RE: Muthafucking Food Talk (And bacon, maybe?)
10-06-2016, 01:41 PM
Coca Cola sells the extracted cocaine to a company called Mallinckrodt; Mallinckrodt uses the cocaine in the production of a topical anaesthetic called cocaine hydrochloride. It looks like it was used primarily in pediatric surgery back in the late eighties and early nineties, but I don't know if that's still the case. Cocaine hydrochloride is also a restricted substance, requiring a DEA permission form to order; cocaine itself however can legally only be purchased by the Mallinckrodt Group, and no other companies or entities. There has been speculation that Mallinckrodt doesn't use all of its supplies of cocaine in the production of cocaine hydrochloride - including accusations of illegally reselling it in ways that eventually reach the street - but I can't find any indication that anyone's ever taken that speculation seriously enough to investigate it. Wikipedia mentions only very briefly Mallinckrodt's relationship with cocaine or legal status and does not mention Coca Cola at all, although one of its cited sources (a New York Times article from 1988) does make the link clear (if you follow and read it). Mallinckrodt is otherwise best known for illegally and secretly dumping nuclear waste in and around water sources in the city of St Louis from the late forties to the early fifties; this was well before they received their DEA exemption to legally purchase and process cocaine in the eighties.
Fun Extra Fact: In doing the (really very cursory) googling it took to learn these things, one of the strings I used was 'medicinal uses for cocaine'; the top result was fucking Narconon. For those who don't already know (as you would not know if you visited their page; it's mentioned nowhere), Narconon is the drug rehabilitation arm of the Church of Scientology; aside from being philosophically and practically based on L Ron Hubbard's beliefs and writings, they also advocate a harmful and ineffective pseudoscientific niacin detoxification regimen and inpatient rehabilitation that primarily serves to indoctrinate addicts into converts. The article itself was a pretty inoffensive, if kinda fearmongering, overview of the history of cocaine in medicine, with lots of links to similar articles about other drugs and ways to contact Narconon and how to help yourself or others who are addicts (as well as how to recognize them). I'm really uncomfortable with this being the top result for anything drug related, Google :/
"Narconon's facilities have been the location of several deaths, some of which have been linked to a lack of trained medical personnel on site. There are no independently recognized studies that confirm the efficacy of the Narconon program.[32]" Thanks Wikipedia!
Fun Extra Fact: In doing the (really very cursory) googling it took to learn these things, one of the strings I used was 'medicinal uses for cocaine'; the top result was fucking Narconon. For those who don't already know (as you would not know if you visited their page; it's mentioned nowhere), Narconon is the drug rehabilitation arm of the Church of Scientology; aside from being philosophically and practically based on L Ron Hubbard's beliefs and writings, they also advocate a harmful and ineffective pseudoscientific niacin detoxification regimen and inpatient rehabilitation that primarily serves to indoctrinate addicts into converts. The article itself was a pretty inoffensive, if kinda fearmongering, overview of the history of cocaine in medicine, with lots of links to similar articles about other drugs and ways to contact Narconon and how to help yourself or others who are addicts (as well as how to recognize them). I'm really uncomfortable with this being the top result for anything drug related, Google :/
"Narconon's facilities have been the location of several deaths, some of which have been linked to a lack of trained medical personnel on site. There are no independently recognized studies that confirm the efficacy of the Narconon program.[32]" Thanks Wikipedia!