POD 114: Dr. Dennis McKenna on Erythroxylum coca

Interesting. And it really is. Removing that alkaloid would really render its true potential

CosmicCamote

Interestingly this is still available on a lot of common clear net sites, people sometimes lable it as ENERGY blend and are vague about it. A couple years ago I know someone who ordered Mambe this way and I tried it with them. It was surprisingly delicious and effective.

Creepy Crawley

Dang I wish they sold that to the average Joe!

Creepy Crawley

They talk about removing the cocaine alkaloid and using the de-cocanized leaf in products for the U.S. The coca alkaloid is a major part of the beneficial effects from the plant.

James Strong

https://powerleaves.com/

James Strong

Yes...and when one hears about the multiton seizures of cocaine hydrochloride, it means that hundreds of times that weight of leaves had to be grown, harvested and processed, it boggles the mind. It's a huge industry, totally unregulated, and the environmental effects are poorly understood....

Steven

There was a brief period around 2010 when one could buy coca tea bags online - it was mild but effective...probably the least deleterious way to consume the plant. Personally I found that eating the alkaloid worked best for me, whether it was leaves, hydrochloride or free base. The oral ROA gives a smooth effect lasting a few hours and is less prone to side effects. Thank you kindly for this Dennis...looks like the coca summit is going to be in Peru next February....miracle tickets out there? ;^[}. Cheers..... BTW the agregate production quota for 2025 is 60,422 grans of cocaine hydrochloride.... I'm looking for export info - as you noted Dennis, the Coca Cola industry probably produces as much or more.

Steven

Rob Montgomery & Tim Ploughman had some great ideas around how Coca could be integrated into use in the USA…

Bushy Haired Stranger

of course, there are clearly more pressing matters haha. i totally get it i just kind of miss it 😅🫠

Eloi Jeshua Ramirez

I think he has just been insanely busy lately and the Q&As take a lot of work (sifting through submissions, responding to them, then the usual editing and release of a podcast) so the Q&As are perhaps for times when recording has been a bit slower. I think between his international chemistry adventures and the psymposia+MAPS drama, there are more pressing matters he wants to cover. He is unfortunately just one man.

Ericaceous

I've always thought the potatoes and vodka comparison to be a little disingenuous. Eating a potato feels nothing like drinking vodka yet consuming coca leaf does have a stimulating, mood boosting effect that is reminiscent of cocaine (and it contains cocaine). Wade Davis always seems to be a bit too performative in his speech for me and always has an axe to grind. I'm surprised Hamilton has never had him as a guess but if I remember correctly, Hamilton thinks some of his scientific research is suspicious (or fraudulent).

Ericaceous

This! U should check it out next time you’re in vancouver Hamilton! The city just officially reinstated their business license…

Kd

Nice work gentleman. When this episode hit I looked into booking a room for the event but I guess they bought/reserved all the rooms for that week already, pretty place but I’ll stay wherever I can. Anyone else planning on going that would like a travel buddy? I’ve been wanting to explore some places in that area of Peru so might as well 2bird it. Really I’m as excited about coca leaves as I am about getting to experience the people and the Peru vibe and all the mind boggling megaliths and tiny big brain skeletons and experiencing the night sky from a different perspective, plus the possibility of seeing cool lights in the sky, there’s just so much to experience there and I would really love to go on a Peruvian Adventure 🥰

Jeff

So what question are we trying to answer here? That the coca plant will be legal in the US? Like what are we actually arguing about? If we're asking, can an individual find a way to source coca seeds and grow a coca plant in their yard without any consequences, then obviously that wouldn't be hard to do. I thought the question was, adoption of coca in the pharmaceutical industry or by the legal and regulatory bodies in the government. To me, that seems unlikely.

Julien Weinstein

and I'm glad having listened to the full discussion with Dennis McKenna that the focus does seem mostly on the natural food and medicine product of coca rather than the spinning off into derivative extracted products. I like how Hamilton suggests that the McKenna Academy enroll the help of the big tea companies such as Windsor, and even getting Coca-Cola company on board... it would seem many of those companies would only benefit from having an expanded market for their coca products... and the infrastructure is already there for production at a robust scale which could be scaled up further and in the case of the Coca-Cola company already exists though is side pipelined into the pharmaceutical cocaine as anesthetic industry for North American medical applications... I'm curious about the efficacy and tolerance of a robust dose of coca tea (perhaps under the recommending prescriptive authority of licensed naturopathic physicians who are experts in natural and botanical medicines) as a treatment for ADHD and executive function disorders as compared to the standard of care psychostimulants which a medical doctor with their controlled substance prescriptive authority would oversee. I would predict far better tolerance and thus likely far better outcomes even if gradual in effect demonstration over the long-term with far less harm and less need for secondary prescribing (such as happens for side effects amongst psychostimulants, e.g. the need for guanfacine to address the anxiety that psychostimulants arouse and so on). glad to see this conversation happening, Hamilton

Conor Watters

ornamental poppies in many peoples gardens happen to be opium poppies... seems like a valid parallel which is already around the insurmountable roadblock you make out to exist, Julien... lots of unknowns here

Conor Watters

Dana Larson has a coca tea cafe that had a steady supply of coca leaf available for purchase as well opened in vancouver for a couple years almost until recently the shipments started being detected. Now it seems like he has shifted to feeling kratom tea. It was pretty neat to see that happen out in the open.

Materialmind

Jonathan Ott was on this many years ago. Dennis more media professorial glammy. Go Dennis.

Raleigh Smalls

I’m so glad he at least alluded to the Coca Cola factory in NJ and the project they have with Mallinckrodt (which he didn’t name by name, I’d think for his own safety). I hope someone does decide to be brave enough to discuss it because I find it one of the most historically relevant corporate covert operations. And no one’s talking about it. Hamilton, if you’re reading this and decide to dig into it with someone you’d like to discuss it with, I’d tune in to listen to that one for sure. I’ve been waiting for someone to really openly talk about it.

Etienne Atlan

Ronald K. Siegel(UCLA Researcher, died 2019) created the first Cocaine Lollipops in the 1980’s. It purpose? harm reducing tool for crack users. Brilliant guy with many brilliant ideas.

Bushy Haired Stranger

Wawasana

Bushy Haired Stranger

Prohibition is the root of the problem and its also the DEA’s bread & butter….

Bushy Haired Stranger

https://drugpolicy.org/news/senate-consider-ondcp-reauthorization-act-revive-controversial-herbicide-spraying/

Bushy Haired Stranger

Bushy Haired Stranger

Just to let people around here be aware that Coca leaves are produced in South America have no oversight whatsoever. Random herbicides and pesticides are used on them (there is no oversight of sales of banned products basically); and there's a growing number of cases of people with oral cancer due to the chronic exposure to this. So be careful when consuming it if its not from a certified organic origin!

Alejandro C.

Dennis McKenna really is a saint. There are so many people through history I think, ‘wow, if only they were alive today/what I would do to be able to hear and see them speak etc’ and Dennis McKenna is one of those people but he is alive today. (Hamilton is also!) Will definitely be chipping in.

Meek

Hamilton, just an interview suggestion for Dana Larsen here in Canada if the opportunity comes up. A long time cannabis legalization activist, Dana currently is owner of The Mushroom Dispensary, Coca Leaf Cafe, and "Get Your Drugs Tested" in Vancouver. One of my favourite quotes of Dana's is that "good drug policy should not make the least harmful versions of drugs the most difficult to get". In the context of this interview: It should not be easier to get crack cocaine than it is to get some raw coca leaf to brew a tea with... But that's what prohibition does! Thanks again.

Peter Thomas

That's what they said about cannabis, mushrooms, Ayahuasca, .......

Cheminterested

Absolutely right and I found coca leaf tea far milder than a typical cup of coffee or strong black/green Camellia. In fact, the main noticeable effect was a pleasant cooling/soothing sensation in the mouth and throat (although, my Adderall tolerance probably should be taken into account lol). But it could be a great option for common colds and dry cough, and also just has a nice natural flavour.

Peter Thomas

I feel the same way about opium and poppy tea

Cheminterested

Never say never, Julien!

Peter Thomas

I certainly hope that coca remains and expands as a natural food substance as a tea in its proliferation in the American market should it gain full availability and I would advise against treating it like the cannabinoid market has treated THC as a product to put into sodas and gums and candies and extracts. I'm amazed that the conversation has to be about making it into commercial products rather than simply keeping it as a coffee or tea like product which in itself is immensely useful and most likely the most salutary version of it in any case. It seems clear that the best use for this plant is in a whole plant form with its entourage of constituents, rather than going along the isolation and extraction route. Thank you for listening.

Conor Watters

I completely agree with you, in my heart, I'm just saying that from the standpoint of the US legal and regulatory position on coca, it is never going to happen. It sounds nice, it would be nice, but from a practical perspective, it's not going to happen. The coca plant is always going to be seen (emphasis on "seen," not some value statement or definitive proposition from me as a fundamental objective reality) by the federal govt, law enforcement agencies, FDA, DEA, whatever...as THE precursor to cocaine. Imagine the precursors to other drugs, like meth precursors. Will never ever be legal, ever. And it's really not similar to comparing potatoes to vodka. Coca leaves have the alkaloids in them, potatoes don't have alcohol in them unless and until fermented. It's obviously very different. Potatoes have zero addictive potential. The coca leaf, itself, does, let alone what happens when it's processed into you-know-what.

Julien Weinstein

the whole point is that coca doesn't need to be a novel therapeutic competing with pharamceutical drugs. it is a natural medicine with significant cultural use and a benign track record that is demonstrated most clearly in its area of origin, South America. Forget cocaine and crack I suggest because those are twistings of the plant akin to abusing it. Like Wade Davis says, comparing coca to cocaine is similar to comparing potatoes to vodka. There is no problem with coca. Only problems which humans make in their errors. Thanks for listening and I don't mean to say you can't have your perspective, I just disagree and want to offer this counter-perspective.

Conor Watters

Sorry but the coca plant and its alkaloids (-cocaine) would not provide enough of a novel therapeutic use that isn’t already covered by other drugs already on the market. Sure, it would be great if we could all just drink coca tea without getting arrested and I think we should be able to, but this is just never going to happen. And the stigma is never going to go away. Cocaine and crack are still huge problems in the US. I speak from experience, unfortunately.

Julien Weinstein

Nice

M

do you think we will see any monthly q&a episodes in the near future? those were always some of the coolest to me.

Eloi Jeshua Ramirez

Mmmm olean

Helmer

Such a great talk. Any more updates and information on the conference would be very much appreciated :) I'll try to check his social media from time to time as well as the site they have! Some Coca tea would be nice to have here in the states by the way. A delightful talk indeed

CosmicCamote

Great! Can't wait to hear. Thank you.

Gonçalo Almeida

There was a coca tea place for a day here in Ireland a few months ago trying to destigmatize coca and giving out the tea.......I wish I had a chance to go

zealot

Years ago I bought some san pedro powder online from Peru and, unexpectedly, they threw in some coca tea and coca candy for free. I never had any plans to try cocaine but I decided to try it in these forms and was really surprised just how mild it was. I would describe coca tea as being just like caffeine but without all the jitters. It's a really good subtle stimulant and it's a shame it's not available in the US. I wonder how cardiotoxicity compares between cocaine and caffeine. Maybe there's an argument to be made about it being a safer alternative?

Armchair Idiot

Stepan Chemical Company imports the coca for Coca Cola, I do believe. I've tried the coca leaf tea, which is a very pleasant stimulant. I've also tried Olestra potato chips, which were also Stepan Company. Those didn't catch on due to the media reports of "anal leakage."

michael carr

excited to listen! coca is no doubt quite a useful and benevolent plant and the usefulness is not just in the history books but is relevant today in modern medicine and healing practices. thanks for covering!

Conor Watters

Wow, I didn't see coming this kind of conversation! Great to see the lens of drug and legislation discussion widening to enable more nuanced discussion, and not just around the same old drugs either. As was pointed out there's a lot of pre misconceptions re coca/cocaine, as there is with so many other medically and culturally important substances, so it will be a test of society's maturity to also relearn and reset expectations surrounding another "drug problem"

V R