Coca LeavesTransfers to Europe. Effects on the Consumption of Coca in North-Western Argentina

ABDUCA, RICARDO GABRIEL

Transatlantic Trade and Global Cultural Transfers Since 1492.More than Commodities

Routledge

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2019; p. 106 - 126

Transfer of the consumption of coca leaves to Europe hasbeen rare, but there has indeed been transference of discourse on the practice.Actually, drugs and stimulating beverages prepared from coca leaves have madetheir way to Europe and North America. Various descriptions of coca had alreadyreached the Western world prior to the advent of products like cocaine, Marianiwine and Coca-Cola, so by when these products became known in the latter 19th century,images of the Andean leaves already existed.    I willbriefly consider such rhythms or stages of European discourse on the topic andfocus on the effects of this situation in Argentina. There, the EuropeanizedNorth-western Argentine elite, aware of the discourse on this new stimulant,brought knowledge about coca leaves ?which had formerly been relegated topeasant Indian and urban workers‟?before the eye of the general public. I consider the following factors:transport systems, cultural changes, judicial and market systems, and ethnicsituations, in order to understand why, from 1920 to the present day,coca-chewing has become a daily life routine in two provinces of Argentine‟s North-western region: Salta and Jujuy