People Are Making Too Much of This
Posted Fri Apr 14, 2006, 10:07 AM ET
Okay, indigenous Columbians want to make Cola with real Coca? Why is everybody freaking out about this? It's not the same thing as cocaine. I used to live in Peru and we would drink herb tea made from coca leaves all the time. It's got about as much kick as caffeine—maybe even less, since I'd have no qualms about drinking a cup before bedtime.
Like all herbal infusions, there's a lot of folklore about which ailments coca tea could cure; our neighbors swore it was good for altitude sickness and queasy stomachs. Anecdotally, it worked pretty well for both—I drank a lot of it when I was recovering from typhoid.
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