[HN Gopher] On 17th century "cocaine"
___________________________________________________________________
On 17th century "cocaine"
Author : benbreen
Score : 154 points
Date : 2024-10-09 13:33 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (resobscura.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (resobscura.substack.com)
| mastazi wrote:
| Can anyone with a scientific background give an opinion about the
| first comment to the linked post? They say they are sceptical
| because "there are a number of Tropane alkaloids which are very
| close to cocaine and are present in other plants - especially
| nightshades (e.g., belladonna) - which were known to and used for
| various purposes by Europeans for a long time."
| Etheryte wrote:
| As you would expect, this is covered in the actual paper [0]:
|
| > Therefore, the 3rd molecule detected in the brain tissues of
| our subjects, hygrine (an alkaloid present in the leaves of
| Erythroxylum spp. only), was essential to determine that the
| molecules detected in these human remains derived from the
| chewing of coca leaves or from leaves brewed as a tea,
| consistent with the historical period.
|
| If I'm reading this right, they checked for a number of markers
| and one of those is found only in coca leaves.
|
| [0]
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030544032...
| mastazi wrote:
| Thank you! I should have thought of checking the paper first
| benbreen wrote:
| Author here, I had the same question and looked into it. The
| author of that comment seems to be onto something because
| hygrine is indeed found in nightshades as well as in coca.
| Interesting.
| lolinder wrote:
| Where are you getting that hygrine is found in nightshades?
| The authors of the paper specifically say it's only found
| in _Erythroxylum_ and I 'm not finding any references in my
| own research to that specific chemical being present in
| nightshades.
| DisgracePlacard wrote:
| I'm no chemist, but according to wikipedia, cuscohygrine
| is found in belladona plants and it metabolizes into
| hygrine. So that could be what he's referring to?
| stef25 wrote:
| I read the same wikipedia page and that statement is
| confusing if not incorrect. Hygrine is a not a metabolite
| of cuscohygrine, it's in fact the other way round:
| hygrine is the precursor and cuscohygrine is the
| metabolite.
|
| The first reference on that page is "The role of hygrine
| in the biosynthesis of cuscohygrine and hyoscyamine"
| stef25 wrote:
| No, it does not appear to be true that hygrine is found in
| nightshades.
|
| Cuscohygrine _does_ occur in those plants yet it 's
| precursor hygrine does not. How it then gets there without
| us being able to detect hygrine could be because it only
| occurs in very small concentrations or is produced and then
| quickly and wholly converted in to its cusco metabolite, or
| that it's produced through a different biosynthetic
| pathway.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| The research group behind the paper looks reliable, they have a
| publication record in the area and while it's surprising they
| can detect metabolites (and surprising that brains were
| preserved from the 1600s) they seem to have done a lot of
| detailed work, here's some of their other related work (they
| also found cannabis residues in some of their material):
|
| "Forensic toxicological analyses reveal the use of cannabis in
| Milano (Italy) in the 1600's (2023)"
|
| https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Forensic-toxicological...
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| >As you can see, the Times was not the only news outlet to be
| confused about the distinction between cocaine and coca
|
| Unfortunately, the author of this article is the one who is
| confused. Cocaine is the name of the alkaloid present in the coca
| leaf, much like the coffee bean contains caffeine. If they were
| using coca leaf, they were using cocaine.
| Clamchop wrote:
| TFA literally already says what you said. They're making a
| reasonable distinction between chewing coca leaves for mild
| stimulant effect and huffing a fat rail of the pure stuff.
|
| It gives the wrong idea to say these 17th century people were
| doing cocaine.
| Mtinie wrote:
| They _were_ using cocaine. It was a less concentrated form,
| sure, but it's still using the same substance for a
| psychoactive effect.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _were using cocaine. It was a less concentrated form,
| sure_
|
| I was going to say this is pedantically correct, but on
| closer inspection, it's not even that. Cocaine, the
| chemical, is present in both coca leaves and cocaine, the
| drug. When people say cocaine--particularly in this context
| --they're referring to cocaine the drug, not cocaine the
| chemical.
|
| Cocaine the drug and cocaine the chemical are homonyms, and
| it's incorrect--fully technically--to confuse their use.
| philwelch wrote:
| Cocaine, the chemical, is the active drug ingredient in
| coca leaves the same way caffeine, the chemical, is the
| active ingredient in coffee and ethanol, the chemical, is
| the active ingredient in beer. Powder and crack cocaine
| deliver much higher doses of cocaine than raw coca
| leaves, much like liquor is more potent than beer, but
| the chemical is the drug here. It's not like it's
| chemically transformed from one substance into another
| like with fermentation; it's concentrated, like with
| distillation.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _It's not like it's chemically transformed from one
| substance into another like with fermentation_
|
| Banks, the financial institutions, are not transformed
| into banks, exposed riverbeds, when they're proximate to
| water. Cocaine, the drug, and cocaine, the chemical, are
| simply homonyms. Claiming the Inca did cocaine is a dad
| joke, not serious argument.
| wafflemaker wrote:
| While I see sense in articulating that cocaine use was
| different in 17th c. compared to now, I don't believe
| that you'd argue the same against someone saying that a
| person drinking beer is drinking alcohol, because beer
| has less alcohol than vodka.
| nicoburns wrote:
| To make this analogous, the words for "alcohol" and
| "vodka" would have to be the same. The OP is arguing that
| when people say "doing cocaine" they are generally
| referring to the high-strength powdered form, not the
| underlying chemical in general.
|
| And that if we interpret the sentence like that (which we
| should if that's how it's generally understood) then it
| is not true that people were doing cocaine in the 17th
| century.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Random tangent: now I'm curious if there are any
| languages where the word for alcohol and vodka (or
| whatever is locally the most common spirit) is the same.
| Seems plausible that there would be.
| kasey_junk wrote:
| Scottish?
| nicoburns wrote:
| The word vodka is apparently derived from the Slavic word
| for water https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vodka#Etymology
| umanwizard wrote:
| The word "whisky" is derived from the Scottish Gaelic
| word for "water", too. (Maybe that's what your sibling
| comment is referring to?)
| philwelch wrote:
| Cocaine hydrochloride (i.e. powder) isn't even the only
| purified form of cocaine. There's also crack. Would you
| argue that people who smoke crack aren't doing cocaine?
|
| Furthermore, the most purified form of drinking ethanol
| actually is called "grain alcohol"; Everclear is a
| popular brand.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Would you argue that people who smoke crack aren't
| doing cocaine?_
|
| Yes. This is true colloquially and legally.
| philwelch wrote:
| The only unserious argument here is your absurd analogy
| to banks. A homonym is when two words have totally
| unrelated meanings. Cocaine is the psychoactive drug
| found in coca leaves; we refer to cocaine hydrochloride
| (i.e. powder cocaine) as "cocaine" for the same reason we
| refer to Everclear as "grain alcohol".
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| When people drink coffee, they don't say "I'm taking
| caffeine."
|
| When people eat poppyseed bagels they don't say they're
| doing codeine or morphine.
|
| It's generally understood that "smoking weed" is likely
| to be a different experience than "taking THC"
| kragen wrote:
| Cocaine, the drug, _is_ cocaine, the chemical. They 're
| literally exactly the same thing. They're not homonyms.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Cocaine, the drug, is cocaine, the chemical_
|
| Nope. Cocaine, the drug, is a cocaine salt. Commonly
| cocaine hydrochloride, but Wikipedia seems convinced it's
| also neutralised into sulfates and nitrates. Crack
| contains cocaine, the chemical, but is not cocaine, the
| drug.
| kragen wrote:
| You're saying that freebase cocaine isn't "cocaine, the
| drug", but chlorides and sulfates are? It may be relevant
| to this discussion that salts dissociate in solution, but
| maybe it won't convince you because it sounds like you're
| steering painfully close to "the sun goes around the
| earth because people say 'the sun rises', and therefore
| it doesn't make sense to talk about sunrise on Mars."
|
| That is, it sounds like you're trying to bend over
| backwards to invent a coherent meaning to impose on the
| utterances of people who are just confused and ignorant,
| with the result that your own utterances are losing
| meaning. The reason people say things like "crack isn't
| cocaine, the drug" and "coca leaves don't contain
| cocaine" isn't that their utterances refer to some
| coherent entity called "cocaine, the drug", which
| consists of some arbitrary collection of cocaine salts
| but excludes the hydroxide. They're just wrong, because
| being wrong is a thing that people do a lot, especially
| when they're talking about things they don't know about,
| like chemistry.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _saying that freebase cocaine isn 't "cocaine, the
| drug", but chlorides and sulfates are_
|
| Yes. So does the DEA. We had separate charges for
| "cocaine" and "crack" for decades, with the former
| referring to the powdered salt and the latter to the
| base. The fact that the active compound is identical is
| irrelevant.
|
| > _They 're just wrong, because being wrong is a thing
| that people do a lot, especially when they're talking
| about things they don't know about, like chemistry_
|
| We're talking about language. Not chemistry _per se_.
|
| Someone saying someone doing crack is doing cocaine is
| simply incorrect in a colloquial context. Sort of like
| how tomatoes are culinarily a vegetable even if
| botanically they are fruits.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| I mean, taking your definitions from the DEA for cocaine
| is just wrong. Even if you believe it to be meaningful,
| it is US-centric to a fault, and government definitions
| of things are not meant to generalize.
|
| Crack is "crack cocaine". It is a _Form_ of cocaine.
|
| The separation of "cocaine" and "crack" was a _policy_
| and _marketing_ choice, in order to make it possible that
| a black person would get 20 years for dealing the same
| drug that would only get a white person 5 years.
|
| The people chewing coca leaves before the 1800s were
| doing so _in order to consume the cocaine within_.
| solumunus wrote:
| I'm genuinely flabbergasted by these posts.
| northhanover wrote:
| You are flabbergasted that an argumentative, person with
| autism would spend all night arguing crackhead semantics?
| sinkasapa wrote:
| I suppose the better term would be synecdoche, since the
| similarity in pronunciation isn't coincidental, like "The
| sun _rose_ in the morning. " and "Look at the pretty
| _rose_ petals. " but is a form of motivated polysemy.
| sinkasapa wrote:
| It definitely seems misleading to talk about coca leaf use
| as cocaine use, given the common expectation for what that
| means. People reading the newspaper probably don't know all
| these details, and it isn't spelled out. I can't imagine
| some guy in a club not feeling like he was robbed after
| paying for a powdery drug and then receiving a handful of
| leaves. I can't imagine an Andean woman sitting down for
| morning tea being pleased to have a bunch of powder dumped
| in her cup.
| Mtinie wrote:
| https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Cocaine
|
| Does the molecule C17H21NO4 exist in both the raw, dried
| leaves of the coca plant, and a powdered, refined extract
| from the same plant?
| xnorswap wrote:
| https://nibblestew.blogspot.com/2020/04/your-statement-
| is-10...
| Mtinie wrote:
| Perfect response. I'm chuckling, so thank you.
|
| What's also humorous to me is this entire discussion is
| centered around vernacular usage of a word versus the
| scientific definition. Cocaine is cocaine, but "cocaine"
| means different things to some people and not to others.
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| You must misunderstand what I said if you think the article
| says the same thing. As someone already mentioned to you, the
| article says "cocaine was being used in the 17th century by
| literally no one" when using cocaine is literally exactly
| what they were doing. It's just the same as someone saying
| "no one was using caffeine in the 17th century...they were
| just drinking coffee." You honestly don't understand why that
| is blatantly wrong?
| Clamchop wrote:
| If this were a passage in a reading comprehension exam, I
| think you would be expected to read "cocaine didn't exist"
| as "cocaine in the form we think of when someone 'does
| cocaine' didn't exist".
|
| You would be expected to read it this way because the
| article explicitly elaborates on how cocaine hydrochloride
| is isolated from leaves (that alone should have stopped you
| from trying to "inform" anyone), and uses that to drive the
| main thesis about the industrialization and democratization
| of drugs.
|
| And that's an entirely self-contained pathway to the
| correct reading, nevermind what you already knew going into
| the exercise.
|
| The caffeine analogy is useless because there is no common
| sense of people using caffeine to very different effect the
| way there is for cocaine.
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| "TFA" has got to be the most inscrutable acronym that is
| common internet parlance, I simply can't guess it could be,
| and I refuse to look it up
| zdragnar wrote:
| That sounds like a "you" problem, TBH.
| astura wrote:
| TFA means "the fucking article."
|
| It's derived from RTFA, "read the fucking article."
| justinator wrote:
| "Fine" article, my fine internet stranger.
| KTibow wrote:
| I don't think it's that common. This is my first time
| seeing it, and it's an odd acronym for including "the". I
| was able to guess at its meaning though.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| So when you drink Coca-Cola, you're drinking cocaine?
| mrguyorama wrote:
| At one point in history, yes, this was literally true, in the
| exact same way that if you are drinking black tea, you are
| drinking caffeine.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| Coca leaves are still used in the production of Coca Cola,
| see sibling thread
| JasserInicide wrote:
| Anyone here ever actually try coca leaves? Going to guess its
| effects are somewhere between coffee and cocaine
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Only coca tea. It's a small boost, perhaps like coffee if you
| don't drink coffee everyday
| sddsdd wrote:
| Had a lot of them chewed or in tea in Bolivia and it's pretty
| close to a caffeine buzz, it's very, very mild.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Caffeine affects people differently... it has very intense
| effects on me- I would never call it "very very mild"
| sddsdd wrote:
| For the vast majority of people caffeine is very mild
| compared to cocaine. Coca leaves are in the ballpark of
| caffeine, however you would rate that subjectively. And
| personally I think I would have found it hard to tell which
| was which in a blind test.
|
| As a side note coca tea (or chewed leaves) are often
| recommended for managing altitude, and chewing leaves did
| seem to help with headaches I was having at > 12k feet, but
| again it was fairly subtle, and I am not convinced it's not
| just placebo/a nice distraction.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| If I've gone a long time without caffeine a single coffee
| could keep me awake up for two consecutive all nighters. As
| a regular drinker I still cannot handle more than one cup
| of coffee per day. It turns out that I have a number of
| genes that increase the intensity and the duration of
| effect. I think genes explain most of the differences in
| experiences with caffeine.
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| Have you done a whole genome study?
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Yes, a 30x WGS, I recommend it to everyone and you only
| have to do it once.
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| Do you have an affiliate link?
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I do not, I went with Dante Labs, they have regular
| discounts down to less than $250. It might take a long
| time though.
| valec wrote:
| interesting. i have about 1-2 cups most days but 5-6 over
| a few hours is fine and i still get ok (but poorer
| quality) sleep
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Same, the first time I ever had a cup of coffee I missed
| two nights sleep.
|
| I have only done 23andme not a WGS like you, but I have
| at least one liver enzyme SNP that dramatically slows
| down caffeine metabolism. It took me quite a while to
| realize that the advice of "no caffeine after 5pm" or
| whatever needed to be something more like - no more than
| one cup of coffee before dawn.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Yeah, it would be nice if these general life rules /
| advice could be written down somewhere with the
| exceptions listed. I would have appreciated getting a
| personalized handbook that would have given me a heads up
| that I was different. Given the price of WGS being low
| enough to be generally available I think this is
| something humanity could benefit a lot more from.
| rpmisms wrote:
| I'm sure someone has a list somewhere. I've seen a few of
| these from the colonial era, but I want a modern one.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| That concept is so broad and generally useful it can only
| be broadly represented by something like Timothy Leary's
| statement of "think for yourself, and question
| authority."
|
| Of course, knowing for sure specific facts showing that
| you are different in some way such that general advice
| doesn't apply is super useful because it saves you the
| effort of having to solve the problem on your own- you
| will always find new ones that nobody has already solved.
| taneq wrote:
| Wow. I typically drink 6+ cups a day and it doesn't
| really seem to affect my sleep unless I have it within
| ~6h of bedtime.
| analog31 wrote:
| I think it's pretty common for visitors to Macha Picchu to
| receive a cup of coca tea upon arrival, for altitude sickness.
| The people I talked to said it was like a cup of coffee.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| I can attest to the magical effects against altitude
| sickness.
| pvarangot wrote:
| I used to drink coca tea a lot when I lived in Argentina where
| you get it in the supermarket. It's around on par of nicotine
| as an appetite suppressant for me, as a stimulant I feel
| caffeine and mate are better for the "stay awake" but coca tea
| is better for "zoning in", with less of anxiety driving but
| it's a more single tasked high where interruptions are harder
| to deal with than with caffeine. Like if I have a lot of
| meetings I prefer coffee and if I have to code for four hours I
| prefer coca tea. I used to rotate coffee, mate, and coca tea as
| a daily driver and having something else on the rotation may
| have been helping more than that something else being coca tea.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > single tasked high where interruptions are harder to deal
| with than with caffeine
|
| That comports well with my contemporary and anecdotal
| understanding of cocaine's most popular effects.
| smogcutter wrote:
| Yes, anyone who's ever been trapped in a conversation with
| someone yakked to the gills can tell you all about
| singleminded focus as an effect of cocaine.
| fluoridation wrote:
| >I used to drink coca tea a lot when I lived in Argentina
| where you get it in the supermarket.
|
| Really? I've never seen it. Were you in a northern province?
| Reading the comments I became curious and figured I could
| probably find it somewhere, but I wouldn't expect to find it
| in a supermarket.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| I used them while hiking in Peru.
|
| It's better than caffeine, because it comes with a mild
| euphoria. Nothing crazy, just enough to have energy and not
| feel like hiking at altitude is work.
|
| When I hike with coffee I just feel determined to finish. With
| Coca it just felt natural to keep walking.
| lhh wrote:
| I likewise had it in tea several times hiking in Peru. I
| personally didn't notice any effect whatsoever, might as well
| have been mint tea.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Perhaps it's the fact that I was chewing them? I don't
| know! I'd assume tea was more potent. But I definitely had
| a decent reserve and was imbibing all day.
| throwup238 wrote:
| Wikipedia says that 59% to 90% of the alkaloid is
| absorbed when drunk as a tea [1].
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca
| lhh wrote:
| Interesting, I'd always assumed people snorted the powder
| because it's not absorbed if consumed orally, but
| apparently that's not true. Maybe just it's just for the
| absorption speed? So... if someone drank industrial
| quantities of coca tea in one go, it'd be a 2-12 hour
| cocaine high?
| bluGill wrote:
| snorting means it is absorbed into the bloodstream in
| your nose - that is very fast. Drinking means it goes
| through the stomach and then is released into the
| intestines to be absorbed (depending on what else you ate
| this could be slow or somewhat fast - but always much
| more drawn out than snorting).
| yard2010 wrote:
| Hiking in altitude is hands down the hardest thing I did in
| my life. On the first day I almost died of an altitude
| sickness. On the following days, climbing 5 meters up the
| mountain felt like climbing the whole mountain twice. After
| every 10 steps I had to stop for 30-60 seconds and catch my
| breath.
|
| I drank a lot of coca tea and couldn't feel anything
| different.
|
| Peru, especially cordillera negra/blanca is the most special
| place on earth I've ever been too. Everything is magical in a
| weird way. It's literally breathtaking. I can't really
| describe it. It feels mystical, even with no drugs involved.
| LandR wrote:
| > Hiking in altitude is hands down the hardest thing I did
| in my life
|
| HOw much preparation did you do before hand ? I'm looking
| at a himalayan trip next year to around a 23k feet summit
| (over the course of 30 days or so). I'm taking a year to
| train for it, but I have no way to train for 'altitude',
| and as I understand it reaction to altitude doesn't
| correlate that much with overall fitness. You can
| apparently be super fit but still get altitude sick, which
| is concerning me.
| Eumenes wrote:
| If you can't train at altitude, I'd focus on
| distance/time in. Go on long runs, long hikes, long bike
| rides. Endurance. Elevation gain is good too. Try to at
| least mirror the conditions per mile in your training.
| Hill intervals are useful - walk up a big steep hill at a
| steady pace, and then walk back down; rinse/repeat. A
| solid cardiovascular base should prepare you just fine.
| lazide wrote:
| There are two factors.
|
| 1) cardio fitness (ability to do x amount of work)
|
| 2) altitude adaptation (ability to exist at altitude)
|
| It takes from several days to several months to adapt to
| altitude, depending on exactly what you mean by adapt.
| The first 24-72 are the highest risk for altitude
| sickness (which can be life threatening).
|
| Both factor into performance at altitude.
| lhh wrote:
| Three friends and I summited Vulcan Misti in Peru (~19k
| ft) over 2 days with no altitude training. All of us came
| from sea level, had 2 days to acclimate staying in the
| town nearby (~7k ft). This was a year out of college, all
| of us were D3 athletes so reasonably fit but probably not
| considered elite level fitness.
|
| The altitude impact was no joke, but for whatever reason
| it affected all of us to different degrees. I just felt a
| little more winded than usual, had to take my time a bit
| but was overall fine, whereas one of the group had a
| rough go of it, needed frequent breaks and vomited a
| couple times. The other two were somewhere in between.
|
| So I'm sure being fit helps, but it seems there's more to
| it than that.
| jajko wrote:
| You can't prepare for acclimatization, and you don't know
| how well your body will handle it before actually going
| up there.
|
| You will suffer regardless, acclimatization just makes
| things possible and over time mentally more bearable
| experience. But prepare for 3-5 steps and rest routine in
| higher parts, pushing through is actually pretty stupid
| and will fire back quickly and badly, listen to your
| body.
|
| That being said, what others say is correct - a lot of
| endurance training helps a lot reaching the limit of your
| body. Plus train carrying medium backpack uphill a lot
| (10-15kg).
|
| I've camped 6000m high on Aconcagua, but I couldn't sleep
| well above 3000m, almost nothing above 4000m, regardless
| of what mild medicine/support I took. Some sleep up there
| like babies. High mountains are just not for me, but I am
| happy with European alps though, they have it all apart
| from that much altitude suffering. Higher peaks just for
| hiking below/around them like Annapurna or Everest,
| loaded multi week 5500m hikes are not easy neither and
| you actually experience way more in 3-4 weeks rather than
| progressing slowly up one empty valley to the top.
| photonthug wrote:
| > You can't prepare for acclimatization, and you don't
| know how well your body will handle it before actually
| going up there.
|
| This is something of an enduring medical mystery despite
| efforts to find related genes, etc. I think part of it is
| the compounding of second order effects, like who can say
| whether individual performance one week into an
| expedition will be more affected by bad sleep, bad
| digestion, or bad headaches? If one is immune to some
| side effects, how long before the others really take a
| toll? The team member who is strongest one day may be
| weakest the next depending on how the schedule of
| different kinds of attrition and reserves all line up, so
| it's really hard to predict in advance without some
| direct experience. Even then it's a moving target as we
| train or age.
| GordonS wrote:
| I also had it in hiking Peru. I found it to be a mild
| stimulant, similar to caffeine but wihlthout any jitters.
| Didn't notice any euphoria at all, TBH.
|
| My wife and I drank coca tea during the whole stay in Peru,
| and the altitude didn't bother us at all, which I _presume_
| was because of the coca.
| nicoburns wrote:
| I'm sure it's dose / brew strength dependent, but the coca tea
| I had definitely had a noticable effect, but felt milder than a
| regular (caffiene) black tea to me. Much milder than a coffee.
| Mind you I'm quite caffeine sensitive, so if you YMMV.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Had a hippy friend that discovered coca leaves while hiking in
| Peru. She packed a bunch to bring back with her to show us her
| great new discovery for natural energy.
|
| Apparently they already knew about these new things called
| 'coca leaves' at the border because they took them away from
| her.
|
| This is a true story. Friggin hippies man.
| jowdones wrote:
| She had it easy. A local guy got 3 years in prison with no
| parole for bringing like 70 coca leaves. The level of
| retardness of some countries is unbelievable.
|
| https://cluj24.ro/pictor-clujean-condamnat-la-inchisoare-
| pen...
| zexbha wrote:
| This is a surprise to me. That airport doesn't look at me
| twice when I travel through it. I've been >30 times and I'm
| foreign. Never once questioned anything I brought in. To be
| fair I'm not trafficking anything
| jowdones wrote:
| >> To be fair I'm not trafficking anything
|
| Why don't you try it next time, let us know how it went
| :)
|
| Now seriously I think they must have had some dogs or
| devices to sniff up the drug, otherwise I can't explain
| how they isolated him from the crowd.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| I ordered some from a Bolivian website when I was a teen. I
| chewed them a couple times at work while doing landscaping. The
| closest thing I could compare it to is a nicotine buzz.
| lukeinator42 wrote:
| I brewed tea out of the leaves and also chewed them when hiking
| in Peru. Stimulant level-wise it felt similar to green tea.
| Maybe also a slight euphoria when chewing them but it's
| definitely still way less potent than a coffee (atleast for
| me).
|
| The only interesting side effect was that both my wife and I
| experienced tingling feet when combining coca leaves with
| acetazolamide, the altitude sickness meds we were taking
| (tingling feet is apparently a side effect of those meds). I
| wonder if on some level it does have a similar mechanism for
| altitude sickness?
| double0jimb0 wrote:
| Tingling feet/toes and hands/fingers are an extremely common
| side-effect of acetazolamide (diamox).
| andy_ppp wrote:
| It's extremely mild, not even as strong as coffee. It takes 1/2
| a kilo of coca leaves to make 1g of cocaine!
|
| I often wonder why nobody has CRISPR-ed the genes from the Coca
| plant that make the alkaloids into yeast by now... given the
| $100bn market you'd expect someone to give this or another
| process a go.
| lazide wrote:
| Probably because the DEA would find a reason to shoot their
| dog almost immediately haha
| bregma wrote:
| Coca tea is ubiquitous in Peru. Morning, noon, and night. It's
| on a par with mate or green tea in other parts of the world.
| Mostly harmless.
|
| The leaves are readily available everywhere, like right beside
| the chewing gum at the checkout in supermarkets and the like. I
| tried chewing some to help offset altitude problems; it didn't
| help with the altitude problems but it made half my face go
| numb and other than that, nothing. I understand the local
| combine it with limestone or something to release different
| alkaloids but I did not.
| thelittleone wrote:
| A lot of stores in Peruvian Andes sell concentrated coca leaf
| extract as candies. They help on higher altitude hikes. Theres
| one in particular that is as strong as a chemical extract.
|
| Actually quite effective as an alternative to ADHD medicine.
| jajko wrote:
| I bought a bag of those very cheaply in Bolivia cca 8 years
| ago, locals used some sort of chalky 'activator' with it, so
| did I. And most if not all locals used it, ie in Potosi mines
| it was basically mandatory. Heck you could buy a stick of
| dynamite like from old westerns in random stalls across the
| city.
|
| I got some anesthetic effects in my mouth in the place I kept
| chewing them. Wasn't checking whether it made me more alert,
| even coffee normally doesn't have much effect on me and I drink
| it for the taste.
|
| Other than that, 0 effect. But I've never used any variant of
| cocaine so can't even compare.
| sevensor wrote:
| Not the subject of the article, but in the vein (so to speak) of
| 19th century industrial refinement processes, gin and other cheap
| spirits were also a really big deal, and a really big problem at
| the time. The temperance movement didn't come out of nowhere. I
| think it's an interesting parallel between fermented beverages
| and coca tea on the one hand, and cocaine and hard liquor on the
| other.
| golergka wrote:
| People somehow forgot the ether epidemic in some parts of
| Europe at the turn of the 20th century.
| Beijinger wrote:
| "Analyzing mummified brain tissue from two men who died at the
| hospital in the seventeenth century, they found evidence of coca
| use--the earliest ever detected outside of South America. "
|
| There is at least one person who disagrees:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henut_Taui
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Cocaine in Egyptian mummies??
| doubled112 wrote:
| I'm not usually one to split hairs, but that Wikipedia page
| says "on" and not "in".
|
| Had they found the cocaine in the mummies, I suspect there
| would be less reason to suspect contamination after they were
| dug up.
| lagniappe wrote:
| One does not simply waste it without tasting it
| tessierashpool9 wrote:
| egyptian mummies in the 17th century? o.0
| lazide wrote:
| I guess strippers were in shorter supply at the time?
| md224 wrote:
| I wish the US would legalize coca leaves. Our nation's drug laws
| are so goddamn stupid.
|
| Two different Popes drank Vin Mariani!
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vin_Mariani
| kyleee wrote:
| I am disappointed this product is not still available
| yourusername wrote:
| Isn't cocaethylene profoundly unhealthy? Even if both
| components were legal i don't think any country would allow
| them to be sold combined in one beverage.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| Coca tea on the other hand, is not psychoactive, it's
| extremely mild and relaxing, similar to mint tea.
| KMag wrote:
| It's psychoactive, but not euphoric. Promoting
| wakefulness is a psychoactive property.
| herbst wrote:
| There is also this one from Italy:
|
| https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca_Buton
|
| (Which is a actually buyable product that appearantly is one of
| the biggest, if not the biggest, coke leaf import company in
| europe. It's a lovely liqueur)
| sva_ wrote:
| You can buy coca tea in headshops in Netherlands as well.
| pimeys wrote:
| It actually works great replacing coffee as an after lunch
| drink.
| thelittleone wrote:
| Also recommend Guayusa which is not illegal anywhere
| AFAIK.
| fullspectrumdev wrote:
| Really? Didn't realise it was still available.
|
| I remember one of the online smartshops used to sell it, it
| was actually rather pleasant as a caffeine alternative.
| voidmain0001 wrote:
| I inherited a small hardcover handbook on the use of cocaine in
| medicine and the household. I don't have it in front of me at the
| moment so I don't remember the print date. I'm guessing late 1800
| or early 1900. Ah. DDG to rescue, here is a version of it.
| https://www.thebookmerchantjenkins.com/product/coca-and-coca...
| Certainly a different perspective on it from today.
| lqet wrote:
| Reading the complete Sherlock Holmes stories a few months ago,
| I also noticed how casually the frequent use of cocaine by
| Holmes is mentioned as a small vice, a recreational drug that
| is also "chemically clean", so nothing to worry about. Opium,
| on the other hand, is associated with disease, crime, and the
| criminal underworld.
| lazide wrote:
| Is it not still the same?
|
| We won't talk about crack, of course
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Probably pretty hard to get "chemically clean" cocaine if
| you don't have a pharmaceutical source.
| standardUser wrote:
| I use cocaine semi-frequently but avoid all opioids. The
| people I've known with cocaine problems always have
| tangential problems with alcohol abuse,
| excessive/irresponsible partying and generally unstable
| lifestyles. I've rarely seem people with acute addictions.
| The (many more) people I've know with opioid addictions are
| often 'regular' people with moderate-to-severe pain or mental
| health issues that become severely addicted, usually starting
| with prescriptions. We shouldn't pretend that the use
| patterns or use cases of the two drugs are the same, even if
| the dug war tried really, really hard to make us think that
| way.
| lumost wrote:
| I don't know your age, but as I've gotten older a
| consistent observation is that vices grow tend to grow with
| time and we tend towards becoming the older versions of the
| people we hang around. The social heavy drinking of our 20s
| becomes the solo heavy drinking of our 30s and the
| alcoholism of our 40s.
|
| It's rare to see 70-80 year olds with a casual cocaine
| habit, and of the people I've known who have been
| interested in cocaine - the consequences caught up to them
| by the time they turned 30 with a consequence peak in their
| mid-20s.
| Andrex wrote:
| Maybe a dumb question, but would a 70-80 year old be able
| to use cocaine without dying? If you're not using it
| often enough for it to be a problem, you also probably
| don't have much of a tolerance. I would think anyways.
| standardUser wrote:
| Using a huge amount of cocaine could kill anyone, but a
| moderate amount can be tolerated by anyone without
| preexisting cardiovascular problems. That might rule out
| a lot of people 70+, but certainly not all. Like with
| most recreational drugs, most of the risks come with
| using large amounts or chronic use. Remember, these are
| substances used by tens of millions of people every year
| and have been for decades if not longer. They may not be
| FDA approved (well, some forms of cocaine are) but they
| are known quantities (well, minus the black market
| impurities).
| standardUser wrote:
| I'm mid-40's.
|
| I've seen the use of "party drugs" lessen or cease as
| people I know get older. It gets harder to fit those
| drugs into your life when you have increased
| responsibilities and fewer opportunities. Opioids are not
| party drugs for the most part. Alcohol is obviously a
| party drug, but like opioids it can become an acute
| addiction and a maintenance issue (even more so than
| opioids due to the uniquely dangerous withdrawal
| symptoms). A drug like cocaine is, to me, similar to
| molly/ecstasy. It's not fun to do maintenance amounts or
| to do a lot solo. So use seems to wax/wane with
| lifestyle. A pattern I have seen a lot is people who
| used/abused cocaine and alcohol frequently when partying,
| eventually stopped with the cocaine, and continued on as
| alcoholics into their 30s/40s/50s.
|
| One interesting things about cocaine addiction is it has
| one of the strongest genetic/hereditary links of any
| addiction...
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-021-01256-1
| PawgerZ wrote:
| https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/coca-and-cocaine-their-history...
|
| Here are other printings as well, in case anyone else wants to
| pick up a copy.
| cannonpr wrote:
| The ban on cocaine is kind of annoying even in its pure form,
| it's a very useful local anaesthetic with good tolerance, low
| side effects that few people are allergic to. I have often wished
| it was included in some of the more advanced first aid kits, or
| used more widely for minor operations.
| malfist wrote:
| We have good local anesthetics that don't carry the same
| addiction risk. There's no reason to provide such a potent
| addictive drug at OTC.
| whatshisface wrote:
| As it turns out, lidocaine causes a lot of nerve damage. It
| even has long-lasting cognitive effects, in some patients.
| floydnoel wrote:
| oh heck, i had no idea! i just bought a huge tube of it for
| an elbow injury. time to pitch it i suppose. thanks for the
| info. it's sad what the nanny-state babies inflict on
| society for lack of understanding second-order effects.
| cannonpr wrote:
| I think you will find that cocaine actually compares very
| favourably and exceeds most current ones, except for the
| addiction potential, and the damage it did to the US foreign
| currency balance way back when they made it illegal.
| malfist wrote:
| If you have two drugs that are comparable, except one has a
| high risk of addiction, why would you consider the one with
| addiction potential except in very specialized situations?
| piombisallow wrote:
| Used as a local anesthetic there's no addiction risk. You
| don't get high from it, and it's not prescribed at home
| so you can't make a habit out of it. The only risk is
| medical people who have access to it stealing some.
| Leonelf wrote:
| "In the United States, cocaine is regulated as a Schedule II
| drug under the Controlled Substances Act, meaning that it has a
| high potential for abuse but has an accepted medical use. While
| rarely used medically today, its accepted uses are as a topical
| local anesthetic for the upper respiratory tract as well as to
| reduce bleeding in the mouth, throat and nasal cavities.", from
| Wikipedias cocaine page. I remember septoplasty surgery using
| topical cocaine for example.
| throw49sjwo1 wrote:
| Where do I buy it for my med kit?
| nradov wrote:
| In any upscale nightclub restroom.
| throw49sjwo1 wrote:
| If only that was actually cocaine...
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| The same place you buy Adderall or Fentanyl, which are also
| schedule II.
| rurban wrote:
| Just take sugar instead. Cheaper, stronger and legal.
| wholinator2 wrote:
| Are you claiming sugar is a better local anesthetic than
| cocaine?
| rurban wrote:
| I was referring to the widely unknown facts that sugar is a
| stronger drug than cocaine[1], and more addictive[2]. Also
| much more dangerous.
|
| [1] fedup movie (sundance 2014)
|
| [2] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/jo
| urnal...
| standardUser wrote:
| Cocaine is sometimes used in the US to stop nose bleeds and for
| blood vessel constriction generally, in addition to occasional
| use as a local anesthetic.
| golergka wrote:
| Coca tea is very underrated. Too bad its probably impossible to
| legally buy outside of south America
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| Coca-Cola still uses coca leaves in the production of its drink.
|
| The Stepan Company plant in New Jersey is the only place in the
| USA authorized to import coca.
|
| "Equality before the law" is unfortunately a farce in this
| country, if you didn't already know.
| tombert wrote:
| > Coca-Cola still uses coca leaves in the production of its
| drink.
|
| Is this actually true? A quick search gives me a lot of sources
| like "Natural News" and similarly dubious sources. What do they
| actually use the Coca leaves for?
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| It is 100% true. It seems a DEA source would convince you:
| https://museum.dea.gov/exhibits/online-exhibits/cannabis-
| coc....
|
| "In the late 1800s cocaine was used as a primary ingredient
| for flavor in Coca-Cola. In the early 1900s cocaine in its
| crude form was removed. Today the extract of the coca leaves,
| a de-cocainized version, is manufactured in the United States
| and used in the flavoring for Coca-Cola."
| tombert wrote:
| Fair enough!
| abcd_f wrote:
| > DEA source
|
| It has a step-by-step description of cocaine extraction
| process further down the page.
|
| I mean you can probably find the same on the YT, but seeing
| it on a DEA site is still a bit jarring.
| Suppafly wrote:
| >Today the extract of the coca leaves, a de-cocainized
| version, is manufactured in the United States and used in
| the flavoring for Coca-Cola."
|
| Interesting, I had always heard that they had to "de-
| cocainize" the extract outside the US and import the
| resulting product.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| Nope. Coca-Cola and the Stepan Company have worked very
| hard to keep this fascinating fact under wraps. It's
| obviously not a good look for them.
| greenavocado wrote:
| https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2024-06177.pdf
|
| DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
|
| Drug Enforcement Administration
|
| [Docket No. DEA-1335]
|
| Importer of Controlled Substances Application: Stepan Company
| Andrex wrote:
| Was it approved, denied, or still awaiting a decision?
| Mistletoe wrote:
| It's literally in the name, I'd be disappointed if it didn't
| have coca in it. It definitely doesn't have cocaine in it
| anymore though. I bet that sold like hotcakes when it did
| though.
| fluoridation wrote:
| >"Equality before the law" is unfortunately a farce in this
| country, if you didn't already know.
|
| To be fair, it's not like they're letting them do whatever they
| want with the plants. They use them for a very specific
| purpose, and I'm sure there's very strict accounting involved,
| as is done with factories that produce solvents and their
| customers.
|
| The question is whether a new business could be started that
| had a legitimate use for coca and could get a similar exception
| extended to it.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| The answer is obviously not, since there's only 1 and there's
| been presumably hundreds of applicants (at least) who have
| tried the same and been rejected.
|
| It's actually a fascinating example of where government backs
| a private monopoly as opposed to breaking it up, which is
| often a case for having a strong government apparatus.
| lisper wrote:
| > there's been presumably hundreds of applicants
|
| Well, that's exactly the question, isn't it. You can't
| presume this because the answer to the question turns on
| the actual fact of the matter.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| I'm presuming it because it's very likely, we don't need
| a double blind randomized controlled study to declare
| certain things are true.
|
| Like that the idea "equality before the law" doesn't
| exist in this country, unfortunately.
| lisper wrote:
| I will not defend the claim that equality before the law
| exists in the U.S. It's still far from obvious to me that
| hundreds of entities have applied for coca import permits
| with legitimate justification and been denied.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| Great, we agree on the far more important claim
| lisper wrote:
| In that case you don't have to bring coca into it at all,
| that just muddies the waters. All you have to do it look
| at Marcellus Williams and Richard Glossip and compare how
| they were/are being treated to how Donald Trump is being
| treated.
| fluoridation wrote:
| We don't need double blind randomized controlled studies,
| we just need documentation showing that hundreds of
| business applied for an exception to import coca leaves
| for legitimate purposes and were denied.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| To show that equality before the law doesn't exist in our
| country?
|
| Also, you're asking for evidence no one can produce. How
| convenient.
|
| I was being hyperbolic to point out that the "evidenced-
| based" culture has gone too far, to the point where you
| need obviously unobtainable evidence to prove something
| that is obviously true.
| bluGill wrote:
| Yet this is something where it should be possible to
| produce evidence. Paperwork like is needed is generally
| available if you ask the right place. Any company trying
| that was rejected is has a bunch of people who did that
| paperwork and they could talk about it - indeed if the
| company was serious they have incentive to talk about it.
|
| Now it is possible that the paperwork required means
| hundreds of companies never even tried, and evidence of
| that chilling effect is hard to produce. However that is
| not the claim.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| The claim is "equality before the law" doesn't exist in
| the USA (unfortunately)
| bluGill wrote:
| The request is evidence. So far all I get are claims.
| However I know from experience that many claims are false
| so I want to know if this one is real or just another one
| made for a point without any real trust behind it.
|
| I'm not claiming the US is perfect, but you are making a
| strong statement that is either completely false, or is
| true but only with pages of fine print (and it may turn
| out that if I read all those details I'd be fine with
| that as a place where we shouldn't allow equality in the
| first place)
| fluoridation wrote:
| I mean, why are you making claims that neither you nor
| anybody else can back up? You could have said anything in
| reply to my comment, or even nothing at all, but you
| chose to say something that you have no idea about.
| That's somehow my fault?
| dustyventure wrote:
| So the question is if at a minimum, one of thousands of
| cola makers (or tens of thousands of hobbyists) wanted to
| make a cola closer to coke and was willing to spend any
| reasonable amount of money/time relative to their
| intended volume.
|
| Knowing the answer to this would be like knowing if
| anyone ever wanted to make a watch with a Rolex like
| movement.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| "evidenced-based" culture at its worst. I like being
| evidenced-based but you can certainly have too much of a
| good thing.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Why are you presuming the answer to the question you are
| genuinely asking?
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| I didn't ask any question.
| Suppafly wrote:
| >"Equality before the law" is unfortunately a farce in this
| country, if you didn't already know.
|
| This specific case seems like it's more about the law
| grandfathering in an existing product vs whatever conspiracy
| theory you have in mind.
| cynicalpeace wrote:
| Why it happened is chronicled by Ricardo Cortes in a lengthy
| series. https://rmcortes.medium.com/the-cocainemaker-reefer-
| madness-...
|
| Why wasn't it grandfathered for traditional users of the
| leaves?
|
| It's amazing the moment you point out that massive
| institutions care more about each other than the little guy,
| you get called a conspiracy theorist.
| doingtheiroming wrote:
| Stephen Maturin switches from opium to coca leaves about halfway
| through the Master and Commander series (around 1800). Ensuring a
| steady supply of the leaves becomes a recurring theme as is his
| sharing of their wonders with the various scientific
| personalities he comes across.
| lisper wrote:
| The difference between coca and cocaine is rather like the
| difference between sugar cane and refined sugar. In fact, that is
| quite a good analogy in more ways than one.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| More like the difference between a beer and grain alcohol.
| mossTechnician wrote:
| > As David Courtwright writes in his book Forces of Habit,
| "factories did for drugs what canning did to vegetables. They
| democratized them. It became easier, cheaper, and faster for the
| masses to saturate their brains with chemicals."
|
| This is a really interesting use of the word "democratize." I've
| seen it used in many other contexts (usually in a business
| sense), and some have been more ominous than others.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| According to oxford languages, the #2 definition of democratize
| is "make (something) accessible to everyone" [0]. Can you
| elaborate on why using the dictionary definition of a word is
| really interesting?
|
| 0 - just google define: democratize
| mossTechnician wrote:
| I've seen the word used in different contexts, usually as a
| marketing buzzword, a shortcut to elicit a positive feeling.
| (This article does not take that route, which is why I found
| it interesting.)
|
| If you look at the Google search recommendations after typing
| in the word "democratize," for example, you get people trying
| to understand what it means to "democratize finance"
| (initially, the solution was almost exclusively paired with
| words like "unbanked", "cryptocurrency," and a rush to bring
| these products to Africa - rarely a particular place for a
| particular reason, just Africa in general).
|
| Other phrases like "democratize data" are used in a corporate
| sense. Apparently "democratize AI" is a huge one too, which
| is appropriate because Sam Altman of OpenAI fame is one of
| the people who wanted to "democratize finance" by expanding
| his Worldcoin project into Kenya. More recently, I've seen
| the phrase "democratize art" thrown around by people who
| support generative AI as a form of art.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| All of these examples appear to have the same context:
| bringing something to the masses, just like a factory
| produced drug or can of corn.
|
| _If you look at the Google search recommendations after
| typing in the word "democratize," for example, you get
| people trying to understand what it means to "democratize
| finance"_
|
| I don't see these results (Google search results are
| personalized). I guess I took for granted that the meaning
| of the word was well understood or that people would look
| up words they thought were being used in an odd way.
| mossTechnician wrote:
| A word can be overused by marketing without distorting
| its meaning. I didn't expect so much pushback over saying
| I found it interesting!
| yandrypozo wrote:
| "I was making frequent use of cocaine at that time ... I had been
| the first to recommend the use of cocaine, in 1885, and this
| recommendation had brought serious reproaches down on me."
|
| "... a big wild man who has cocaine in his body."
|
| -- Sigmund Freud
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Oh, come on, you can't add that last quote without the rest of
| the context!
|
| "Woe to you, my Princess, when I come. I will kiss you quite
| red and feed you till you are plump. And if you are forward,
| you shall see who is the stronger, a gentle little girl who
| doesn't eat enough, or a big wild man who has cocaine in his
| body" - a letter to his fiance.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > Was recreational or medicinal coca use something that was
| happening all over Europe in the 1600s?
|
| I'd think we'd already know, because there would be historical
| (literature and records) references.
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| The article is just hilariously bad. Whatever he writes about
| coca and cocaine is just wrong.
|
| The leaves contain the base. The base has a low melting point and
| can be smoked (crack).
|
| Cocaine hydrochloride is created chemically from the base. It is
| water soluble and can snorted. Because of the PH of the blood it
| decomposes into the base.
|
| Chemically there is no difference once the drug is in the blood
| stream
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-10-10 23:01 UTC)