{"id":12713,"date":"2016-10-14T13:21:59","date_gmt":"2016-10-14T13:21:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/?p=12713"},"modified":"2016-11-19T14:34:18","modified_gmt":"2016-11-19T14:34:18","slug":"coca-cola-has-always-had-a-connection-to-the-cocaine-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/2016\/10\/coca-cola-has-always-had-a-connection-to-the-cocaine-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Coca-Cola Has Always Had A Connection To The Cocaine Business"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Stefan Wermuth \/ Reuters<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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By Bartow Jerome Elmore Assistant Professor of Environmental History at The Ohio State University and Author of Citizen Coke: The Making of Coca-Cola Capitalism<\/div>\n
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When news broke yesterday about the discovery of $56 million worth of cocaine at a Coca-Cola plant in France<\/span><\/a>, the press was all abuzz. But as it turns out, this Cocaine-Cola connection is not entirely new; Coca-Cola has been intimately linked to domestic manufacture of cocaine in the United States for years.<\/p>\n

A little glimpse into Coke\u2019s history reveals all.<\/p>\n

Yes, most people know that Coca-Cola\u2019s first president Asa Candler became concerned about cocaine in the early 1900s and decided to remove any trace of the drug in the company\u2019s famous drink, but few people know that Coke continued to use what is called \u201cdecocainized coca leaf extract\u201d in its signature beverage. In company ledgers, this\u2015mixed with kola nut powder\u2015 is what is known as Merchandise #5, one of the \u201csecret ingredients.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how the process works. Beginning in the early 1900s, Coca-Cola partnered with a company called Maywood Chemical Works based in Maywood, New Jersey (now the Stepan Company) to import coca leaves (which contain small quantities of the alkaloid found in purified cocaine powder) from Peru for Coca-Cola. The company removed the cocaine alkaloid from these leaves and then sold Coca-Cola the leftover extract. As per the cocaine, Maywood sold it under close federal supervision for approved medical uses.<\/p>\n

Federal law sanctioned this practice. Legislators wrote a special exemption into the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914, the Jones-Miller Act of 1922, and subsequent counternarcotics legislation that allowed \u201cdecocainized coca leaves or preparations therefrom\u201d to be sold in the United States. Some lawmakers called this clause the \u201cCoca-Cola joker\u201d because it was clearly designed to protect Coke\u2019s secretive coca business.<\/p>\n

Over time, Coke\u2019s demand for coca leaves grew so great that legislation had to be passed to allow leaves to come into the country beyond what was needed for the manufacture of cocaine for medicinal purposes. These laws specified that alkaloids extracted from these coca leaves had to be destroyed with federal officials bearing witness.<\/p>\n

All was well for Coke for many years under this arrangement, but in the 1960s, the company got a crazy idea: why not grow coca leaves secretly in the United States? That way the company would have a domestic source of supply.<\/p>\n

It may sound outlandish, but that\u2019s exactly what happened. In the 1960s, Coca-Cola, working with its partner, the Stepan Company, gained federal approval to begin a secret coca cultivation operation in Hawaii called the \u201cAlakea\u201d project. University of Hawaii scientists agreed to participate in the project but were prohibited from publishing any reports about their work because Coke did not want the public to know about its relationship to these coca leaves.<\/p>\n

Within months, those working on Alakea could happily report that coca shrubs were growing in Hawaii, but celebrations lasted only so long. Soon a fungus wiped out the entire crop and the project was abandoned.<\/p>\n

The failure of Alakea was really no matter for Coke, which simply continued sourcing leaves from Peru. All of this was channeled through Stepan, a third-party buffer that helped keep Coke\u2019s coca trade out of sight. Import records show that Stepan is still happily bringing in coca leaves in the 2010s.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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David Mercado \/ Reuters<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
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What\u2019s problematic about all this is that cocaleros, coca farmers in Peru, have been getting a raw deal. For years, Coca-Cola has enjoyed exclusive access to coca leaves coming into the United States and cocaleros have been prohibited from selling other coca products\u2014teas, candies, and flours\u2014to American markets. Coke has no doubt liked it this way because competition for coca leaves would drive up prices, which is never good for business.<\/p>\n

But cocaleros see it differently. Peruvians with intimate knowledge of coca production in the Andes told me back in 2012 that coca farmers would love nothing more than to \u201crevalorize\u201d the coca leaf and once and for all quash the misconception that the coca leaf and purified cocaine are the same thing. Then cocaleros might experience a commercial boon that would allow them to abandon exploitative relationships with drug lords and monopolistic buyers.<\/p>\n

Today, if I were to travel to Peru and try to return home with a small batch of coca leaves (perhaps to brew tea), I would be detained by border officials.<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s the essential question: if Coke can work partnerships to bring coca leaves into the United States, why can\u2019t the rest of us? That\u2019s the real story behind the Cocaine-Cola connection.<\/p>\n

Source:\u00a0 http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/entry\/coca-cola\u00a0\u00a0 1st Sept. 2016<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stefan Wermuth \/ Reuters By Bartow Jerome Elmore Assistant Professor of Environmental History at The Ohio State University and Author of Citizen Coke: The Making of Coca-Cola Capitalism When news broke yesterday about the discovery of $56 million worth of cocaine at a Coca-Cola plant in France, the press was all abuzz. But as it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-sector","category-social-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12713\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}