On 17th century "cocaine" • Hacker News Board

Re: On 17th century "cocaine"

#161

Post by _yb2s » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 5:32 PM UTC

cjbgkagh wrote: post #54

_yb2s wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same, the first time I ever had a cup of coffee I missed two nights sleep. I have only done 23andme not a WGS like you, but I have at least one liver enzyme SNP that dramatically slows down caffeine metabolism. It took me quite a while to realize that the advice of "no caffeine after 5pm" or whatever needed to be something more like - no more than one cup of coffee before dawn.

Yeah, it would be nice if these general life rules / advice could be written down somewhere with the exceptions listed. I would have appreciated getting a personalized handbook that would have given me a heads up that I was different. Given the price of WGS being low enough to be generally available I think this is something humanity could benefit a lot more from.

That concept is so broad and generally useful it can only be broadly represented by something like Timothy Leary's statement of "think for yourself, and question authority."

Of course, knowing for sure specific facts showing that you are different in some way such that general advice doesn't apply is super useful because it saves you the effort of having to solve the problem on your own- you will always find new ones that nobody has already solved.

Re: On 17th century "cocaine"

#162

Post by mossTechnician » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 5:32 PM UTC

dfxm12 wrote: post #152

mossTechnician wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen the word used in different contexts, usually as a marketing buzzword, a shortcut to elicit a positive feeling. (This article does not take that route, which is why I found it interesting.) If you look at the Google search recommendations after typing in the word "democratize," for example, you get people trying to understand what it means to "democratize finance" (initially, the solution was almost exclusiv…

All of these examples appear to have the same context: bringing something to the masses, just like a factory produced drug or can of corn. If you look at the Google search recommendations after typing in the word "democratize," for example, you get people trying to understand what it means to "democratize finance" I don't see these results (Google search results are personalized). I guess I took for granted that the…

A word can be overused by marketing without distorting its meaning. I didn't expect so much pushback over saying I found it interesting!

Re: On 17th century "cocaine"

#163

Post by lisper » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 5:38 PM UTC

cynicalpeace wrote: post #157

lisper wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will not defend the claim that equality before the law exists in the U.S. It's still far from obvious to me that hundreds of entities have applied for coca import permits with legitimate justification and been denied.

Great, we agree on the far more important claim

In that case you don't have to bring coca into it at all, that just muddies the waters. All you have to do it look at Marcellus Williams and Richard Glossip and compare how they were/are being treated to how Donald Trump is being treated.

Re: On 17th century "cocaine"

#164

Post by gwbas1c » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 5:58 PM UTC

lisper wrote: post #129

The difference between coca and cocaine is rather like the difference between sugar cane and refined sugar. In fact, that is quite a good analogy in more ways than one.

More like the difference between a beer and grain alcohol.

Re: On 17th century "cocaine"

#165

Post by gwbas1c » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 6:01 PM UTC

> Was recreational or medicinal coca use something that was happening all over Europe in the 1600s?

I'd think we'd already know, because there would be historical (literature and records) references.

Re: On 17th century "cocaine"

#166

Post by mrguyorama » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 6:02 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #141

kragen wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying that freebase cocaine isn't "cocaine, the drug", but chlorides and sulfates are? It may be relevant to this discussion that salts dissociate in solution, but maybe it won't convince you because it sounds like you're steering painfully close to "the sun goes around the earth because people say 'the sun rises', and therefore it doesn't make sense to talk about sunrise on Mars." That is, it sounds like you…

> saying that freebase cocaine isn't "cocaine, the drug", but chlorides and sulfates are Yes. So does the DEA. We had separate charges for “cocaine” and “crack” for decades, with the former referring to the powdered salt and the latter to the base. The fact that the active compound is identical is irrelevant. > They're just wrong, because being wrong is a thing that people do a lot, especially when they're talking ab…

I mean, taking your definitions from the DEA for cocaine is just wrong. Even if you believe it to be meaningful, it is US-centric to a fault, and government definitions of things are not meant to generalize.

Crack is "crack cocaine". It is a Form of cocaine.

The separation of "cocaine" and "crack" was a policy and marketing choice, in order to make it possible that a black person would get 20 years for dealing the same drug that would only get a white person 5 years.

The people chewing coca leaves before the 1800s were doing so in order to consume the cocaine within.

Re: On 17th century "cocaine"

#167

Post by mrguyorama » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 6:04 PM UTC

cynicalpeace wrote: post #147

IAmGraydon wrote: post #6

>As you can see, the Times was not the only news outlet to be confused about the distinction between cocaine and coca Unfortunately, the author of this article is the one who is confused. Cocaine is the name of the alkaloid present in the coca leaf, much like the coffee bean contains caffeine. If they were using coca leaf, they were using cocaine.

So when you drink Coca-Cola, you're drinking cocaine?

At one point in history, yes, this was literally true, in the exact same way that if you are drinking black tea, you are drinking caffeine.

Re: On 17th century "cocaine"

#168

Post by bluGill » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 6:23 PM UTC

cynicalpeace wrote: post #158

fluoridation wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need double blind randomized controlled studies, we just need documentation showing that hundreds of business applied for an exception to import coca leaves for legitimate purposes and were denied.

To show that equality before the law doesn't exist in our country? Also, you're asking for evidence no one can produce. How convenient. I was being hyperbolic to point out that the "evidenced-based" culture has gone too far, to the point where you need obviously unobtainable evidence to prove something that is obviously true.

Yet this is something where it should be possible to produce evidence. Paperwork like is needed is generally available if you ask the right place. Any company trying that was rejected is has a bunch of people who did that paperwork and they could talk about it - indeed if the company was serious they have incentive to talk about it.

Now it is possible that the paperwork required means hundreds of companies never even tried, and evidence of that chilling effect is hard to produce. However that is not the claim.

Re: On 17th century "cocaine"

#169

Post by bluGill » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 6:34 PM UTC

lhh wrote: post #118

throwup238 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia says that 59% to 90% of the alkaloid is absorbed when drunk as a tea [1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca

Interesting, I'd always assumed people snorted the powder because it's not absorbed if consumed orally, but apparently that's not true. Maybe just it's just for the absorption speed? So... if someone drank industrial quantities of coca tea in one go, it'd be a 2-12 hour cocaine high?

snorting means it is absorbed into the bloodstream in your nose - that is very fast. Drinking means it goes through the stomach and then is released into the intestines to be absorbed (depending on what else you ate this could be slow or somewhat fast - but always much more drawn out than snorting).

Re: On 17th century "cocaine"

#170

Post by lumost » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 6:37 PM UTC

standardUser wrote: post #127

lqet wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading the complete Sherlock Holmes stories a few months ago, I also noticed how casually the frequent use of cocaine by Holmes is mentioned as a small vice, a recreational drug that is also "chemically clean", so nothing to worry about. Opium, on the other hand, is associated with disease, crime, and the criminal underworld.

I use cocaine semi-frequently but avoid all opioids. The people I've known with cocaine problems always have tangential problems with alcohol abuse, excessive/irresponsible partying and generally unstable lifestyles. I've rarely seem people with acute addictions. The (many more) people I've know with opioid addictions are often 'regular' people with moderate-to-severe pain or mental health issues that become severely…

I don't know your age, but as I've gotten older a consistent observation is that vices grow tend to grow with time and we tend towards becoming the older versions of the people we hang around. The social heavy drinking of our 20s becomes the solo heavy drinking of our 30s and the alcoholism of our 40s.

It's rare to see 70-80 year olds with a casual cocaine habit, and of the people I've known who have been interested in cocaine - the consequences caught up to them by the time they turned 30 with a consequence peak in their mid-20s.