Nashville, cocaine addicts are very difficult to stop from the bondage of drugs because of its content which is so addictive. But you know who the first people who use cocaine?

Archaeological evidence suggests that the Inca civilization in Peru have chewed coca leaf, which is the basic ingredient of cocaine, since 8,000 years ago. It can be said of Peru is the first cocaine users.

According to scientists, the ruins below the floor of a house in northwest Peru show evidence that coca has been chewed together with rocks rich in calcium since thousands of years ago.

These rocks are burnt to make lime and chewed coca to release more active chemical.

Coca leaves contain various chemical compounds known as alkaloids. In modern times the coca leaf is best known as cocaine, which was extracted and purified by a complex chemical.

Other alkaloids in coca leaf to make a stimulating effect, reduces hunger and helps digestion and can reduce the impact of living in highland areas with low oxygen environment.

But chewing coca leaves for medicinal purposes has long been known as a hobby, at least along the Inca civilization.

Previously, evidence of chewing coca leaves have been found from about 3,000 years ago. But now, Tom Dillehay and his colleagues from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, the United States has found evidence both that the coca leaf chewed with calcium-rich rocks that burned.

“We found the coca leaf as if it is something that is used by many people, produced in such a public context rather than individually,” said Tom Dillehay of Vanderbilt University,Monday (6/12/2010).

According to Dillehay, this evidence does not like in Western society, which shows that people with high economic level who could have access to medicinal plants.