Coca in history and the future

Abstract

Purpose This study aims to question the psychiatric framework currently adopted by governments toward the traditional plants of great cultures, stigmatized by the paradigm of the unfounded psychiatric doctrine and to propose the need for a change of outlook. Design/methodology/approach Documentary research of the “black history” of coca. Documentary research on academic contributions to the revaluation of coca. Findings This brief chronicle of the coca leaf in history, duly documented, proves that its medicinal and energetic prestige was proven and praised by the naturalistic and experimental medicine of the 19th century, a precedent buried by the psychiatric pathologizing version that invented “drug addictions” without any experimental support. Research limitations/implications Psychiatry can be revealed as the authoritarian and unpunished inquisition of the 20th century, in its arbitrary pathologizing version of coca leaf consumption and in most of its professional work. A scientific revolution is taking place (Kuhn, 1962), given that the psychopathological paradigm does not respond to the facts surrounding coca leaf consumption and virtues. The medical perspective must replace the negative psychiatric perspective that the law maintains Practical implications The author concludes that the way out would be to denounce before the Social and Economic Council of the United Nations, with evidence in hand, the fraud in the 1950 UN Commission on Coca Report, due to concealment on information. Social implications Taking advantage of the hygienic and medicinal virtues of plants stigmatized by psychiatry, such as the coca leaf, would put an end to an omnipresent war and give way to peace in the producing areas. Originality/value The questioning of the psychiatric frame of reference adopted by governments to deal with coca leaf consumption has led to the “war on drugs.”