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

cocoa and cocaine after expending a

trillion dollars on this failed

campaign. And that was really the

equivalent, if you think about it, of

Elliot Nest busting a truckload of

potatoes in violation of the Volstead

Act. You know, cocoa is to cocaine what

potatoes are to vodka.

>> I thought Andy, we could start with the

ethnobotanical

medicinal side of things.

>> Mhm.

>> Because I'll share perhaps an anecdote

to kick us off, which was I, as both of

you have have spent a lot of time in

South America, and it's not always to

end up in the lower upper Amazon

consuming questionable substances. It's

sometimes to do other things like visit

cities and spend time with friends and

go skiing.

>> And the skiing in this case was in Chile

and it was the first instance where we

landed in Santiago, drove to elevation

very quickly and I had my first

experience with terrible altitude

sickness. And for those who have not

experienced it, I do not wish it upon my

worst enemy. It is an absolutely

horrific

experience. It's terrible. And

even though the legal status I think is

a question mark or maybe it's very

directly

verboten in Chile, the locals in the

lodge gave me coca leaf tea and within

several hours no symptoms and they did

not recur past that point which blew my

mind particularly since even with Diamox

to help with altitude acclamation my

experience has been that it takes a few

days and I did not have any good way to

explain this particularly given my

levels of exertion

>> and not surprisingly in other countries

whether it's Peru, Colombia certainly if

you look at the Kogis and so on this

plant is not just incredibly important

from a

let's just call it for lack of a better

term religious perspective, cultural

perspective, but also medicinal

perspective. So, I was hoping Andy you

could give a primer on what makes Koka

the plant interesting.

>> Well, let me say I first met Koka in

1965.

I just finished my first year of medical

school and my mentor Dick Schulties who

was director of the Harvard Botanical

Museum sent me to South America to

collect medicinal plants with one of his

graduate students in the Amazon in the

Andes. And I met with him right before I

left and he said, "When you're in Peru,

be sure to chew cocoa." [laughter] He

said, "It's a very interesting plant and

you want to learn about it." So I did

and I have been using cocoa ever since.

And my original interest was to find out

how this was used by indigenous peoples

medically. It's as important to that

population as peppermint and chamomile

are in European medicine. you know it's

their major medicinal plant and the main

indication is for treating GI disorders

but it also it is obviously relied on to

provide energy in doing physical work to

help with altitude sickness as you

mentioned to boost mood and to improve

metabolism.

The population the Andes especially is

often not wellnourished

and they eat a very high starch diet.

They have um high incidence of genes

predisposing them to type two diabetes.

But they don't have diabetes if they are

on their traditional diets and

exercising and chewing cocoa. But if

they move to lower altitude and stop

chewing cocoa and eat more like the

blanco population in Peru, they develop

very high rates of type 2 diabetes. So

that's quite interesting. you know that

it has some normalizing effect on blood

sugar and metabolism which is something

that I'd really like to see good

research on. So I think there are

multiple uses and these are not

attributable to effects of cocaine and I

think this is most important that in

cocoa there are 14 alkaloids. Cocaine is

one of them and they all have similar

chemical structures and none of them

have ever been studied. You know once we

isolated cocaine from the leaf everybody

lost interest in everything else. So, we

don't really know what those other

things do and how they modify the

activity of cocaine. The amount of

cocaine in coke is relatively small. You

know, it would not be worth anybody's

time on a home scale to try to extract

cocaine from cocoa. You need a tonnage

of leaves to get a significant amount.

But I [snorts] think the most important

point is that this whole complex of

compounds acting together is responsible

for the effects that you know people

report as being very beneficial both for

mental health and physical health.

>> Could you say more about the digestive

or metabolic effects? Do we have an idea

of the mechanism of action there? What

it's actually doing? Coke has been

remarkably little studied. For a plant

of such enormous historical, cultural,

economic, scientific, medical

importance, there is an almost complete

absence of research on it. And Wade can

talk about the reasons for that. But one

of the things that struck me when I was

interviewing people in the Andes about

the GI effects was that the respondents

said that it treated both diarrhea and

constipation. That doesn't make any

sense from the point of view of Western

pharmacology. Cocaine is a gut

stimulant. So obviously be great for

constipation, but it couldn't do

anything for diarrhea except make it

worse. And that always puzzled me. But

then looking at these other cocoa

alkyoids, there's something peculiar

about them. If you look at the

structural formula of the molecules,

they resemble drugs like atropene and

scapalamine which are found in

nightshade plants and those are gut

paralytics. Scapalamine has been used in

medicine to treat diarrhea. So this is

kind of a paradox. You've got a molecule

that just from its shape you predict

would be a gut paralytic, but in fact

cocaine is a is a gut stimulant. So how

does this work? I think you know this is

a model for the differences between a

whole plant drug and an isolated

compound. I think when you present the

body with this mix of

ambivalent

molecules you know that they push and

they pull against physiology the body

decides what it wants to use. And that's

not attributing mystical intelligence to

the body. It may be which receptors are

available for binding at the moment. So

if there is an overactive gut motility,

it selects the ones that slow that down.

That's fascinating to me that Koka has

this sort of paradoxical activity and

lets the body can choose which action it

wants.

>> Mhm. [clears throat] So beyond let's

just say you know the motility making

bowel movement regular for lack of a

better descriptor is it ever used by

indigenous populations for what we might

consider illnesses like Crohn's disease

or irritable bowel syndrome I don't even

know what the occurrence of those things

would be in such populations but is it

used for other indications

>> it is the great remedy for all GI

disorders and also they believe that it

helps them utilize

the nutritional qualities of foods that

they consume.

>> They often feel that if they don't

follow like a meal, one of their high

starch meals with a chew of cocoa that

they don't metabolize it well. There has

been almost no research on this, but

there was one really interesting study

done with Andian Indians, having them

ride exercise bikes and measuring blood

sugar at intervals after they gave them

a glucose load. And at any point in the

cycle where they began to choka, blood

sugar would normalize. So, this is just

one study that was done some time ago.

And I I mean gosh that should just call

out for a whole lot more work of that

kind. Yeah, that's fascinating.

>> Yeah, super fascinating. So I wanted to

just mention a few things for folks

pulling from what you just said. So you

mentioned Dick Shalties. If people don't

recognize the name Richard Evan

Schulties, I guess that's what s ces.

Look him up. Do yourself a favor and

look up Richard Evans Schulty's. The bio

on Richard

>> and Wade was his graduate student.

Exactly.

>> I worked with him as an undergraduate,

but that's how Wade and I first met

through him.

>> Just incredible. And I may come back to

the peppermint chamomile sidebar that

you had because

that seems interesting in and of itself.

But but to your point of isolated

components of a plant versus the whole

plant, there are many historical

examples of this. one that we could pull

from that

can show perhaps the pitfalls of

isolation. Not to say there aren't

applications of isolations, right? It's

better to take something like aspirin

than white willow bark perhaps. But if

scientists came to the premature

conclusion that well, if consuming foods

with betaarotene seems to be supportive

to vision, why don't we just mainline

>> isolated betaarotene turns out not to be

a great idea. Right. Right.

>> There's a lot more research needed.

Wade, do you want to speak to your first

introduction encounter with Koka and

perhaps speak to why rehabilitation is

even needed? I think some people might

jump to the conclusions like well

cocaine drug trade period end of story,

but I suspect there's probably more

there.

>> Well, you know, the thing is Tim, I

mean, coke has been used in South

America by virtually every culture of

the Andine and Northwest Amazon for

8,000 years. And during that time,

there's been no evidence whatsoever of

any toxicity, let alone addiction. My

first encounter was actually with Tim

Plowman, a good friend of Andes, who

introduced me to Andy, who had a great

grant through Schulties to study coke in

the 1970s. And it spoke to the fact what

Andy said is how little was known about

the plant. To me, one of the most

astonishing things is that the plant had

been demonized from the 1920s. And yet,

no one had ever bothered to do a

nutritional study until Tim and Jim Duke

did that and published in 1975. And Andy

was sort of on part of that team. And

the results were extraordinary. Not only

did it have a modest amount of the

alkyoid absorbed benignly in the mucous

membrane of the mouth, but it was chalk

full of vitamins and proteins, more

calcium than any other plant studied. As

Andy alluded to it, enzymes that perhaps

enhance the ability of the body to

digest carbohydrate at high elevation.

This was food and medicine, utterly

benign. And the question comes, why

didn't someone do a study? And they

didn't do a study because they didn't

want to know. And I think the single

most disturbing fact about cocoa is that

the efforts to eradicate the fields, the

traditional fields of cocoa began 60

years before there was a cocaine

problem. It had nothing to do with the

pharmacology of cocaine hydrochloride

and everything to do with the cultural

identity of the indigenous people who

revered the plant. And what happened is

physicians in Lima in particular looked

up into the Andes and they saw social

pathologies of literacy, poor nutrition,

poverty, and because issues of economics

and land reform and real economic

justice challenged the foundation of

their bourgeoa lives in Lima, they had

to find a culprit and they settled on

Koka.

>> My observation is that Peru is actually

a country with two nations within it.

There is the white European nation with

its capital at Lima that has alcohol as

its preferred psychoactive drug and

there's the indigenous population mostly

living at high altitude and some in the

Amazon that rely on cocoa and those two

cultures have been at war with each

other ever since. And I think that for

the Europeans coca chewing became a

symbol of indigenous culture and

everything they didn't like. And what

they would love to see is either

eradicate that culture or have it turn

into the same as them.

>> Well, I mean these efforts were really

pernitious and based on pseudocience.

And during all those years, including a

famous commission dispatched in the late

1940s by the UN to study the so-called

Koka problem. That commission led by a

man called Howard Fonda who was a

pharmaceutical executive announced its

conclusions before leaving New York. and

upon arrival in Lemur reiterated word

for word those same conclusions that the

plant had be eradicated and they spent

three months in the southern Andes

meeting with military officials ales

government officials priests they didn't

interview a single traditional user of

the leaf and naturally they concluded

that this plant had to be eradicated and

I think if you really look at the

language that they used it was not just

dark it was racist And that alludes to

what Andy is saying that until recently

Latin America, not just Peru, is very

much a place of conqueror and conquered.

And Koka became the symbol of everything

indigenous and therefore shameful to

these elites.

>> Wade, do you want to say something about

the recent WH study, which is a

continuation of all this? incredibly

this condemnation of Koka was in

language that was just so dark and

racist. And the amazing thing though is

that these very people with their

pseudocientific studies and their

hideous approach and language were the

very ones who wrote the language of the

regulations and conventions that dictate

international drug policy to this day,

including the 1961 UN Declaration on

Narcotic Drugs. And in all of this time,

there have been no effort to actually

identify the real value of the plant.

And efforts have been underway more

recently to get cocoa descheduled or

rescheduled. In the UN system, cocoa

leaf is now scheduled alongside with

fentanyl and heroin as among the most

dangerous drugs in the world. And the

efforts that we've been trying to do is

to get it to either be scheduled to the

point where it's seen to be of problems

but medicinal [clears throat] potential

or better yet descheduled altogether so

that we can create elicit market for the

plant. And here's the reason for that.

We have 250,000 families in Colombia

that grow cocoa to survive. We need to

give them elicit outlet for their

product.

Columbia as a nation needs the revenue,

the tax revenue that can come from the

international commercialization of the

leave to pay for the cost of peace,

having drained its treasury for 60 years

to pay the costs of a war that would

have not lasted a day without the sorted

profits of prohibition. And above all,

the world's population has a right to

benefit from this plant. You know, we

have an enormous substance abuse problem

in our country and a lot of it has to do

with stimulant abuse.

>> There's also the problem of the I think

the reckless prescribing of stimulants

to kids.

>> Andy, could I ask you to bookmark that

for a second cuz I want to give people a

window into cocoa leaf. Okay. So they

understand the subjective experience for

a second.

>> Sure.

>> In Peru and other places, I mean,

shocking to me. I think it was in Peru

where I saw they were selling boxes of

cocoa leaf tea in the international

departures

wing and I was like guys I want to take

this with me but I can't. The subjective

effect of drinking cocoa leaf tea is a

among other things a stimulant effect

that is far less for me than a half a

cup of coffee but without the subsequent

crash that may be due to any number of

things. I think it could be a glucose

spike and then sort of subsequent crash

but it is very very very mild.

>> Okay. Now I have to say that cocoa leaf

tea is not the most efficient way to use

cocoa.

>> No it isn't. It isn't.

>> The traditional way is to hold leaves in

your mouth.

>> Yeah.

>> Moisten them. Add an alkali which

promotes absorption of the alkaloids and

let it slowly diffuse into the

bloodstream. Mhm.

>> Now, I don't think people up here are

going to chew a mouthful of leaves, but

you know, I've always thought we could

make a lozenge or a chewing gum that

would reproduce that effect.

>> Well, you could have a snooze packet

like nicotine, right?

>> Yeah. Right. Exactly. But the stimulant

effect is so much milder, and Wade can

talk to this too, I think, than coffee,

for example, or than any of the

pharmaceutical stimulants. The really

fascinating literature is in the late

19th century when physicians traveling

in Peru were aware of the hazards of

cocaine but not yet judging the leaves

reflexively. And the reports have this

ingenuous quality to him. Like I mean

there's one from the head of the British

Medical Association who was 78 years old

and he gots up in the morning, walks

halfway across Scotland, climbs a

mountain, gets down, doesn't eat all day

and says, "Well, that was quite a day."

In other words, there's this Mortimer

calls it like the stimulant that's not a

stimulant. And so this is really the way

the plant operates, the subtlety of it.

You don't feel you're stimulated. You

just recognize the results of having

been able to focus, concentrate, and

remain at task in a creative way through

a long period of time. We do a little

thought experiment. If I told you there

was a plant that you could take that

gave you a slight lightness of being, a

slight kind of skip in your step, a

sense of well-being that eliminated all

the sort of existential little neurosis

that we all suffer as conscious beings,

and it allowed you to focus at task,

whatever that creative task was, whether

it was a spinning of wool or the writing

of digital code, and you could sit at

task all day long, concentrating on task

with immense focus.

with no sense of being under the

influence of any plant, nothing as harsh

as a second cup of coffee, and you found

yourself at the end of the day ready to

go home, have dinner, and do it all over

again the next day. The truth is that

cocoa has this capacity to improve our

lives. It also helps with weight

management, Tim, because it makes you

less hungry and feeling like you want to

move. So that is a very desirable thing

that many people would find useful and I

think the mood elevating effects of

cocoa are very significant.

>> Let me ask a question on the mind of a

lot of listeners. I'll also just add in

I have used the sort of mouth buckle in

the form of goes by a million different

names you know mambbe or whatever and

even in that case very very mild

>> and what I would say if I were to

compare it to other things as my

long-term listeners might imagine I've

tried medapanyl I've tried the various

empetamines you know aderall rolin etc

and the difference is that number one

you have thousands of years of human use

documented in the case of cocoa.

Secondly, I did not seem to develop any

type I'm sure you do develop some

tolerance. But for instance, if I use

medafanyl for 2 or 3 days and I stop, I

immediately feel a physical requirement

to use it to get back to my prior

baseline. And that does not happen in

the case of cocoa. It certainly happens

in the case of caffeine for me

>> and cocaine.

>> And cocaine. But the question I want to

ask is, you know, Wade, you mentioned

this enormous number of families

dependent on growing cocoa. On an

individual level, I can see how, hey, if

you ship me a small box of coca leaf for

my personal use, there's no way I'm

going to convert that into cocaine. But

how do you on a national level if these

farms are pre-existing decouple the the

good of listenit cocoa while

simultaneously constraining the evils of

cocaine production? Is that possible?

>> Well, I mean the thing there is that the

status of cocoa has no relevance

whatsoever to the cartels. With cocoa as

a prohibited substance, they've made

fortunes shipping cocaine by the ton for

50 years in the United States. And where

cocoa leaves to be legal with a listenit

commercial export market, you would

still maintain the same controls over

the illicit production of cocaine that

you have today. So it's kind of

irrelevant. The critical thing is that

crop substitution programs are an

illusion because how do you transport to

market cacao or bananas when you can

take cocoa paste and put it in your

muila and walk down the trail? And so

this expansion of cocoa production is

going on dramatically and it's having

huge impacts on tropical rainforest. So

deforestation since the peace agreement

in Colombia is very disturbing. And yet

we have millions of acres of already cut

over land that we could cultivate cocoa

on for the well-being of the people. And

you know, I think it's worth just

thinking about the history of this

plant, 8,000 years. One of the most

amazing things about cocoa is that it's

been domesticated not once, not twice,

but three separate times in human

history. That is unheard of. And Tim, I

think, you know, one um approach to the

problem you brought up is education,

which I'm a great believer in. I think

if people knew what cocoa was and

understood its benefits, they would

demand it. They'd want it. And that

includes even people who use cocaine. I

have known a number of people who got

strung out on cocaine and experienced a

lot of negative effects from it. And

when they tried coca and used it

properly, they saw that it was a much

more desirable state and they didn't

want to use cocaine anymore. So I think

that's something we could do. By the

way, it should also mention that through

an accident of history, cocoa is in

schedule two of the controlled

substances act, not schedule one like

cannabis and psychedelics. It got there

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 athalmology

and dentistry.

But that makes it a little easier, you

know, to leverage cocoa out of that

controlled substance box.

>> It's just a matter of demonstrating that

there are therapeutic applications that

the FDA could approve.

>> 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 that for export or domestic

use in the form of cocoa, 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

koka 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

I mean cocoa is considered

for lack of a better term a master plant

right a sacred plant. There are four

different varieties that Tim Plowman

identified of cultivated cocoa. 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 cocoa called

aeriththroam graasalipes that grows

along the eastern flanks of the Andes de

la all the way from Venezuela down to

Bolivia. And what this means is that at

three times in pre-colian history, human

beings came upon this delicate little

shrub in the forest with fruits the

color and the size of rubies and

beautiful little white flowers and

delicate foliage and said that's the

one. And it was domesticated three times

in the Montana of Colombia, in the

jungus of La Pas and 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 cocoa, very often they make what's

called a kinta, 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.

And this is very common thing to

observe.

>> Well, it's more than that, Andy. When

people meet on the trail, they make they

make a cruseta of leaves and then they

lift it to the highest sacred mountain

blow up.

>> Wait, what is a cruseta? Just to provide

context for people.

>> A little cross of three leaves, three

perfect leaves, and you point it to the

mountain and then you blow the energy of

the leaf to the mountain. And the

metaphor is the energ leaf like in the

same way a cloud condenses to bring rain

and fertility to soil. So too this is

creating your sort of connection to to

to landscape and every single thing that

happens in the Andes a field is planted,

cocoa is sprinkled, tools are brought

back in the evening, cocoa is given to

them. Koka appears in as a symbol of the

social contract and the social nexus of

people. This is why it's so important,

as the anthropologist Katherine Allen

said, is that to deny people cocoa 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. You cannot be of the Andes of

Pchaamama 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 Santa Marta where

the highest consumption of cocoa in the

world, men are constantly chewing hyo.

>> What is hyo?

>> Hao is a name of cocoa in Colombia. that

is ariththro novag granitensi a variety

novag granitensi which is a koka of

colombia and the cocoa used today by the

mammals of the sier no 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 cocoa is an act of

being alive. And to be denied the use of

cocoa 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 cocoa in most

jurisdictions. But of course, the cost

of cocoa is skyrocketed with the illicit

market. And so there are many

communities where the tradition of using

cocoa 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 a 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. It'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. 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. I mean

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 elicit trade of

cocoa 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

if this were to be more widely

available, certainly pending or parallel

with lots more research, right? So,

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 Wild Inc." On the other

hand, the point is that the cartels are

already out of control in Colombia and

doing what whatever they want anyway and

they will continue to grow cocoa as they

want to grow cocoa and continue to

produce enormous quantities of elicit

cocaine. Whether or not individuals will

be free to grow cocoa with impunity.

Obviously, there's going to be conflict.

If the state has an national interest in

the cultivation, illicit cultivation of

cocoa, they'll have an interest in

protecting those who are growing the

cocoa. It's not going to be some kind of

smooth transition. But the point is that

the situation in Colombia, for example,

is already completely chaotic with 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. But I don't think that's

a reason not to move forward with

creating illicit product for the farm

families who you know have been waiting

for this.

>> Andy, maybe you could speak to this next

just to rotate here. What is the wedge

in the door, right? Because this would

be a big long-term undertaking, right,

to rehabilitate KOKA. 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 multironged. One

is creating consumer demand for it.

>> Creating a market in North America for

cocoa. 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 and

that has to be demonstrated has to be

supported by research. Some obvious ones

are for the treatment of GI disorders

for 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, you know,

that would be enormous and I think we

can make a list of these things. So I

think it's we've got to work on all

these fronts, but to me the first thing

is making people aware of what cocoa is.

You know, most 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 reschedu

Koka. And this was done at the request

of both the Bolivian and the Colombian

governments. And the hope as I mentioned

was that KOKA would be taken out of

schedule. Andy mentioned as KO is in

schedule two in the United States, but

by the international

statutes of the UN is still schedule

one. And the goal was to try to get it

completely descheduled as a benign plant

that it is. The group that met in Vienna

decided against that to maintain the

status quo to the disappointment of all

advocates. And the rationale was a

little strange. The reason that cocoa

remained the equivalent of fentanyl is

that cocaine could be extracted from

cocoa. 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 cocoa remains scheduled.

That was a big disappointment but that

effort continues. But we are seeing

movement in the US with you know there's

been movement with cannabis there's been

movement with psychedelics.

A lot of this has been I think promoted

by veterans demanding access to these

treatments for you know mental health

conditions but things finally have

loosened up and maybe as part of that

momentum we can introduce you know

discussions of koka and getting some

movement there as well. Yeah, 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 policy

makers. There are individuals certainly

who say to themselves, hey, I would love

to cut down on my coffee. Maybe give

cocoa 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?

Because chances are you have people from

every possible walk listening to this.

You likely have scientists who are

perhaps psychedelic adjacent. Maybe they

are stimulant adjacent who are

interested. Of course, it'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 scientists who are curious

about things of this sort, medicinal

plants, medical botany, natural products

would want to take a look at this.

>> I'll just say because it's schedule two

versus schedule one, it makes the

presumably the process for researching

it much easier and much less expensive.

But I would say Tim to the entrepreneurs

who might be listening and that the

person who manages to crack this nut has

the potential to make enormous wealth

because I think the qualities of coco

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

again, this is a plant that's been used

for 8,000 years by everybody. It'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

in midst of raising funds to make a film

that will celebrate in a positive sense

Koka and the whole tradition. And it's a

story of social justice. It's a story of

spiritual illumination. It's a story of

Andian prehistory.

Incredible story of cultural

celebration, ethnographic richness. And

I think if people embraced the story,

they would be deeply moved. And 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. And

so I think it the story is so rich. And

Wade and I have been involved in an

effort to rehabilitate Koker for some

time. In the 1970s, I started a

notfor-profit foundation called the

Beneficial Plant Research Association,

whose aim was to

conduct research, make people aware of

lesserk known medicinal plants, and the

main one we focused on was Koka. We were

way ahead of our time, but we had

wonderful people involved in this

effort. And 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 and I

would urge listeners to check our

website which is bp.org

and read about the Koka project and what

we are involved with.

>> bp.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. That's one that people

can latch on to. Now Wade, you were

delivering a 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

Machakari. 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

>> Koka, right? Kokari, you could come up

with, I'm sure that you could do a line

extension. Fantastic matcha for people

who are interested.

>> By the way, matcha and cocoa are both

green powders. So, I'm an advocate of

green powders. And [laughter] you know,

matcha, 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.

The worldwide demand for it has

completely stressed Japan's capacity to

produce it.

>> Yeah. So that took maybe 15 20 years for

me to get that going. Coke is probably

going to take a little longer, but I am

determined.

>> What would be the levers or perhaps

dominoes is a better metaphor that you

would want to tip over on the path to

introducing cocoa as a commercial

product. Even just one good study

clearly demonstrating one of these

effects that we've talked about

>> helping people get off much more

dangerous stimulants or regulating

carbohydrate metabolism, helping to

prevent type 2 diabetes.

Wade, what do you think?

>> Well, I think that 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 you know the monkey mind the sort

of little moments of neurosis or even

depression.

>> Oh, you're lucky moments. Thank God I

would pay to have moments.

>> Yeah, exactly. And I'll say something

very personal. I mean I have two

daughters and both of them for different

reasons have been on some of these

serotonin uptake inhibitors. You know,

Prozac and Never Rolin. But you know, I

watched that and what I experienced in

my life, which is a very productive

life, is that I function perfectly well

without cocoa. Just like old Schulties

used to say, he chewed cocoa every day

in the Amazon. He didn't chew it in

Boston. I find that if I run out of

cocoa, my life goes on. It's just not as

nice a life and it's not as productive a

life. But 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 fuckups are what we pay for for

the price of being conscious.

>> The tax,

>> it's like a tax,

>> ticket of entry. Yeah. And that's the

whole thing about cocoa 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 and

people, "Oh, he's so productive." And I

just smile like the sher cat. Of course

I am. And Andy knows exactly how and

why. I think probably Andy and I both

share a certain frustration that you

can't talk people into this. You know,

it's 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 the

PMO above Sandoi 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 itself inherently

pleasant. And so we just laid back in

the sun and I'd been with the mamos. I

mean, but I hadn't really discovered the

plant. I mean, Andy will tell you, 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 Cubo in it was 73, wasn't it

Andy?

>> Yeah. And there's a beautiful passage in

one of Andy's essays where he exposed to

Mambbe for the first time. Mambbe by the

way for the audience is just an

Amazonian form of cocoa. It becomes a

green powder like matcha and you don't

use it with an ad mixture. The ad

mixture is the ash is 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 Momb. And the

next day with the men, they gather

around this calabash and 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. And I think that's a

really great summation of the subjective

effects of Koko. And can I say I

attribute at least some of my well-being

to regular use of cocoa.

>> By the [clears throat] way, today is my

birthday and I am 84.

>> Oh, happy birthday.

>> And I feel pretty good.

>> Yeah, you look great.

>> Oh, yeah. People always comment on how

good I look and so forth and I I have to

say cocoa has contributed to that.

All right, [clears throat] I have many

more questions, but I'll I'll try to

contain I could probably use some more

cocoa to get this ADHD, OCD under

control, but are there for people who

have heard and maybe latched on to

something you said earlier, which is one

good scientific study. Yeah,

>> 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 is on our board

of beneficial plants and that's Chris

Mccertie who is a medicinal

pharmacologist at the University of

Florida.

>> How do you spell the last name? MC

capital curd d y Chris mccertie he's

University of Florida

>> and he is the main person who's

researched

>> and has a lot of federal support for his

studies of

>> kraton and I met with him and got him

interested in koka

>> 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 You would not believe the red tape.

>> Why is it so hard?

>> Because this is the problem with Koka,

you know, that it's just all these

regulations and fear about it and

confusion with cocaine. Anyway, he's a

very interesting person to talk to, but

he is set up. He's just about to get

going and he's doing animal research

first, but is using whole cocoa trying

to disentangle the effects of the

different alkyoids. But one of his

interests is looking at this possibility

of of regulating carbohydrate

metabolism.

>> So he's the main person at the moment

that I know who is doing research in

this area and he's very good.

>> Yeah. I was wondering I looked him up

while we were talking.

>> Might not be a fit, might be a fit, but

Dr. Peter Hris has done some interesting

work 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,

cocoa 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 cocoa. That would be

a big step up. I had not even thought

about and I feel foolish realized that

even if it's schedule two if you are say

using methylenadate aka rolin or

something else you just synthesize the

damn stuff whereas if you have to get

actual organic cocoa leaves that adds a

whole different layer of headache in

terms of procuring it 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

>> right Okay, got it. And for someone like

Christopher McCertie, how much do

research studies like this cost? Do you

have any ballpark for folks? 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, right, for more

people to participate, etc. 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. [laughter]

So, you know, that is a challenge. But,

you know, Chris has found that the

federal government, National Institute

on Drug Abuse, is willing to fund these

studies. So, that's very promising.

>> Yeah. I had Nora Vulov of Naida on the

podcast a couple years ago and it was a

really good conversation and she was in

the I think this 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 Naida

she might still be running it

>> but there seems to be a sea change a

foot

>> yes

>> so the timing could be very

serendipitous, right, to try to kick

something off now, particularly on the

research front. Okay. Yeah. For people

who might be wondering, I'll just throw

out some numbers. I mean, early on, this

2015, helping to fund some of the

initials psilocybin studies looking at

depression at Hopkins. I mean, for 50k,

you could make a huge, huge, huge

difference.

>> Really, that's great.

>> It's not necessarily millions of people.

It depends on Again,

the size, the ambition, and you don't

want to be pennywise and pound foolish,

right? If you can fund more and you want

to drive the possibility for

statistically meaningful outcome that is

suitable for publishing and defensible,

then maybe you write a bigger check,

right? Especially if you're going to

wait all that time because science is

pretty slow when it's done properly.

>> Wade, what can you tell us anything

about what's going on in Canada? because

the regulations in Canada are a little

more favorable than they are in the US

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 Colombia and he fell in love

with Colombia. And I've been in Colombia

with Bobby with the Mamos chewing cocoa.

He totally understands the plant and he

certainly understands the distinction

between cocoa and the alkyoid cocaine.

So 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 you

know the biomedical model which I think

has been really failed us. Mhm.

>> I mean, I think this whole Koka story,

you slam up against the whole kind of

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,

you know, and anyone who knew anything

about anything could see that that green

cocaine was Mambi. 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 mambbe, 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 cocoa

and cocaine after [clears throat]

expending a trillion dollars on this

failed campaign. And that was really the

equivalent, if you think about it, of

Elliot Nest busting a truckload of

potatoes in violation of the Volstead

Act. You know, cocoa is to cocaine what

potatoes are to vodka.

>> That's a good comparison. 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 every peach. Not

to kind of push the metaphor, but

they're truly apples and oranges. And so

I think when you combine that kind of in

the- moment idiocy together with the

really pernitious 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 Koka, 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. And yet

that language accusing ki users of being

pornog. 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. I think

that Koka 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. I 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 pure compounds that work for. And

Coke is a perfect example of that. And

Andy, when you say that, you know,

relation to the natural world in a

social sense,

>> y

>> it's expressed in Peru as well. I mean,

one of the great rituals I've

participated in is called the muimeto.

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. But it's not your

ordinary run. You start off at 11,500

ft, run down to to the base of the

sacred mountain to 9,000 ft. Then you

run to over 16,000 ft, and you fall over

two across soaring Andian 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 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 cocoa

in one day than anyone in the 8,000 year

history of the planet. But the point is

what Andy is saying about our relation

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 lands. There's

sacred mounds of earth, hiktos, mahones,

where the waka must spin to bring the

energy of the woman to the mountaintop

where coke is given to patcha mama. 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 koka in

that sense is as powerful and adjunct to

culture

as Iaska might be amongst the peoples of

the anaconda. You know, you can't do

that run without Koka. Tim and Koka is

the mediator. You know, they often say

that the first to taste the leaves was

Antisima Maria in the kind of syncric

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

syncric fusion of pre-Colombian and

Catholic ideas, but that's an indicator

of its centrality

in the stream of existence in the Andes.

>> 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 like why 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

I think 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.

[clears throat]

>> And as I said, I think Koka

>> is a most perfect example

>> of how we've gone wrong in our

relationship with a plant.

>> And also just to underscore one thing

which is not what you're saying. 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. Right.

>> Right. There's plenty of stuff. However,

>> piece versus whole, component versus

entire plant are different. They are

just different.

>> That's a big one. By the way, in our

society particularly, I think there is

great fear of nature and we tend to see

nature as hostile. I 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,

>> right?

>> There's a lot of things that don't taste

good. 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 adviser to one

of the big European supplement companies

and 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. And he said very different to

what you see for example in German

speakaking Europe where people tend to

regard nature as friendly, benign,

helpful and you know in German

[clears throat] culture there's great

use of medicinal plants and natural

forms very different from what we have

here. So that's just an interesting

perspective. I'd never noticed that

before.

>> Where do you think that comes from? Any

ideas?

>> I wonder. Wade any suggestions?

>> I know. You certainly see it amongst,

you know, fungalophobes as you always

talk about Andy, you know, the fear of

mushrooms.

>> Yeah.

>> You know, but Kim, back to your

question, you know, for me, I rever

because of what it's done for my life,

but also it symbolizes for me everything

I care about in terms of culture as an

anthropologist 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

>> of course

>> that shows how crazy this all is is that

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 was played in Lima and 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 Sa

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 Ayakucho or Cusco?"

"Yeah." "Oh, he must have stayed at the

Monestario Hotel in Cusco cuz 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. And

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.

>> Yeah.

>> But we got it off.

>> Yeah. Very seriously. Andy, it looked

like you were going to say something. Do

you have anything to add to that?

>> Nope. I think 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

you know, presenting this plant in all

of its kind of glory. I mean, it's

interesting, you know, I mean, Andy's a

real plant guy. He's a real

ethnobbotonist, 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. But 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 Koka

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 you know

Andy and Tim Plowman who were great

friends both acolytes of Schulties and

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

Koka uh 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 Schulties. We're

doing this in part in memory of Tim. I'm

sure Andy would agree.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. Well, I 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/ccoa.

So on my website

>> that would be great. that'll lead to

this episode. And at the very top of the

show notes, we'll have a link to the

bp.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.

>> That'd be great. We would most

appreciate that.

>> Well, it would be wonderful. A link to

some of the pieces that Andy and I have

written would be really great. That

would be wonderful.

>> Yeah, for sure. 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. I don't want to be

purely a passive consumer of education

or edutainment." Like, 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.log/ccoa.

Just like Coca-Cola. Not a coincidence,

by the way.

>> Yeah, [laughter]

>> 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. Here, a chemical

company manufactures cocaine legally

with a special permission from the US

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 Ka. Well, in

English at least, African known for its

caffeine content.

>> Correct.

>> So, there you go. Coca-Cola. And by the

way, Tim, Coca-Cola notoriously had a

secret cocoa plantation in Hawaii.

>> Hawaii. Yeah.

>> No kidding.

>> Yeah.

>> Scoundrels. Look at that.

>> And you know that is the only legal

export of cocoa from Peru is to that

chemical company, Steen Chemical, in

Maywood, New Jersey. And the cocaine is

extracted and sold for pharmaceutical

use. And 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 in the 1961 UN

Convention on Narcotic Drugs, there was

one specific

exclusion of Kulka 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 floor. stuff that Wade and I would

not chew. [laughter]

>> Drinking sawdust.

>> Yeah.

>> Botanical sawdust.

Well, another bit of u trivia for folks

if they care. Seven Up used to contain

lithium citrate.

>> Oh, yes. Right. Right.

>> Back in the day, you know, those old

soda companies had some stuff figured

out.

>> Yeah.

>> 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?

>> Sure. My website is dr.com.

drwiel.com.

There's a lot of health information

there. And I am the founder of the

Andrew Wild University of Arizona Center

for Integrative Medicine. We train

physicians and health professionals. on

that website is awcim.org

and I'm very proud of our work there.

We've graduated almost 3,000 physicians

and allied health professionals from our

very intensive trainings which include

really good instruction on botanical

medicine.

>> I love it. And people can also find you

on Instagram X etc. Dr. Wild and

presumably you don't have a tap into the

back of your brain for that. 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's

responsible for the language of the UN

declaration. Mhm.

>> But maybe I could just read the key

figure was an acolyte of antser who was

notorious anti-drug warrior that we

almost joke about with reefer madness.

>> But this man name was Pablo Oswaldo

Wolf. He was a chief of the addiction

producing drugs section of the World

Health Organization. He not only

conceived, he wrote the language of Koka

demonization in that. But listen to what

he says and 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 India who does not chew cocoa leaves

is clearsighted, intelligent and

light-hearted, willing to work, vigorous

and resistant to diseases. The cockro on

the contrary is apathetic, lazy,

insensitive to his environment. His mind

is befoged. His emotional reactions are

rare and violent. He is morally and

intellectually enesticized, socially

subdued, almost a slave. Moral

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 cocoa 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 cockeros 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. The

last link in a chain of social and

medical scourges which include

popperism, bad housing conditions,

deficient nutrition, rudimentary or

completely absent education, alcoholism,

tuberculosis, venerial disease and other

infections and promiscuity to mention

only the worst calamities and miseries.

>> I never heard that, Wade. I never heard.

>> 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 dis

intoxication of the native, diminishing

the production as well as the

consumption of cocoa 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

cocoa 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 cocoa leaf chewing and addictions.

And 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

deschedu or reschedu Koka.

>> Might be time for an update.

>> Yeah,

>> it's that bad. Now, 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 Goran or

Google dictating you know 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. And

not saying it's a panacea, not saying

that

there shouldn't be guide rails or guard

rails, but that it's worth another look.

And 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

[laughter]

of of moderate sustained use and

separately getting some science funded

and I think those are parallel tracks.

>> Yeah. and the [snorts] film itself being

used as an educational tool to support I

would say both of those, right? The

latter and the scientific exploration

>> because it strikes me. I mean, look, I'm

not a doctor. I don't play one on the

internet, nor am I a scientist, but I I

like to spend time with a lot of

scientists. It's like I I think about

some of the effects of cocoa 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.

>> I mean, so simple. So, so, so

straightforward.

>> Yeah.

>> Well, guys, this has been wonderful. Any

last closing comments, concerns,

complaints?

>> Thank you for providing a forum to talk

about this. My pleasure.

>> I would like to add Andy just one

comment in which Kim just said and what

you responded how easy these experiments

could have been done. Yeah. And 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 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

pharmarmacological reasons, not for

medical reasons, not for social reasons,

for cultural and political and reasons

of power.

>> Yeah. I wouldn't want to by association

[clears throat] make policy makers feel

like they need to carry the burden of

what was truly uh travesty if they are

in part those whose help we would 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/coka.

I mean cocoa has been of incredible

interest to me for decades now. It is of

such cultural importance. It is of

ecological importance.

>> Economic importance.

>> Economic importance. If you care about

conservation, if you care about

indigenous land rights, if you care

about health and performance, period.

Yeah. 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 [ __ ]

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

cocoa. It may not be available tomorrow,

may not be available next year, but it

is [snorts] deeply deeply interesting

and endlessly fascinating as a possible

subject 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. 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 that's my website.

>> That's the main place. Anywhere else you

would like to point people? We got Wade

Davis official on Instagram, exauthor

Wade Davis. Yeah,

>> I think people would be intrigued by the

book One River, which is really the

account of Tim and I and Koka and

Schulties.

>> 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.

>> Tim, again, we're grateful for your

support. Uh it can make a big

difference.

>> Very much so.

>> My pleasure. My pleasure.

>> Yeah. Thanks so much, Tim. Very

grateful.

>> 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

derisked.

>> 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 of expertise and research. So

always appreciate the time. Always nice

to see you both. And for people

listening as always show notes check it

out. tim.blogca blog/ccoa

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.