Page "Coca" Paragraph 29

In the early twentieth century the Dutch colony of Java became a leading exporter of coca leaf.

By 1912 shipments to Amsterdam, where the leaves were processed into cocaine, reached 1 million kg, overtaking the Peruvian export market.

Apart from the years of the First World War, Java remained a greater exporter of coca than Peru until the end of the 1920s.

Other colonial powers also tried to grow coca ( including the British in India ), but with the exception of the Japanese in Formosa, these were relatively unsuccessful.