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T
he ancient Incas considered the
plant from which it was taken to
be divine. An early twentieth–
century German user exclairned:
"God is a substance!" And a con–
temporary American user said of íts
effect: "You feel líke Adam, and
God is blowing Life into your nos–
trils."
The divine drug so ardently re–
vered is cocaine, one of nature's
most powerful stimulants. Used and
venerated by the Andean Indians
for 3,000 years, cocaine has ac–
quired hundreds of thousands of
modern devotees in North America
and Europe in the Last few years. I t
has fostered a billion-dollar industry
in the black market of illicit drugs.
Status Drug
Cocaine is often called the "mari–
juana of the rich" or the "cham–
pagne of drugs." This is because the
well-to-do are often the only ones
who can afford to buy
it
illegally at
the champagne prices of $1 ,000 to
30
$2,000 an ounce. (Hospitals and
pharmacies can buy the drug legally
as an anesthetic for $31.50 an
ounce-which gives an idea of the
possible profits on the black mar–
ket.) To be able to distribute the
drug gratis among friends at social
occasions is thought to be a sure
sign of success; the chic way to
flaunt one's affiuence is to proffer
the coke for inhaling (a "snort")
througb a tigbtly rolled $100 bill.
The drug so desi red among
today's decadent rich is derived
from the leaves of the coca bush,
grown principally in the uplands of
Bolivia and Peru. For centuries the
Indians of the Andean regions in
Soutb America have chewed the
leaf for the stimulant and appetite–
depressant effects that facilitate
beavy labor and long treks. Sorne
writers compare the consumptíon of
cocaine in this form to the Western
habit of drinking coffee (which con–
tains the stimulant drug caffeine) to
stay alert. Tbe amount of drug
found in both products is small (1.6
to 2.5 percent caffeine in Latín
American coffee; .65 to 1.25 percent
cocaine in coca). Because of such
low levels of concentration, chewing
the coca leaf is not considered a
"dangerous drug abuse" by many
drug experts, althougb both the So–
livian and Peruvian govemments
have tried to cut consumption in
their countríes- witb little success.
Freud and the Cocaine Papers
Cocaine became a problem drug af–
ter it was isolated and concentrated
from the leaf, a feat accomplisbed in
1865 by the German physician Al–
bert Niemann. In 1884 Sigmund
Freud read about the use of cocaine
to increase the starnina of sorne Ba–
varian soldiers during training ma–
neuvers. He promptly procured a
supply of the drug for experiments
on patients and himself. There fol–
lowed a flurry of papers on bis use
of cocaine to treat morphine depen–
dence, depression aod fatigue .
The
PLAIN TRUTH
June
1977