Paul Gootenberg on the Global History of Drugs
PSYCHOACTIVE
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Koka - A Drug of Great Importance
Koka is so identified with the Indian region of Latin America. But there's a point at which the Dutch take it to East Asia and that emerges as, I don't know, was it even more dominant exporter for some years than Latin America? Yeah. The British did successfully grow Koka in India and Sri Lanka. But the one that really took off was the Dutch and there was a long history behind this. And all this, you know, East Asian Koka came up there in the teens and through the 1920s was made into cocaine spread around Europe.
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