Coca is widely cultivated in the western Amazon, especially in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. The type of coca cultivated in this vast region has been considered to represent a distinct variety: Erythroxylon Coca var. Ipadu**. Some investigators believe that the coca plant and the use of the leaves as a narcotic are recent introductions to the western Amazon from the Andean highlands. The existence of a distinct variety of E. Coca and the deep magicoreligious role played by this plant and its product in the northwest Amazon, however, would seem to indicate an appreciable age of the plant in the region as well as an antiquity for its use as a sacred narcotic.