to yourself too don't forget that and as always thanks for tuning in Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off. And that is five bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend between one and a half and 2 million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called five bullet Friday, easy to sign up easy to cancel.

1:19:13Tim Ferriss:It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums, perhaps gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests. And these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about.

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