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+--- Thread: Article Who took the cocaine out of Coca-Cola? (/thread-16331.html)
Who took the cocaine out of Coca-Cola? - C C - Aug 12, 2024
https://daily.jstor.org/who-took-the-cocaine-out-of-coca-cola/
EXCERPTS: . . . Coca-Cola was an immediate hit at soda fountains, a space catering to middle-class white customers. After Pemberton’s death in 1888, the brand continued to grow under the leadership of his business partner, Asa Grigs Candler.
But, Cohen writes, within just a decade, public attitudes regarding cocaine changed dramatically. This had everything to do with the drug’s adoption by the southern Black working class. [...] Cocaine use spread to workers at plantations and in urban areas around the South. It also became a popular recreational drug in Black and mixed-race neighborhoods.
While the medical profession had seen nothing wrong with tonics such as Coca-Cola advertising themselves to white, middle-class consumers for their aphrodisiac qualities, it became an entirely different matter when Black people used cocaine. Medical journals warned of the “Negro cocaine menace.” Newspapers claimed that the drug caused Black men to commit crimes—most notably, raping white women.
Cohen writes that Candler fought back against the damage that cocaine’s declining reputation did to his brand’s reputation [...] the company expanded its sales of bottled coke to a national market. This meant that Coca-Cola was now available outside white soda fountains to anyone with a nickel to spare—including Black men.
In 1901, the Atlanta Constitution linked the dangers of Black cocaine use to soft drinks containing the drug, which it claimed could “unconsciously cultivate” a drug habit. That same year, Candler called for a change to the Coca-Cola formula, replacing cocaine with heavier doses of sugar and caffeine—and started denying that the soda had ever contained cocaine to begin with... (MORE - missing details)
VIDEO EXCERPT: Coca Cola did not contain the powdered cocaine drug that we know today, it did use an extract of the coca leaf. [...] The original recipe contained a small amount of extract from the coca leaf which inspired the soft drinks. The Transnational Institute says in their natural state, coca leaves are harmless and have a mild stimulant that's comparable to coffee. However, parts of it can be extracted to make harmful drugs like cocaine. Coca Cola tells us that its soda has never contained cocaine, although a spokesperson told the New York Times in 1988 that it did until the early 1900s.
Did Coca-Cola really have cocaine in it? ... https://youtu.be/M33grXp-roU