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Who Took the Cocaine Out of Coca-Cola?

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Re: Who Took the Cocaine Out of Coca-Cola?

#71

Post by wildzzz »

margalabargala wrote: post #23
thisisauserid wrote: post #19

I dunno 'bout that: "Was Cocaine once an ingredient in Coca-cola? No, there’s never been any cocaine added in Coca‑Cola and there never will be." https://www.coca-cola.com/mv/en/about-us/faq/was-cocaine-onc... Is someone suggesting they would obfuscate their sacred history?

Cocaine was never a coca-cola ingredient. The intro to the article exaggerates for narrative effect. Coca leaf was, and still is, an ingredient in coca-cola. So both cocaine and coca-cola are made with coca leaf, but coca-cola is not and never has been made with cocaine.

It depends on how you define an "ingredient" and "made with". Was pure cocaine added to the original Coca-Cola during manufacturing? No. Was cocaine one of the naturally occurring substances in coca leaf extract that was put in Coke? Yes.

The FDA considers caffeine an ingredient in things like soda and energy drinks because it's dosed and added to the beverage. But the FDA doesn't consider the naturally occurring caffeine in coffee beans as an ingredient in something like coffee beans or a canned cold brew. A manufacturer might list caffeine content to help consumers but they aren't required to do so.

Is gluten an ingredient in flour? Not to the FDA but it's still in there. Is sugar an ingredient in fresh squeezed orange juice? No but it's still in there.

Re: Who Took the Cocaine Out of Coca-Cola?

#72

Post by pseingatl »

You can get a soft drink in Colombia or Bolivia containing non-decocainized coca leaves as ingredients today. The Stepan company in New Jersey is the only licensed importer of coca leaves in the US. They decocainize the leaves, removing the methyl benzoyl ecgonine (C17H21NO4) and then sell the remaining leaves to the Coca-Cola company for flavor.

Re: Who Took the Cocaine Out of Coca-Cola?

#73

Post by gorlilla »

wbshaw wrote: post #66
thisisauserid wrote: post #19

I dunno 'bout that: "Was Cocaine once an ingredient in Coca-cola? No, there’s never been any cocaine added in Coca‑Cola and there never will be." https://www.coca-cola.com/mv/en/about-us/faq/was-cocaine-onc... Is someone suggesting they would obfuscate their sacred history?

Every time I've taken the tour at the Coca-Cola museum in Atlanta, the question has come up and they consistently deny it. I think next time I'll ask the question as whether or not Coco leaves were included in the original formula. I'll bet I get the wrong answer.

"Is it true that prior to aggressive anti-drug legislation, the cocoa leaf extract that was used in coca-cola was not specifically de-cocainized thereby causing coca-cola to possibly contain quantities of cocaine that were possibly significant to the consumer?"

Idk, just lawyer proof the question as much as possible..

Re: Who Took the Cocaine Out of Coca-Cola?

#74

Post by srean »

pseingatl wrote: post #72

You can get a soft drink in Colombia or Bolivia containing non-decocainized coca leaves as ingredients today. The Stepan company in New Jersey is the only licensed importer of coca leaves in the US. They decocainize the leaves, removing the methyl benzoyl ecgonine (C17H21NO4) and then sell the remaining leaves to the Coca-Cola company for flavor.

That begs the question what do they do with the methyl benzoyl ecgonine.

I suppose it ends up in lidocaine and other variants.

Re: Who Took the Cocaine Out of Coca-Cola?

#75

Post by mrguyorama »

bawolff wrote: post #45
bongodongobob wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kind of like saying edibles don't have weed in them. While technically correct, it's dishonest.

I think a better comparison is marketing orange juice as sugar free (because no sugar was added)

You cannot market orange juice as sugar free. Only "No sugar added"

"Sugar Free" is based entirely on the amount of sugar per serving size of finished product. It does not care where the sugar came from. Any product that contains less than 0.5 grams of sugar per serving can be labeled "Sugar Free".

This has the fun outcome that tiny candies made entirely of sugar can be sold as "Sugar Free"

Re: Who Took the Cocaine Out of Coca-Cola?

#77

Post by layer8 »

thisisauserid wrote: post #19

I dunno 'bout that: "Was Cocaine once an ingredient in Coca-cola? No, there’s never been any cocaine added in Coca‑Cola and there never will be." https://www.coca-cola.com/mv/en/about-us/faq/was-cocaine-onc... Is someone suggesting they would obfuscate their sacred history?

From TFA: “That same year [1901], Candler called for a change to the Coca-Cola formula, replacing cocaine with heavier doses of sugar and caffeine—and started denying that the soda had ever contained cocaine to begin with.”

Re: Who Took the Cocaine Out of Coca-Cola?

#78

Post by Aloisius »

argiopetech wrote: post #4

While framed as a "black and mixed-race working class vs white middle class" conflict, the remainder of the article suggests that burgeoning recreational use of the pure drug informed removal of that drug from a drink where it was included in sub-therapeutic doses (9mg/drink vs 50-75mg in a recreational "dose" [0]). It's unclear to me, as written, how race was causal and why it's included as in the article. There are…

That 9 mg number appears to be off by an order of magnitude.

The original recipe coca-cola recipe contained 3/200th of a grain of cocaine per serving, which would be 0.972 mg.

It was then lowered to 1/400th of a grain (0.2 mg) before being eliminated.

Re: Who Took the Cocaine Out of Coca-Cola?

#79

Post by toast0 »

jrflowers wrote: post #11
argiopetech wrote: post #4

While framed as a "black and mixed-race working class vs white middle class" conflict, the remainder of the article suggests that burgeoning recreational use of the pure drug informed removal of that drug from a drink where it was included in sub-therapeutic doses (9mg/drink vs 50-75mg in a recreational "dose" [0]). It's unclear to me, as written, how race was causal and why it's included as in the article. There are…

>The insistence on its insertion into other areas, lacking supporting evidence, is, imho, overtly harmful to discourse. There is a lack of supporting evidence that race has historically been a deciding factor in US drug policy in the same way that there is a lack of supporting evidence for the historical existence of the Romans. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5614457/ https://www.case.org/system/files/m…

> there is a lack of supporting evidence for the historical existence of the Romans.

Pshaw, if they existed, how come the Internet Archive doesn't have any of their government webpages archived?

Re: Who Took the Cocaine Out of Coca-Cola?

#80

Post by jrflowers »

gamblor956 wrote: post #53
jrflowers wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The insistence on its insertion into other areas, lacking supporting evidence, is, imho, overtly harmful to discourse. There is a lack of supporting evidence that race has historically been a deciding factor in US drug policy in the same way that there is a lack of supporting evidence for the historical existence of the Romans. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5614457/ https://www.case.org/system/files/m…

People should read their citations... The case.org publication clearly states that Anslinger's first-hand exposure to drug addiction as a child in a poor neighborhood that drove his drug policy. After his personal story failed to convince legislators, he used minorities as scapegoats to get drug legislation to pass. His career demonstrates that this was not personal animus against minorities; Anslinger hired several…

>After his personal story failed to convince legislators, he used minorities as scapegoats to get drug legislation to pass.

This is a good undisputed example of race being a key factor in US drug policy. The fact that racial stereotypes and caricatures may have been the second strategy that Anslinger used to achieve his aims is neither here nor there when discussing the historical usage of race in creating and implementing drug policy in the US.

If, for some reason, the topic of the history of race and US drug policy were to be mistaken for the topic of “racism as defined as a fundamentally unknowable specter haunting the heart of Harry Anslinger” then his various hires could be germane. Those are, however, fundamentally different subjects to such a degree that there is no meaningful connection between the two that would make one useful in discussing the other.

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