Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

On 17th century "cocaine"

resobscura.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 213 posts

Re: On 17th century "cocaine"

#181

Post by bluGill »

cynicalpeace wrote: post #175
bluGill wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The claim is "equality before the law" doesn't exist in the USA (unfortunately)

The request is evidence. So far all I get are claims. However I know from experience that many claims are false so I want to know if this one is real or just another one made for a point without any real trust behind it.

I'm not claiming the US is perfect, but you are making a strong statement that is either completely false, or is true but only with pages of fine print (and it may turn out that if I read all those details I'd be fine with that as a place where we shouldn't allow equality in the first place)

Re: On 17th century "cocaine"

#182

Post by standardUser »

Andrex wrote: post #173
lumost wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Maybe a dumb question, but would a 70-80 year old be able to use cocaine without dying? If you're not using it often enough for it to be a problem, you also probably don't have much of a tolerance. I would think anyways.

Using a huge amount of cocaine could kill anyone, but a moderate amount can be tolerated by anyone without preexisting cardiovascular problems. That might rule out a lot of people 70+, but certainly not all. Like with most recreational drugs, most of the risks come with using large amounts or chronic use. Remember, these are substances used by tens of millions of people every year and have been for decades if not longer. They may not be FDA approved (well, some forms of cocaine are) but they are known quantities (well, minus the black market impurities).

Re: On 17th century "cocaine"

#183

Post by rurban »

wholinator2 wrote: post #134
rurban wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just take sugar instead. Cheaper, stronger and legal.

Are you claiming sugar is a better local anesthetic than cocaine?

I was referring to the widely unknown facts that sugar is a stronger drug than cocaine[1], and more addictive[2]. Also much more dangerous.

[1] fedup movie (sundance 2014)

[2] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

Re: On 17th century "cocaine"

#184

Post by fluoridation »

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.

I mean, why are you making claims that neither you nor anybody else can back up? You could have said anything in reply to my comment, or even nothing at all, but you chose to say something that you have no idea about. That's somehow my fault?

Re: On 17th century "cocaine"

#185

Post by photonthug »

jajko wrote: post #132
LandR wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hiking in altitude is hands down the hardest thing I did in my life HOw much preparation did you do before hand ? I'm looking at a himalayan trip next year to around a 23k feet summit (over the course of 30 days or so). I'm taking a year to train for it, but I have no way to train for 'altitude', and as I understand it reaction to altitude doesn't correlate that much with overall fitness. You can apparently be supe…

You can't prepare for acclimatization, and you don't know how well your body will handle it before actually going up there. You will suffer regardless, acclimatization just makes things possible and over time mentally more bearable experience. But prepare for 3-5 steps and rest routine in higher parts, pushing through is actually pretty stupid and will fire back quickly and badly, listen to your body. That being said…

> You can't prepare for acclimatization, and you don't know how well your body will handle it before actually going up there.

This is something of an enduring medical mystery despite efforts to find related genes, etc. I think part of it is the compounding of second order effects, like who can say whether individual performance one week into an expedition will be more affected by bad sleep, bad digestion, or bad headaches? If one is immune to some side effects, how long before the others really take a toll? The team member who is strongest one day may be weakest the next depending on how the schedule of different kinds of attrition and reserves all line up, so it’s really hard to predict in advance without some direct experience. Even then it’s a moving target as we train or age.

Re: On 17th century "cocaine"

#186

Post by randomNumber7 »

The article is just hilariously bad. Whatever he writes about coca and cocaine is just wrong.

The leaves contain the base. The base has a low melting point and can be smoked (crack).

Cocaine hydrochloride is created chemically from the base. It is water soluble and can snorted. Because of the PH of the blood it decomposes into the base.

Chemically there is no difference once the drug is in the blood stream

Re: On 17th century "cocaine"

#187

Post by int_19h »

cynicalpeace wrote: post #103

Coca-Cola still uses coca leaves in the production of its drink. The Stepan Company plant in New Jersey is the only place in the USA authorized to import coca. "Equality before the law" is unfortunately a farce in this country, if you didn't already know.

Amusingly, Red Bull famously got in trouble over trace amounts of cocaine were found in their Simply Cola during govt certification process.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull_Simply_Cola#Cocaine_c...

Re: On 17th century "cocaine"

#188

Post by cma »

cynicalpeace wrote: post #151
Suppafly wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Today the extract of the coca leaves, a de-cocainized version, is manufactured in the United States and used in the flavoring for Coca-Cola." Interesting, I had always heard that they had to "de-cocainize" the extract outside the US and import the resulting product.

Nope. Coca-Cola and the Stepan Company have worked very hard to keep this fascinating fact under wraps. It's obviously not a good look for them.

i thought they need the separated drug part of the extract anyway because that's the source we use to produce lidocaine in the US.

Re: On 17th century "cocaine"

#189

Post by malfist »

piombisallow wrote: post #171
malfist wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have two drugs that are comparable, except one has a high risk of addiction, why would you consider the one with addiction potential except in very specialized situations?

Used as a local anesthetic there's no addiction risk. You don't get high from it, and it's not prescribed at home so you can't make a habit out of it. The only risk is medical people who have access to it stealing some.

Grandparent was suggesting including cocaine in OTC first-aid kits

Re: On 17th century "cocaine"

#190

Post by cma »

jajko wrote: post #130
JasserInicide wrote: post #8

Anyone here ever actually try coca leaves? Going to guess its effects are somewhere between coffee and cocaine

I bought a bag of those very cheaply in Bolivia cca 8 years ago, locals used some sort of chalky 'activator' with it, so did I. And most if not all locals used it, ie in Potosi mines it was basically mandatory. Heck you could buy a stick of dynamite like from old westerns in random stalls across the city. I got some anesthetic effects in my mouth in the place I kept chewing them. Wasn't checking whether it made me mo…

The chalky stuff was probably bannana peel ashes, they have something in them that acts as a MAOI inhibitor.
Post reply on HN