Cocaine

Cocaine is the second most popular illegal recreational drug in the U.S. (behind marijuana) and the U.S. is the world’s largest consumer of cocaine.

Cocaine is commonly used in middle to upper class communities. It is also popular amongst college students, to aid in studying and as a party drug. Its users span over different ages, races, and professions.

In the 1970s and 80′s, the drug became particularly popular in the disco culture as cocaine usage was very common and popular in many discos such as Studio 54.

Because of the extensive processing it undergoes during preparation, cocaine is generally treated as a ‘hard drug’, with severe penalties for possession and trafficking. Demand remains high, and consequently black market cocaine is quite expensive.

Unprocessed cocaine, such as coca leaves, are occasionally purchased and sold, but this is exceedingly rare as it is much easier and more profitable to conceal and smuggle it in powdered form. The scale of the market is immense: 770 tonnes times $100 per gram retail = up to $77 billion.

(read more)

Hooked: Illegal drugs and how they got that way

How Drugs Work. Cocaine

The History Channel’s History on Cocaine

3 part video from Dailymotion

Part ONE

Part TWO

Part THREE

A chemist named Angelo Mariani who read Mantegazza’s paper became immediately intrigued with coca and its economic potential.

In 1863, Mariani started marketing a wine called Vin Mariani, which had been treated with coca leaves, to become cocawine.

The ethanol in wine acted as a solvent and extracted the cocaine from the coca leaves, altering the drink’s effect.

It contained 6 mg cocaine per ounce of wine, but Vin Mariani which was to be exported contained 7.2 mg per ounce, to compete with the higher cocaine content of similar drinks in the United States.

A “pinch of coca leaves” was included in John Styth Pemberton’s original 1886 recipe for Coca-Cola, though the company began using decocainized leaves in 1906 when the Pure Food and Drug Act was passed.

The actual amount of cocaine that Coca-Cola contained during the first twenty years of its production is practically impossible to determine.