4/2/2005: Soda fountain drug lords?
Well, this is interesting.
I was talking with a friend about whether Coca-Cola once had cocaine in it or if that's an urban legend. I was pretty sure it was true, so I went googling to confirm and discovered the strangest thing.
Coca-Cola was invented by John S. Pemberton, a cocaine & morphine addict, and it did indeed have cocaine in it from its beginnings in 1886 until at least 1903, possibly until 1914 when cocaine became government regulated (illegal). Not refined cocaine like you might find from your local street drug supplier, but in the form of an alkaloid in the coca leaf, which was one of the secret formula ingredients. Coke was first sold as a cure for "morphine addiction, dyspepsia, neurasthenia, headache, and impotence."
Keep in mind that (unrefined) coca leaves have been chewed by some South American people in the Andes for centuries to reduce fatigue. So certainly those early nickel Cokes did have some "pharmaceutical" effect..
Here's where it gets weird. According to Wikipedia:
Today, the flavoring is still done with kola nuts and the coca leaf. However, the coca leaves used today are "spent" leaves, the leftovers of the cocaine-extraction process, and the drink contains no trace of the stimulant.
What? Hello?? Who is growing and harvesting all these coca leaves for the Coca-Cola company? I don't think any of us regular folks would be allowed to grow coca plants! If they're grown in South America, how are they getting imported into the USA and other countries? Again, something us regular folks would likely be arrested for, with no questions asked.
And that leads us to the real question: Who is "extracting" all the cocaine from the coca leaves going into Coca-Cola, and where is it going??
It starts to sound like the Coca-Cola company might be behind the entire South American drug lord situation.. and in questioning that, you find out that there have been eight union leaders murdered in Colombia since 1990 - several in Coke plants while negotiating contracts - along with hundreds of human rights violations, and that the Coca-Coca company is thought by many to be behind it all. There's been an international boycott of Coca-Cola since July 2003 as a result of the company's denial of any responsibility and for not making efforts to fix the volatile labor situation in Colombia. And for alleged responses like "Hundreds of union leaders are killed every year in Colombia."
I don't know what it all means, but I sure would like to know how all those coca leaves got "spent" - and if that has anything to do with Coke's problems in Colombia.
Further info:
Colombia Solidarity Campaign
Coca-Cola's response to the allegations and boycott, March 29, 2005
