Cocaine

Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system and an appetite suppressant, creating what has been described as a euphoric sense of happiness and increased energy. Though most often used recreationally for this effect, cocaine is also a topical anesthetic that is used in eye and throat surgery. Cocaine is an addictive substance, and its possession, cultivation, and distribution are illegal (for non-medicinal / non-government sanctioned purposes) in virtually all of the world, which can be at least partially attributed to United Nations Commissions and United States drug policy.

History

The coca leaf

For thousands of years and still today, South American indigenous peoples have chewed the coca leaf, a plant which contains vital nutrients as well as numerous alkaloids including cocaine. The leaf was and is chewed almost universally by some indigenous communities, but there is no evidence that its habitual use ever led to any of the negative consequences generally associated with habitual cocaine use today. It is an important source of nutrition and energy in a region that is lacking in other food sources and oxygen; the vitamins and protein present in the leaves, as well as the cocaine alkaloid, helps provide the energy and strength necessary for steep walks in this mountainous area and days without eating.

Related Topics:
South America - Indigenous peoples - Coca - Alkaloids - Indigenous communities

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When the Spaniards conquered South America, they at first ignored Aboriginal claims that the leaf gave them strength and energy, and declared the practice of chewing it the work of the Devil. But after discovering that these claims were true, they legalized and taxed the leaf, taking 10% of the value of each crop. These taxes were for a time the main source of support for the Roman Catholic Church in the region.

Related Topics:
Spaniards conquered South America - Devil - Roman Catholic Church

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In 1609 Padre Blas Valera wrote:

Related Topics:
1609 - Blas Valera

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Coca protects the body from many ailments, and our doctors use it in powdered form to reduce the swelling of wounds, to strengthen broken bones, to expel cold from the body or prevent it from entering, and to cure rotten wounds or sores that are full of maggots. And if it does so much for outward ailments, will not its singular virtue have even greater effect in the entrails of those who eat it?

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Isolation

Although the stimulant and hunger-suppressant properties of coca had been known for many centuries, the isolation of the cocaine alkaloid was not achieved until 1855. Although many scientists had attempted to isolate cocaine, no one had been successful for two reasons: the knowledge of chemistry required was insufficient at the time, and coca does not grow in Europe and is easily ruined during travel.

Related Topics:
Alkaloid - 1855 - Europe

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The cocaine alkaloid was first isolated by the German chemist Friedrich Gaedcke in 1855. Gaedcke named the alkaloid ?erythroxyline?, and published a description in the journal Archives de Pharmacie.

Related Topics:
German - Chemist - Friedrich Gaedcke - 1855 - Archives de Pharmacie

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In 1856 Friederich Wöhler asked Dr. Carl Scherzer, a scientist aboard the Novara (an Austrian frigate sent by Emperor Franz Joseph to circle the globe), to bring him a large amount of coca leaves from South America. In 1859 the ship finished its travels and Wöhler received a trunk full of coca. Wöhler passed on the leaves to Albert Niemann, a Ph.D. student at the University of Göttingen in Germany, who then developed an improved purification process.

Related Topics:
1856 - Friederich Wöhler - Carl Scherzer - Novara - Austria - Franz Joseph - 1859 - Albert Niemann - Ph.D. - University of Göttingen - Germany

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Niemann described every step he took to isolate cocaine in his dissertation entitled On a New Organic Base in the Coca Leaves, which was published in 1860 — it also earned him his Ph.D. and is now in the British Library. He wrote of the alkaloid's ?colourless transparent prisms? and said that, ?Its solutions have an alkaline reaction, a bitter taste, promote the flow of saliva and leave a peculiar numbness, followed by a sense of cold when applied to the tongue.? Niemann named the alkaloid ?cocaine? ? as with other alkaloids its name carried the ?-ine? suffix.

Related Topics:
Dissertation - On a New Organic Base in the Coca Leaves - 1860 - British Library - Alkaloid - Suffix

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Popularization

In 1859 an Italian doctor Palo Mantegaza returned from Peru, where he had witnessed first-hand the use of coca by the natives. He proceeded to experiment on himself and upon his return to Milan he wrote a paper in which he described the effects. In this paper he declared coca and cocaine (at the time they were assumed to be the same) as being useful medicinally, in the treatment of ?a furred tongue in the morning, flatulence, whitening of the teeth.?

Related Topics:
1859 - Italian - Doctor - Palo Mantegaza - Peru - Milan - Flatulence

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A chemist named Angelo Mariani who read Mantegaza?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. The ethanol in the 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 in order to compete with the higher cocaine content of similar drinks in the United States. While a "pinch of coca leaves" was included in John Styth Pemberton's original 1886 recipe for Coca-Cola (the company began using decocainized leaves in 1906 when the Pure Food and Drug Act was passed). The only known measure of the amount of cocaine in Coca Cola was determined in 1902 as being as little as 1/400 of a grain (0.2 mg) per ounce of syrup. (6 ppm.) The actual amount of cocaine that Coca Cola contained is impossible to determine.

Related Topics:
Angelo Mariani - 1863 - Wine - Vin Mariani - Ethanol - 1902 - Grain - Ppm

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Cocaine use became very popular in the late 19th century, with many prominent figures praising its therapeutic and even recreational usage. Satisfied consumers of Mariani?s cocaine-wine products included Ulysses S. Grant, whom Mariani claimed drank the elixir daily; Popes Leo XIII and Saint Pius X, the former appearing on a poster promoting the wine; Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom; Frédéric Bartholdi, who designed the Statue of Liberty and remarked that if Vin Mariani had been available earlier he would have made the statue taller; and ?physicians to all the royal households of Europe.?

Related Topics:
Ulysses S. Grant - Leo XIII - Saint Pius X - Queen Victoria - United Kingdom - Frédéric Bartholdi - Statue of Liberty

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In 1879 cocaine began to be used to treat morphine addiction. Cocaine was introduced into clinical use as a local anaesthetic in Germany in 1884, about the same time as Sigmund Freud published his work Über Coca, in which he wrote that cocaine causes:

Related Topics:
1879 - Morphine - Local anaesthetic - 1884 - Sigmund Freud - Über Coca

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...exhilaration and lasting euphoria, which in no way differs from the normal euphoria of the healthy person...You perceive an increase of self-control and possess more vitality and capacity for work....In other words, you are simply normal, and it is soon hard to believe you are under the influence of any drug....Long intensive physical work is performed without any fatigue...This result is enjoyed without any of the unpleasant after-effects that follow exhilaration brought about by alcohol....Absolutely no craving for the further use of cocaine appears after the first, or even after repeated taking of the drug...

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Although synthetic local anaesthetics are much more widely used today, cocaine is, to some degree, still in use in dentistry and opthalmology.

Related Topics:
Dentistry - Opthalmology

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In 1885 the U.S. manufacturer Parke-Davis sold cocaine in various forms, including cigarettes, powder, and even a cocaine mixture that could be injected directly into the user?s veins with the included needle. The company promised that its cocaine products would ?supply the place of food, make the coward brave, the silent eloquent and ... render the sufferer insensitive to pain.?

Related Topics:
1885 - Parke-Davis

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By late Victorian era cocaine use had appeared as a vice in literature, for example as the cucaine injected by Arthur Conan Doyle?s fictional Sherlock Holmes.

Related Topics:
Victorian era - Literature - Arthur Conan Doyle - Sherlock Holmes

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In 1909 Ernest Shackleton took ?Forced March? brand cocaine tablets to Antarctica, as did Captain Scott a year later on his ill-fated journey to the south pole.

Related Topics:
1909 - Ernest Shackleton - Antarctica - Captain Scott - South pole

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Prohibition

By the turn of the twentieth century, the addictive properties of cocaine had become clear to many, and the problem of cocaine abuse began to capture public attention in the United States. The dangers of cocaine abuse became part of a moral panic that was tied to the dominant racial and social anxieties of the day. In 1903 the American Journal of Pharmacy stressed that most cocaine abusers were ?bohemians, gamblers, high- and low-class prostitutes, night porters, bell boys, burglars, racketeers, pimps, and casual laborers.? In 1914 Dr. Christopher Koch of Pennsylvania?s State Pharmacy Board made the racial innuendo explicit, testifying that, ?Most of the attacks upon the white women of the South are the direct result of a cocaine-crazed Negro brain.? Mass media manufactured an epidemic of cocaine use amongst African-Americans in the Southern United States, although there is little evidence that such an epidemic actually took place, to play upon racial prejudices of the era. In the same year, the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act banned the nonprescription use of cocaine-containing products, and it was officially outlawed as a narcotic in 1922.

Related Topics:
Moral panic - 1903 - American Journal of Pharmacy - 1914 - Christopher Koch - Pennsylvania - African-Americans - Southern United States - Harrison Narcotics Tax Act - Narcotic - 1922

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Modern usage

In most Western countries, cocaine is a popular recreational drug. In the United States, the introduction of ?crack? cocaine introduced it to a generally poorer inner-city market. Use of the powder form has stayed relatively constant, experiencing a new height of use during the late 1990s and early 2000s in the USA, and has become much more popular in the last few years in the UK.

Related Topics:
Recreational drug - United States - Crack - 1990s - 2000s - USA - UK

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Cocaine use is prevalent across all socioeconomic strata, including age, demographics, economic, social, political, religious, and livelihood; even U.S. President George W. Bush has refused to admit or deny prior cocaine usage. Cocaine in its various forms comes in second only to cannabis as the most popular illegal recreational drug in the United States, and is number one in street value sold each year.

Related Topics:
George W. Bush - Cannabis - Recreational drug - United States

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The estimated U.S. cocaine market exceeded $35 billion in street value for the year 2003, exceeding revenues by corporations such as AT&T and Starbucks. There is a tremendous demand for cocaine in the U.S. market, particularly among those who are making incomes affording luxury spending, such as single adults and various professionals. Cocaine?s status as a club drug shows its immense popularity among the ?party crowd?. Cocaine?s high revenues may be due to the drug?s psychologically addictive nature, which makes the cessation of use quite difficult when compared to less addictive illegal drugs such as marijuana. It has become much more popular as a middle class drug in the United Kingdom in recent years.

Related Topics:
$ - 2003 - AT&T - Starbucks - Luxury - Club drug - Marijuana - United Kingdom

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In 1990, a report by Gabriel G. Nahas was published in the Bulletin on Narcotics arguing that ?the risk of experimental use of cocaine outweighs its benefits and that this practice should not be pursued.?http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/bulletin/bulletin_1990-01-01_1_page007.html

Related Topics:
1990 - Gabriel G. Nahas - Bulletin on Narcotics

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