yeah about 10 year ago
2006-12-03 11:25:19
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answer #1
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answered by the stig 2
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Yes. The original name was French Wine of Coca, Invigorating Tonic. The Coca Cola company won't talk about it but the drink contained cocaine until about 1905, shortly before the Pure Food and Drug Act was passed, which required food and drug makers to put the contents on the label. At that time, cocaine was replaced by caffeine, which has similar effects.
It is worth noting that caffeine was almost outlawed at the same time that cocaine was outlawed, and for the same reasons. It is also worth noting that Pepsi Cola also had cocaine in it.
Cocaine, morphine, and heroin were completely unregulated prior to 1906 so these drugs were found in all kinds of concoctions from toothache drops to baby colic remedies. The inclusion of cocaine in soft drinks was the reason that soda fountains became associated with pharmacies.
You can find a good history of the subject at http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/cu/cumenu.htm
You can find pictures of many of the medicines that once contained these drugs at http://druglibrary.org/mags/medical_marijuana_throughout_his.htm
2006-12-04 03:16:31
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answer #2
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answered by Cliff Schaffer 4
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Yes it is! Cocaine is derived from the coca leaf, which used to be an ingredient in Coca-Cola. At the time, however, cocaine was viewed as a harmless additive and not in the negative light it is today... plus the amount in the drink was tiny, so it didn't really have the effect you might think. Sherlock Holmes was given a drug addiction as a 'mild' character flaw! ("Quick, Watson, the needle...")
2006-12-03 11:30:48
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answer #3
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answered by Anonymous
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Yep... it used to. Used to be a time too when Coca Cola Corp was the only entity in the US to have an official licence to import limited amounts of coca leaf.
I am not sure if this is still the case, though, nor when the inclusion of coca extract in the syrup might have stopped if it has. The fact that coke has undergone some drastic formula changes in recent years might be an indication, though.
2006-12-03 11:28:06
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answer #4
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answered by Svartalf 6
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Yes. I believe that they still use an extract from coca leaves but NOT anything addictive or harmful. The original Coca Cola was just one of many tonic drinks that had cocaine in them.At that time (about 18880) cocaine was freely available over the counter as remedy for everything from hangovers to chronic pain of cancer etc.
2006-12-06 01:39:42
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answer #5
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answered by Trixie Bordello 5
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Yes but that was a long time ago.
In May, 1886, Coca Cola was invented by Doctor John Pemberton a pharmacist from Atlanta, Georgia. John Pemberton concocted the Coca Cola formula in a three legged brass kettle in his backyard. The name was a suggestion given by John Pemberton's book keeper Frank Robinson.
It was a prohibition law, enacted in Atlanta in 1886, that persuaded physician and chemist Dr. John Stith Pemberton to rename and rewrite the formula for his popular nerve tonic, stimulant and headache remedy, "Pemberton's French Wine Coca," sold at that time by most, if not all, of the city's druggists.
So when the new Coca-Cola debuted later that year - still possessing "the valuable tonic and nerve stimulant properties of the coca plant and cola nuts," yet sweetened with sugar instead of wine - Pemberton advertised it not only as a "delicious, exhilarating, refreshing and invigorating" soda-fountain beverage but also as the ideal "temperance drink." It is said coke was discovered when DeLuise, a 19th century American soda jerk accidentally hit the soda water spigot, adding carbonated water to the syrup in the glass. The result was a "happy accident": the invention of Coca-Cola.
2006-12-03 11:32:46
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answer #6
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answered by redunicorn 7
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Yup - that's actually the origin of the coca part of the name.
Don't remember when they changed the formula, but at least 30 or 40 years ago.
Remember, cocaine was considered therapeutic during the 1800's and early 1900's - Freud for instance used it...
Was very common - something akin to opium usage back in the 1800's.
-dh
2006-12-03 11:28:07
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answer #7
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answered by delicateharmony 5
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It's true, as you may have guessed from the many other responses to that effect... Pepsi did too- it was the coke that gave you the 'pep'...
In fact, Cola is still flavoured with coca leaf; they sell the cocaine to pharmaceutical corporations, who then use it to make some medicine....
2006-12-03 11:39:15
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answer #8
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answered by Buzzard 7
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The formula for Coke, whose status as a trade secret has been embellished by company lore, originally contained an uncertain amount of cocaine, though this was reduced over time (falling to 1/400th of a grain, or 0.16 milligrams, per ounce of syrup by 1902),[2] and eliminated around 1906 as health regulations were tightened.
2006-12-03 11:29:05
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answer #9
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answered by Randy M 3
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Claim: Coca-Cola used to contain cocaine.
Status: True.
Origins: Coca-Cola
was named back in 1885 for its two "medicinal" ingredients: extract of coca leaves and kola nuts. Just how much cocaine was originally in the formulation is hard to determine, but the drink undeniably contained some cocaine in its early days. Frederick Allen describes the public attitude towards cocaine that existed as Coca-Cola's developers worked on perfecting their formula in 1891:
The first stirrings of a national debate had begun over the negative aspects of cocaine, and manufacturers were growing defensive over charges that use of their products might lead to "cocainism" or the "cocaine habit". The full-throated fury against cocaine was still a few years off, and Candler and Robinson were anxious to continue promoting the supposed benefits of the coca leaf, but there was no reason to risk putting more than a tiny bit of coca extract in their syrup. They cut the amount to a mere trace.
Allen also explains that cocaine continued to be an ingredient in the syrup in order to protect the trade name "Coca-Cola":
But neither could Candler take the simple step of eliminating the fluid extract of coca leaves from the formula. Candler believed that his product's name had to be descriptive, and that he must have at least some by-product of the coca leaf in the syrup (along with some kola) to protect his right to the name Coca-Cola. Protecting the name was critical. Candler had no patent on the syrup itself. Anyone could make an imitation. But no one could put the label "Coca-Cola" on an imitation so long as Candler owned the name. The name was the thing of real value, and the registered trademark was its only safeguard. Coca leaves had to stay in the syrup.
How much cocaine was in that "mere trace" is impossible to say, but we do know that by 1902 it was as little as 1/400 of a grain of cocaine per ounce of syrup. Coca-Cola didn't become completely cocaine-free until 1929, but there was scarcely any of the drug left in the drink by then:
By Heath's calculation, the amount of ecgonine [an alkaloid in the coca leaf that could be synthesized to create cocaine] was infinitesimal: no more than one part in 50 million. In an entire year's supply of 25-odd million gallons of Coca-Cola syrup, Heath figured, there might be six-hundredths of an ounce of cocaine.
So, yes, at one time there was cocaine in Coca-Cola. But before you're tempted to run off claiming Coca-Cola turned generations of drinkers into dope addicts, consider the following: back in 1885 it was far from uncommon to use cocaine in patent medicines (which is what Coca-Cola was originally marketed as) and other medical potions. When it first became general knowledge that cocaine could be harmful, the backroom chemists who comprised Coca-Cola at the time (long before it became the huge company we now know) did everything they could with the technology they had available at the time to remove every trace of cocaine from the beverage. What was left behind (until the technology improved enough for it all to be removed) wasn't enough to give a fly a buzz.
2006-12-03 13:22:24
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answer #10
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answered by poobear 3
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Yes it absolutely true. That is how the company managed to outsell every other `soft` drink in the world, they created addicts. During the second world war, they boasted that every American boy in the army would have a bottle of coke everyday, from them.Hardly generous, when they were creating their post-war-addicts. When I learned this fact, I stopped buying coke or any other product the company manufacturers. They should be sued by someone who became `a life -long-coke-drinker`.
2006-12-03 11:42:09
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answer #11
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answered by Social Science Lady 7
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