The Enigmatic Evanescence of Coca from Ecuador

Abstract

The coca plant, native to the tropical and subtropical Americas, seems to have disappeared from Ecuador. How and why did this occur? A combination of colonial religious and civil prohibitions, native demographic collapse, competition from other crops and the infeasibility of mining contrived against coca. More recently, legislation calling not only for prohibition but eradication of the plant under the auspices of an anti-narcotics campaign has pushed it into obscurity, where it will likely remain.