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
> "How much cocaine was in that "mere trace" [of
cocaine]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. . . . [T]he 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."
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