ABSTRACT
The coca bush Erythroxylum coca grows wild in the Andes; it makes cocaine ultimately from the amino acid L-glutamine to stop insect predators from eating it — with its leaves containing around 0.3-0.7% cocaine. People in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Chile have chewed coca leaves for 8000 years or more. The Incas made pellets of coca leaves with alkali or calcite and chewed them, giving a slow release of cocaine that they absorbed from their saliva. A Corsican chemist named Angelo Mariani made the discovery that the alcohol in wine extracted the cocaine from coca leaves and put the result, Vin Mariani, on sale. Traditional cocaine is a salt, while crack cocaine is molecular in structure. Both ionic and molecular forms are involved in cocaine processing. Cocaine hydrochloride salt is what is commonly sold as cocaine powder, which has traditionally been injected or snorted. If the cocaine hydrochloride salt is treated with alkali, it reverts into the neutral molecular base.
