As a youngster growing up in the South I often heard the old-timers asking one-another if they wanted a “dope.” They were asking if someone wanted a Coke; the soft drink Coca-Cola.
It was no secret that Coca-Cola had once contained cocaine and that cocaine was a drug, or dope.
Coke began taking cocaine out of its formula in 1903 and became completely cocaine-free in 1929, but coca leaf extract is still used as an active ingredient. The ecgonine alkaloid, which gives cocaine its effect on the brain, is extracted from the coca leaf before processing.
The Stepan Corporation, a New Jersey-based chemical processing company, performs the extraction on the coca leaves. Stepan has an arrangement with the Drug Enforcement Agency and is the only company allowed to legally import the coca leaf into the United States. Stepan imports 175,000 kilograms of coca leaves into the United States each year. That is a street value equivalent to roughly $21 billion of cocaine, according to the United Nations.
After the cocaine is processed by Stepan it is hauled away from the facility in armored trucks and then sold to Mallinckrodt, a pharmaceutical company whose United States headquarters are based in St. Louis, Missouri. Mallinckrodt uses it to manufacture cocaine hydrochloride U.S.P., which is used as a local anesthetic for eye, ear or throat surgeries.
The coca leaf extract is referred to as Merchandise No. 5.
It’s interesting to see the manufacturing steps taken to remove this drug’s harmful ingredients from the final product. But when you get down to it, the Coca-cola company doesn’t have a choice. Cocaine is illegal in this country.
If their concern was about the effects consuming their product has on your health, there are other ingredients, just as harmful and addictive, they’ve never considered removing from the recipe…
I’m referring to caffeine… and sugar in the form of high fructose corn syrup.
HFCS does four things:
- It blocks the assimilation of calcium. Have you ever heard of the osteoporosis epidemic in America? Most Americans chase their calcium supplement with a drink containing HFCS. Almost everyone over age 50 suffers from a dangerous loss of calcium.
- HFCS causes cancer in test animals. It predisposes humans to cancer.
- As a synthetic sugar, it bypasses the pancreas. This eventually causes the pancreas to shut down, leading to diabetes. Harvey Wiley, the first head of the Bureau of Chemistry (the forerunner of the Food and Drug Administration), warned of the deceptive marketing of glucose (which preceded HFCS) and other adulterated corn products and their introduction into food. He predicted a diabetes epidemic.
- It causes obesity.
It is also highly addictive.
H/T: theantimedia.org
