Different early-Holocene peoples in different areas of South America independently transformed Erythroxylum gracilipes plants into quotidian stimulant and medicinal crops now collectively called Coca.

[3] They have had and still have a significant role in spiritual, economic, social and political dimensions for numerous indigenous cultures in the Andes and the Western Amazon arising from the use of the leaves as drugs and mild, daily stimulant.

[4] The plant is grown as a cash crop in the Argentine Northwest, Bolivia, Alto Rio Negro Territory in Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Peru, even in areas where its cultivation is unlawful.

[12] The flowers are small, and disposed in clusters on short stalks; the corolla is composed of five yellowish-white petals, the anthers are heart-shaped, and the pistil consists of three carpels united to form a three-chambered ovary.

There are two species of coca crops, each with two varieties: All four of the cultivated cocas were domesticated from Erythroxylum gracilipes in pre-Columbian times,[2] with significant archaeological sites reaching from Colombia to northern Chile, including the Las Vegas Culture in Ecuador, the Huaca Prieta site in Peru, and the Nanchoc valley in Peru – where leaf fragments and lime "cal" additives have been dated to over 8,000 years before present.

[2] Thus, different early-Holocene peoples in different areas of South America independently transformed Erythroxylum gracilipes plants into quotidian stimulant and medicinal crops now collectively called coca.

The herbicide resistance of this strain has at least two possible explanations: that a "peer-to-peer" network of coca farmers used selective breeding to enhance this trait through tireless effort, or the plant was genetically modified in a laboratory.

Joshua Davis, in the Wired article cited below, found no evidence of CP4 EPSPS, a protein produced by the glyphosate-resistant soybean, suggesting Bolivana negra was either created in a lab by a different technique or bred in the field.

Besides cocaine, the coca leaf contains a number of other alkaloids, including methylecgonine cinnamate, benzoylecgonine, truxilline, hydroxytropacocaine, tropacocaine, ecgonine, cuscohygrine, dihydrocuscohygrine, and hygrine.

[33] Coca users ingest between 60 and 80 milligrams of cocaine each time they chew the leaves according to United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

[34] The coca leaf, when consumed in its natural form, does not induce a physiological or psychological dependence, nor does abstinence after long-term use produce symptoms typical to substance addiction.

Lime containers found in the north coast of Peru date around 2000 BC as evidenced by the findings at Huaca Prieta and the Jetetepeque river valley.

After some deliberation, Philip II of Spain issued a decree recognizing the drug as essential to the well-being of the Andean Indians but urging missionaries to end its religious use.

[46] In recent times (2006), the governments of several South American countries, such as Peru, Bolivia and Venezuela, have defended and championed the traditional use of coca, as well as the modern uses of the leaf and its extracts in household products such as teas and toothpaste.

While many historians are in agreement that coca was a contributing factor to the daily life of the Inca, there are many different theories as to how this civilization came to adopt it as one of its staple crops and as a valued commodity.

Some historians believe that coca and chicha (fermented corn beer) made it possible for the Incas to move large stones in order to create architectural masterpieces, especially ones of monolithic construction such as Sacsayhuamán.

Although the Spaniards noticed the state-controlled storage facilities that the Inca had built to distribute to its workers,[48] they were still ignorant to plant spirit, divinity of coca, and the Incan admittance of the former.

[51][52] Coca has also been a vital part of the religious cosmology of the Andean peoples of Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and northwest Argentina from the pre-Inca period through to the present.

As one example of the many traditional beliefs about coca, it is believed by the miners of Cerro de Pasco to soften the veins of ore, if masticated (chewed) and thrown upon them[12] (see Cocamama in Inca mythology).

The activity of chewing coca is called mambear, chacchar or acullicar, borrowed from Quechua, coquear (Northwest Argentina), or in Bolivia, picchar, derived from the Aymara language.

[53] Chewing plants for medicinal mostly stimulating effects has a long history throughout the world: Khat in East Africa & the Arabian Peninsula, Tobacco in North America and Australia, and Areca nut in South/Southeast Asia & the Pacific Basin.

The consumer carefully uses a wooden stick (formerly often a spatula of precious metal) to transfer an alkaline component into the quid without touching his flesh with the corrosive substance.

In the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, on the Caribbean Coast of Colombia, coca is consumed[53] by the Kogi, Arhuaco, and Wiwa by using a special device called poporo.

[50] The team members' professional qualifications and parallel interests were also criticised, as were the methodology used and the incomplete selection and use of existing scientific literature on the coca leaf.

[50] This has made it impossible to shed light on the plant's positive aspects and its potential benefits for the physical, mental, and social health of the people who consume and cultivate it.

"[80][81] The Board considered Bolivia, Peru and a few other countries that allow such practises to be in breach with their treaty obligations, and insisted that "each party to the Convention should establish as a criminal offence, when committed intentionally, the possession and purchase of coca leaf for personal consumption.

"[82] In reaction to the 2007 Annual Report of the INCB, the Bolivian government announced that it would formally issue a request to the United Nations to unschedule the coca leaf of List 1 of the 1961 UN Single Convention.

[86][87] Since the 1980s, the countries in which coca is grown have come under political and economic pressure from the United States to restrict the cultivation of the crop in order to reduce the supply of cocaine on the international market.

[50] The environmental problems include "ecocide", where vast tracts of land and forest are sprayed with glyphosate or Roundup, with the intention of eradicating the coca plant.

While its scientific and medical purposes are permissible in accordance with law, any other indulgence including cultivation, possession, sale, consumption, transportation, import, export, are prohibited.