chapter 4
The Alchemy of Empire Drugs and Development in the Americas
In July 1941, a United States Treasury officer checked out a pamphlet entitled “Coca: A Plant of the Andes” from the department’s library. Originally published in 1928 as part of the Pan-American Union’s “Commodities of Commerce Series,” the pamphlet described the coca leaf market with the intent of facilitating US international trade. In 1941, however, the government’s interest in the coca leaf had more to do with military applications than trade. The officer had gone to the library at the request of investigators in the US Army, and he returned the pamphlet to the librarian, having penned this lighthearted message: “I suppose the future will find each soldier chewing a wad of coca leaves as he repulses the attack of the invading hordes.” The US Army was interested in exploring the stimulating properties of the coca leaf for potential use by its soldiers. In particular, the Treasury officer explained, “It seems that they have been discussing the stimulating effect produced by eating the leaves, as well as boiling them and drinking the tea.”1 Military researchers on all sides of the conflict during World War II sought to derive from plants or manufacture in laboratories an array of substances to heal, minimize pain from injury, and stimulate soldiers to make them more efficient fighters. Coca was just one of many such promising entities, although it seems that at least in leaf form it never gained a foothold in US military barracks. The officer’s mirth over the humorous incongruity of coca-chewers filling the ranks of the world’s most powerful army was indicative of the 132
