#871: The “Divine Leaf” with 8,000+ Years of Use — Exploring the Many Benefits of Coca with Dr. Andrew Weil and Wade Davis

June 25, 2026

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5 min read

The “Divine Leaf” with 8,000+ Years of Use

In 1965, a young medical student named Andrew Weil was sent to South America by his mentor, Harvard botanist Richard Evans Schultes, with a simple instruction: “When you’re in Peru, be sure to chew coca.” Weil did, and he has been using the leaf ever since. Decades later, ethnographer Wade Davis—Schultes’s graduate student and Weil’s longtime collaborator—would describe coca as the plant that “wrapped its arms around me when I was nineteen years old and has never let me go.” Together on Tim Ferriss’s podcast, Weil and Davis make the case that coca, the source of cocaine, has been catastrophically misunderstood: it is not a dangerous drug but a benign medicinal plant with 8,000 years of safe human use, and its prohibition has been driven by racism and colonial politics rather than pharmacology.

What Coca Actually Does

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What you'll learn

1 (03:21) **Tim's Altitude Sickness Experience** - Rapid relief from coca leaf tea after quick ascent in Chile
2 (04:38) **Andrew Weil's Introduction to Coca** - First encounter in 1965 via mentor Richard Evans Schultes
3 (05:42) **Metabolic and Nutritional Observations** - Traditional diets plus coca appear protective against type 2 diabetes
4 (06:25) **Whole Plant vs. Isolated Cocaine** - Fourteen alkaloids present; only cocaine has been heavily studied
5 (07:36) **GI Effects and Paradoxical Activity** - Users report relief from both diarrhea and constipation
6 (09:34) **Broader Indigenous Medicinal Context** - Coca viewed as primary remedy for diverse GI complaints
7 (11:47) **Wade Davis on Cultural History** - Eight thousand years of continuous use with no evidence of toxicity or addiction

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

"Coca is to cocaine what potatoes are to vodka" — Dr. Andrew Weil and Wade Davis on the health benefits, sacred history, and unjust prohibition of the most misunderstood plant on Earth.

Dr. Andrew Weil is a pioneer in integrative medicine and founder of the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona, where he holds the Lovell-Jones Endowed Chair and serves as Clinical Professor of Medicine and Professor of Public Health.

Wade Davis is an ethnographer, writer, photographer, and filmmaker. From 2014 to 2024 he served as Professor of Anthropology and BC Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk at the University of British Columbia, and from 2000 to 2013 as Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society.

Connect with the Beneficial Plant Research Association (BPRA): Website (scroll down to donate) | Coca Leaf Research | Coca Leaf Documentary | Coca Leaf Retreat

This episode is brought to you by:

Incogni, which automatically removes your personal data from the web, helping shield you from fraud, scams, and identity theft: Incogni.com/Tim (use code TIM at checkout and get 60% off an annual plan)
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5-Bullet Friday, my very own free email newsletter: https://tim.blog/friday

Timestamps:

[00:00:00] Start.
[00:02:38] When coca tea cured my brutal altitude sickness in Chile.
[00:04:01] Andy meets coca, 1965: the Andes' master medicine for gut, energy, mood, metabolism.
[00:06:20] 14 alkaloids, one scapegoat.
[00:07:11] The paradox: one remedy for both diarrhea and constipation.
[00:11:37] 8,000 years, zero addiction — and t