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

**Tim Ferriss** (0:00)
Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferris Show. This is a three-way.
This is a podcast featuring two bucking broncos and intellectual greats. I am excited to introduce you to both Wade Davis and Dr. Andrew Weil. They've both been on separately before. But in this particular instance, they are united in their deep interest and long term use of the divine leaf, aka coca leaf, which has 8,000-plus years of human use documented. We'll get into lots of details on that and why on earth I might feature this on this podcast. But let's get to some bios for those who don't know these fellows. 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. With a PhD from Harvard in Ethnobotany, he spent three years among 15 indigenous groups in the Amazon and the Andes. He's the author of 24 books and 26 languages. We'll get to how he credits Coca for a lot of that productivity, including the Samuel Johnson Prize winning Into the Silence.
Dr. Andrew Weil is a pioneer in integrative medicine and founder of 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. He earned his biology degree from Harvard College and an MD from Harvard Medical School, later researching medicinal and psychoactive plants at the Harvard Botanical Museum. In 1979, he founded the Beneficial Plant Research Association, revitalizing that in 2024 as its president. In New York Times bestselling author 15 books and named by Time among the world's 100 most influential people. He co-founded True Food Kitchen, one of my favorites and matcha.com. You can find Wade Davis at daviswaid.com and Dr. Weil at drweil.com.
Without further ado, please enjoy this wide-ranging conversation, all about but not limited to COCA.

**Andrew Weil** (2:15)
At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.

**Wade Davis** (2:20)
Can I ask you a personal question?

**Andrew Weil** (2:26)
I'm a cybernetic organism living this year over a metal endoskeleton.

**Tim Ferriss** (2:38)
I thought, Andy, we could start with the ethnobotanical medicinal side of things.
Because I'll share perhaps an anecdote to kick us off, which was I, as both of you have spent a lot of time in South America, and it's not always to end up in the lower or upper Amazon consuming questionable substances. It's sometimes to do other things, like visit cities and spend time with friends and go skiing. The skiing, in this case, was in Chile, and it was the first instance where we landed in Santiago, drove to elevation very quickly, and I had my first experience with terrible altitude sickness. For those who have not experienced it, I do not wish it upon my worst enemy. It is an absolutely horrific experience. It's terrible. And even though the legal status, I think, is a question mark, or maybe it's very directly forbidden in Chile, the locals in the lodge gave me coca leaf tea, and within several hours, no symptoms, and they did not recur past that point, which blew my mind, particularly since even with Diamox to help with altitude acclimation, my experience has been that it takes a few days. And I did not have any good way to explain this, particularly given my levels of exertion. And not surprisingly, in other countries, whether it's Peru, Colombia, certainly if you look at the Cogies and so on, this plant is not just incredibly important from a, let's just call it, for lack of a better term, religious perspective, cultural perspective, but also medicinal perspective. So I was hoping, Andy, you could give a primer on what makes coca the plant interesting.

**Andrew Weil** (4:37)
Let me say I first met coca in 1965
I just finished my first year of medical school. My mentor, Dick Schultes, who was director of the Harvard Botanical Museum, sent me to South America to collect medicinal plants with one of his graduate students in the Amazon and the Andes. And I met with him right before I left. And he said, when you're in Peru, be sure to chew coca.
He said it's a very interesting plant and you want to learn about it. So I did. And I have been using coca ever since. And my original interest was to find out how this was used by indigenous peoples medicinally. It's as important to that population as peppermint and chamomile are in European medicine. It's their major medicinal plant. And the main indication is for treating GI disorders. But also it is obviously relied on to provide energy in doing physical work, to help with altitude sickness, as you mentioned, to boost mood and to improve metabolism. You know, the population, the Andes especially, is often not well nourished. And they eat a very high starch diet.