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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?

#81

Post by jrflowers »

toast0 wrote: post #79
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…

> 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?

The Internet Archive must be ran by some dang Goths!!

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

#82

Post by argiopetech »

meroes wrote: post #33
argiopetech wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have the time to do the research justice at this moment; however, let me lay out a rough argument. Let us say, for the sake of argument, that poverty and drug abuse are strongly correlated. Poverty does not cause drug abuse, but people in poverty are more likely to abuse drugs, and people who abuse drugs are more likely to be in poverty due to their drug abuse. The article seems to agree with this point, as i…

My drug use has stopped when Im at my poorest simply because I can’t afford it. Without some sources I’m not even willing to get past your first premise.

Yes, as I stated, "Poverty does not cause drug abuse, but … people who abuse drugs are more likely to be in poverty due to their drug abuse."

So, you've abused drugs and landed yourself in poverty. If you don't stop abusing drugs, you'll stay there (or worse).

Good luck.

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

#83

Post by argiopetech »

meiraleal wrote: post #62
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…

> There are plenty of real problems, past and present, which we can point to as indicative of racial prejudice. The insistence on its insertion into other areas, lacking supporting evidence, is, imho, overtly harmful to discourse. Would you mind disclosing in which camp you stand? I need it to confirm if your disregard for discussing racial problems and warning about "harmful discourse" is real or just racism.

I don't believe in camps (with regards to allying myself with one — obviously they exist). I believe in seeking truth (to the extent possible) through discourse. See the rest of this thread for how I conduct that process and what I do when confronted with reasonable evidence.

I have no problem discussing racial problems. I just didn't see this as one (I've changed that opinion), and didn't appreciate the framing of the article (still don't, but the linked 25 pager is more nuanced).

Finally, I didn't say it was harmful discourse. I said it was "harmful to discourse".

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

#84

Post by bawolff »

mrguyorama wrote: post #75
bawolff wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

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

Indeed, that was the point of the meraphor. By the same token it is wrong to say origi nal coca-cola was cocaine free.

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

#85

Post by kragen »

wildzzz wrote: post #70
kragen wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

coca-cola's statement is technically true but intentionally misleading, and a lot of people are commenting based on the misconception that coca leaf doesn't contain cocaine coca leaf does contain cocaine; cocaine is not a molecule synthesized from something in the coca leaf in the way that methamphetamine is synthesized from natural pseudoephedrine. the coca leaf contains cocaine in doses significant enough to be psy…

It's like a fruit juice saying "no added sugar". They don't add any sugar to the juice but it's definitely not sugar-free. Same with old coke, they never added cocaine but it wasn't cocaine-free.

yeah! you know what, it's almost like saying that sugar isn't an ingredient in apple juice

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

#86

Post by gamblor956 »

jrflowers wrote: post #80
gamblor956 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 implem…

When people are claiming that drug policy is racially motivated, proof of the opposite is very much on point. Anslinger was very open about the fact that his childhood in poverty was behind his extreme anti-drug stance, not some supposed racism that didn't exist until marijuana activists tried to rewrite history in the 1970s.

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

#87

Post by gamblor956 »

Spooky23 wrote: post #60
gamblor956 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think that you’re taking the most charitable view of Anslinger’s conduct possible. You’re essentially arguing that because he hired a few black DEA agents, his vilification propaganda campaigns and pandering to the Jim Crow crowd in congress to get support wasn’t “intended” to target people based on their race. You can split hairs that his actions were in conflict with his true feelings I suppose. But additions ten…

Except that he didn't brutally oppress racial groups...

He brutally went after drug dealers and drug users, regardless of race. He pursued WASPs, Catholic mobsters, white hippies, and minorities with equal lack of restraint.

Again, the problem was not racism. The problem was the extreme lengths he was willing to go to quash drugs. And that was driven by the drug use he witnessed as a child, in a white neighborhood.

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

#88

Post by naijaboiler »

Spooky23 wrote: post #60
gamblor956 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think that you’re taking the most charitable view of Anslinger’s conduct possible. You’re essentially arguing that because he hired a few black DEA agents, his vilification propaganda campaigns and pandering to the Jim Crow crowd in congress to get support wasn’t “intended” to target people based on their race. You can split hairs that his actions were in conflict with his true feelings I suppose. But additions ten…

Even worse, the guy is exactly making the point that it is exactly about race. Heck the dude himself may not have been racist, he clearly used systemic racism to get drug laws passed. That exactly is what racism is. If nothing about the system was racist, the associating it with black strategy would not have worked

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

#89

Post by jrflowers »

gamblor956 wrote: post #86
jrflowers wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 implem…

When people are claiming that drug policy is racially motivated, proof of the opposite is very much on point. Anslinger was very open about the fact that his childhood in poverty was behind his extreme anti-drug stance, not some supposed racism that didn't exist until marijuana activists tried to rewrite history in the 1970s.

You are conflating what you think is a commentary on Anslinger’s internal values with what is a factual statement about the history of drug policy in the US.

We both agree that Anslinger leveraged racial stereotypes in order to achieve his agenda. Race was the tool that ultimately got him the power that he sought. The fact that he failed to gain that power through his own honest accounting of his life story does not in any way serve as proof of anything — certainly not “proof of the opposite” that drug policies were enacted on racial grounds.

It is easy to ponder the inner workings of a man’s soul and mind, as it is easy to project whatever positive or negative motivations on a man. That activity is, however, completely separate from a factual accounting of what a man said, did, and achieved.

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

#90

Post by cykros »

srean wrote: post #74
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.

Cocaine is also a schedule 2 substance, meaning it is actually approved and sold for medical use. Not a lot, mind you, and mostly only in hospital settings for local anaesthesia purposes, but it was absolutely found in the catalogs we used to use for doing the ordering when I worked as a pharmacy technician.
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