Herbal Mind Bar
  1. Home
  2. History
  3. Chapter 9

09Part One · History

Taxed, Shipped Out or Outlawed: What Became of the Other Plants

What became of local psychoactive plants while coffee and tea spread — yohimbe, coca, mate, coffee in Sweden and ayahuasca.

In this chapter

  • Africa: Yohimbe, Shipped Outyohimbe bark under colonial rule, and coffee as a plantation crop
  • The Andes: The Church Condemns, the Crown Counts Its Revenuecoca under Spanish rule — the Church’s councils, the Crown’s silver mines — and the leaf’s legal status today
  • Mate: Banned, Burned and Then Plantedhow mate was banned and burned, and then planted and traded
  • Sweden: Health in Word, Money in the LedgersSweden’s coffee bans, and the reasons given and the real ones
  • The Amazon: Ayahuascaayahuasca’s history, its legal recognition, and how to read the first controlled trial in depression

Questions this chapter answers

  • Why did the Spanish Crown protect coca while the Church condemned it?

    The answer is in the book →

  • Why was mate banned and then allowed?

    The answer is in the book →

  • How many times did Sweden ban coffee, and what was the real reason?

    Five times between 1756 and 1823. The chapter sets the reason given, health, beside what the ledgers show.

  • What did the first controlled trial of ayahuasca for depression actually show?

    Published in 2019, with 29 patients: remission at one week in 5 of 14 on ayahuasca against 1 of 15 on placebo (p = 0.054). It shows the question is worth asking, not that the brew beats medication.

Short answers only. Chapter 9 gives the full account, with 15 footnotes to 13 sources.

Read more in the book

Sources

15 footnotes to 13 sources. Full references are in the bibliography.

  1. Nowacka, Agnieszka, Martyna Śniegocka, Maciej Śniegocki et al. “Multifaced Nature of Yohimbine — a Promising Therapeutic Potential or a Risk?” International Journal of Molecular Sciences 25, no. 23 (2024): 12856. DOI 10.3390/ijms252312856.
  2. Ngo Mpeck, M.-L., E. Asaah and Z. Tchoundjeu. “Contribution of Tree Domestication to the Conservation of Indigenous Medicinal Plants of African Forests.” Paper for the XII World Forestry Congress, Québec City, 2003. fao.org/4/XII/0870-B1.htm. Accessed October 4, 2026.
  3. Gagliano, Joseph A. Coca Prohibition in Peru: The Historical Debates. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1994.
  4. Ley 23.737 (Argentina). Sanctioned September 21, 1989; promulgated October 10, 1989.
  5. Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961, as amended by the 1972 Protocol.
  6. Sarreal, Julia J. S. Yerba Mate: The Drink That Shaped a Nation. Oakland: University of California Press, 2023.
  7. Hodacs, Hanna. “Substituting Coffee and Tea in the Eighteenth Century: A Rural and Material History with Global Implications.” Journal of Global History 18, no. 3 (2023): 461–480. DOI 10.1017/S1740022823000086.
  8. Knutsson, Anna and Hanna Hodacs. “When Coffee Was Banned: Strategies of Labour and Leisure among Stockholm’s Poor Women, 1794–1796 and 1799–1802.” Scandinavian Economic History Review 71, no. 2 (2023): 176–198. DOI 10.1080/03585522.2021.2000489.
  9. Linnaeus, Carl (praeses) and Henricus Sparschuch (respondent). Dissertatio medica, in qua potus coffeae leviter adumbratur. Uppsala, 1761.
  10. Nordisk familjebok. 2nd ed. Vol. 13, Johan–Kikare. Stockholm, 1910.
  11. Conselho Nacional de Políticas sobre Drogas (Brazil). Resolução No. 1, de 25 de janeiro de 2010. Diário Oficial da União, January 26, 2010.
  12. Instituto Nacional de Cultura (Peru). Resolución Directoral Nacional No. 836/INC, Lima, June 24, 2008.
  13. Palhano-Fontes, Fernanda, Dayanna Barreto, Heloisa Onias et al. “Rapid Antidepressant Effects of the Psychedelic Ayahuasca in Treatment-Resistant Depression: A Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial.” Psychological Medicine 49, no. 4 (2019): 655–663. DOI 10.1017/S0033291718001356.