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On 17th century "cocaine"

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Re: On 17th century "cocaine"

#111

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.

It’s literally in the name, I’d be disappointed if it didn’t have coca in it. It definitely doesn’t have cocaine in it anymore though. I bet that sold like hotcakes when it did though.

Re: On 17th century "cocaine"

#112

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.

>"Equality before the law" is unfortunately a farce in this country, if you didn't already know.

To be fair, it's not like they're letting them do whatever they want with the plants. They use them for a very specific purpose, and I'm sure there's very strict accounting involved, as is done with factories that produce solvents and their customers.

The question is whether a new business could be started that had a legitimate use for coca and could get a similar exception extended to it.

Re: On 17th century "cocaine"

#113
Stephen Maturin switches from opium to coca leaves about halfway through the Master and Commander series (around 1800). Ensuring a steady supply of the leaves becomes a recurring theme as is his sharing of their wonders with the various scientific personalities he comes across.

Re: On 17th century "cocaine"

#114

I inherited a small hardcover handbook on the use of cocaine in medicine and the household. I don’t have it in front of me at the moment so I don’t remember the print date. I’m guessing late 1800 or early 1900. Ah. DDG to rescue, here is a version of it. https://www.thebookmerchantjenkins.com/product/coca-and-coca... Certainly a different perspective on it from today.

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/coca-and-cocaine-their-history...

Here are other printings as well, in case anyone else wants to pick up a copy.

Re: On 17th century "cocaine"

#115

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

I used to drink coca tea a lot when I lived in Argentina where you get it in the supermarket. It's around on par of nicotine as an appetite suppressant for me, as a stimulant I feel caffeine and mate are better for the "stay awake" but coca tea is better for "zoning in", with less of anxiety driving but it's a more single tasked high where interruptions are harder to deal with than with caffeine. Like if I have a lot…

>I used to drink coca tea a lot when I lived in Argentina where you get it in the supermarket.

Really? I've never seen it. Were you in a northern province? Reading the comments I became curious and figured I could probably find it somewhere, but I wouldn't expect to find it in a supermarket.

Re: On 17th century "cocaine"

#116
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hiking in altitude is hands down the hardest thing I did in my life. On the first day I almost died of an altitude sickness. On the following days, climbing 5 meters up the mountain felt like climbing the whole mountain twice. After every 10 steps I had to stop for 30-60 seconds and catch my breath. I drank a lot of coca tea and couldn't feel anything different. Peru, especially cordillera negra/blanca is the most sp…

> 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…

Three friends and I summited Vulcan Misti in Peru (~19k ft) over 2 days with no altitude training. All of us came from sea level, had 2 days to acclimate staying in the town nearby (~7k ft). This was a year out of college, all of us were D3 athletes so reasonably fit but probably not considered elite level fitness.

The altitude impact was no joke, but for whatever reason it affected all of us to different degrees. I just felt a little more winded than usual, had to take my time a bit but was overall fine, whereas one of the group had a rough go of it, needed frequent breaks and vomited a couple times. The other two were somewhere in between.

So I'm sure being fit helps, but it seems there's more to it than that.

Re: On 17th century "cocaine"

#117
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In the United States, cocaine is regulated as a Schedule II drug under the Controlled Substances Act, meaning that it has a high potential for abuse but has an accepted medical use. While rarely used medically today, its accepted uses are as a topical local anesthetic for the upper respiratory tract as well as to reduce bleeding in the mouth, throat and nasal cavities.", from Wikipedias cocaine page. I remember sept…

Where do I buy it for my med kit?

In any upscale nightclub restroom.

Re: On 17th century "cocaine"

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it's the fact that I was chewing them? I don't know! I'd assume tea was more potent. But I definitely had a decent reserve and was imbibing all day.

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?

Re: On 17th century "cocaine"

#120

The ban on cocaine is kind of annoying even in its pure form, it’s a very useful local anaesthetic with good tolerance, low side effects that few people are allergic to. I have often wished it was included in some of the more advanced first aid kits, or used more widely for minor operations.

Just take sugar instead. Cheaper, stronger and legal.
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