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Convolvulus pluricaulis (Shankhpushpi) and Erythroxylum coca (Coca plant)
Published in Azamal Husen, Herbs, Shrubs, and Trees of Potential Medicinal Benefits, 2022
Sashi Sonkar, Akhilesh Kumar Singh, Azamal Husen
The E. coca leaf contains 0.7–1.5% of total alkaloids, with (-)-cocaine (pharmacologically active ingredient), a diester of (-)-ecgonine. Ecgonine has four chiral centers and is hence optically active. Other minor components of coca leaves include tropacocaine, methylecgonine, β-truxilline, α-truxilline, and cinnamonylcocaine (Christen, 2000). Cocaine was the most abundant alkaloid, accounting for 0.56% of the total dry weight, and other alkaloids include anhydroecgonine methyl ester (0.2% dry weight), ecgonine methyl ester (0.18% dry weight), trans-cinnamoylcocaine (0.4% dry weight), and cis-cinnamoylcocaine (0.7% dry weight) (Penny et al., 2009). Additional alkaloids also found in coca leaf in coca tea bags include hygrine, nicotine, dihydrocuscohygrine, cuscohygrine, ecgonine, hydroxytropacocaine, benzoylecgonine, and methylecgonine cinnamate (Jenkins et al., 1996). The leaves also had magnesium, zinc, iron, calcium, vitamin D, vitamin E, β-carotene, and protein, with lysine being the limiting amino acid (Penny et al., 2009). So far, 18 alkaloids from pyridines, pyrrolidines, and tropanes have been identified in a cultivated variety of E. coca (Novak et al., 1984). Several alkaloids were discovered and identified in the seeds of E. coca, including trans-cinnamoylcocaine, cis-cinnamoylcocaine, cocaine, hexanoylecgonine methyl ester, benzoyltropine, N-norbenzoyltropine, cuscohygrine, ecgonine methyl ester, 3α-acetoxytropane, tropine, and methylecgonidine (Casale et al., 2005).
Cocaine and the Fetus: Methodological Issues and Neurological Correlates
Published in Richard J. Konkol, George D. Olsen, Prenatal Cocaine Exposure, 2020
Cocaine is obtained from Erythroxylon coca, a plant indigenous to the mountainous regions of South America. For centuries the natives of this region have used coca leaves in religious rituals or for its medicinal properties to treat a variety of ailments, notably fatigue and mountain sickness. In these settings coca is administered by either chewing on coca leaves or by preparing an infusion of coca leaves, coca tea.
Missed Opportunities? Beneficial Uses of Illicit Drugs
Published in Ross Coomber, The Control of Drugs and Drug Users, 2020
Lester Grinspoon, James B. Bakalar
In the form of leaf powder or tea, coca is taken for toothache, ulcers, rheumatism, asthma, and even malaria. Coca tea is often served to tourists arriving at hotels and inns in the high Andes as a remedy for the nausea, dizziness, and headache of soroche (altitude sickness). Unlike other stimulants, coca is also a local anesthetic. The juice of the leaf can be applied to soothe eye irritations or gargled for hoarseness and sore throat. Coca leaves are also used as a topical anesthetic for mouth sores. Coca contains minerals, vitamin C, and some B vitamins, and it is sometimes said to be an important source of these nutrients in the Andean diet.
Cannabis legalization, regulation, & control: a review of key challenges for local, state, and provincial officials
Published in The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, 2019
Jonathan P. Caulkins, Michelle L. Kilborn
Regular users develop tolerance to cannabis, particularly to its cognitive effects (60), so the behavioral effects of consuming 300 not 5 milligrams of THC per day may be modest. However, rather eerily, 4–5 milligrams is also the amount of cocaine ingested by drinking a cup of coca tea (61), and chronic cocaine users in the US appear to consume no more than 290 milligrams per day since dividing total US cocaine consumption (327 MT in 2005) by the number of “chronic” users (3.1 million) works out to 290 milligrams per user per day (59). Consuming 290 milligrams per day of cocaine creates greater health concerns than does drinking coca tea, which Indigenous populations in the Andes have used without harm for centuries. Whether Paracelsus’ axiom that “the dose makes the poison” will likewise apply to THC remains to be seen, since most clinical studies of THC’s effects work with doses of only 20–50 milligrams.
Wellbeing and mental health among medical students in Paraguay
Published in International Review of Psychiatry, 2019
Julio Torales, Murtaza Kadhum, Gabriel Zárate, Iván Barrios, Israel González, Sarah Marie Farrell, Antonio Ventriglio, Andrés Arce
Sixty-eight students report that they used substances to improve their academic performance (38%). The substances used in this group were: Gamalate® (vitamin B6) 27%, Sulbuthiamine 19%, Multivitamins 15%, Methylphenidate 12%, coca tea 2.9%, Gingseng 3%, vitamin C, 2%, piracetam 2%, and niacinamide 4%. Fifteen per cent (10 students) did not specify the substance. On the frequency of consumption, 28% consume daily, 29% many times this year, 7% weekly, 9% monthly, and 24% once this year, and 3% did not indicate the frequency.