I think it's pretty likely that someone will correct me if
I'm wrong, but I believe that the coca plant is still an
ingredient in Coca-Cola, although the alkaloid that could be
synthesized into something drug-like has been removed. There
is a pharmacuetical company in New Jersey that provides (as
they have for longer than I've been alive) one of Coca-Cola's
secret ingredients -- a by-product of something else they
make. I think it took until 1929 to figure out how to distill
out the remaining trace elements from the plant they still
use to this day.
For purposes of topicity (topicicity?), I read it in a book
about the Columbian drug lords, the title of which I can't
recall (Kings of Cocaine, perhaps?)
Best Regards, Erick
---------------------------------
Brad wondered:
> Maybe it's just the skeptic in me, but if there was
such an infinitesimal
> amount of cocaine in Coca-cola, why did it take
until 1929 to phase it
> out?
>
> Brad
> 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."
>
>
>
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