The Legal aspect of
Importation of Coca Leaf
The Stepan Company (a $400 million American Stock Exchange company)
of Maywood, New Jersey imports 175,000 KG of coca leaves into
the United States each year. The leaves come from some of the
same farms that supply the Columbian drug cartels. Its finished
products end up into nearly everyone in the United States.
One finished product of course
is cocaine, which exit the buildings in armored trucks. Tincture
of cocaine is one application: in an ointment, it numbs nerve
endings in a hurry and it causes vasoconstriction (closure of
peripheral blood vessels). The same medical action that controls
bleeding in the emergency room is the one that rots away the bridge
of a coke abuser's nose.
The other major product is the
coca in Coca-Cola©. The Coke formula is one of the most closely
guarded corporate secrets in America. The company concedes to
using a 'decocainized flavor essence in the coca leaves'-one of
the few Coke ingredients the company will publicly acknowledge.
When asked why the company uses such a troublesome product as
coca leaves, its representative said that 'each ingredient adds
to the flavor profile.'
Flavor scientists say that the
mysterious essence has no significant taste of its own , but acts
as an 'enhancer' PepsiCo Inc. does not use the coca leaf. Flavor
scientist Nicholas Feurstein thinks that the average guzzler might
well notice the difference if Coke stopped using it. ..
The very first batch of Coca-Cola
contained an extract of coca leaves back in 1886. Coke had in
fact contained traces of cocaine ever since John 'Doc' Pemberton
created the drink. At the turn of the century, a public outcry
erupted against cocaine. Doctors and editorialists began taking
aim at Coca-Cola.
Now the company had a catch-22
problem. If it removed the coca leaf from the product's manufacture,
it could no longer defend use of the name. If cocaine was used,
an angry public would boycott Coca-Cola. An elaborate extraction
process was devised.
The leaf is ground up, mixed with
sawdust, soaked in bicarbonate of soda, percolated with toluene,
steam blasted, mixed with powdered Kola nuts, and then pasteurized.
The Coke-Cola company, forever fearful of the DEA and the drug
lords, is a stickler on security and quality.
Drug lords have a less formal
way to extract cocaine: they use kerosene as a solvent; the drug
leaches out like tea from a tea bag. Cocaine is then recovered
by evaporation.
.....
The Coca-Cola company itself is
extremely squeamish about the subject of coca leaves. A 1948 one-paragraph
reference to the Maywood's production of coca extract so enraged
top Coke officials that they threatened to slash all Wall Street
Journal advertising in retaliation. An internal Coke memo,
unearthed by historian Frederick Allen blasted the Wall Street
Journal s 'an instrument of the chiselers and the substituters'
and suggested sending stories to the rival Journal of Commerce,
'which has not felt tempted to publish bits or pieces of our formula.'
Coke anyone? .....
CJ '99
Resource
Miller, M. "Quality Stuff: Firm
is Peddling Cocaine, and Deals are legit" Wall Street Journal
27 Oct 1994.
Weil, A. "Letters from the Andes
The New Politics of Coca" The New Yorker May, 1995 pp70-80.
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