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NEWS > BUSINESS > COCA-COLA STILL IMPORTING COCAINE INTO THE UNITED STATES
COCA-COLA STILL IMPORTING COCAINE INTO THE UNITED STATES
June 15 2011
Atlanta, GA – Over the last decade there has been serious and passionate debate as to the nature and efficacy of our current drug laws. For the most part that debate has revolved around issues such as hypocrisy and corporate interests taking precedence
over the will of the public. For most people, the drug issue is simply a buzzing in the ears, a sound in the background, but for supporters it is do or die and the most important issue affecting their lives.
Of course, most of that debate revolves around marijuana. In recent years major strides towards legalization, or at least decimalization, have brought that debate into the mainstream. The success of that argument has led, inevitably, to a debate about other drugs and their legal status. While even the most ardent of drug advocates would likely not promote the legalization of certain substances, things on the extreme end of the scale such as heroin and meth, some have seen opportunities in the success of marijuana as a gateway to the acceptance of other drugs. One drug, cocaine, has often been regarded as one of the worst on the planet and while it is certainly not aspirin, it is certainly not a harbinger of the apocalypse, as evidenced by the work of the Coca-Cola Company which is, as it has been from its inception, the largest importer of coca leaves in the country.
“The Stepan Company is the root of all this. They import somewhere in the neighbourhood of 100 metric tonnes of coca leaves every year which is used to produce a certain extract, which is then supplied to Coke,” said a company insider. “They don’t actually use the cocaine in Coke anymore, but they use the leaves. The problem is that you need to extract the active ingredient, the cocaine, from the leaves before they can be used. Coke gets the clean leaves and the cocaine is sold off, ostensibly to another company which uses it for medicinal purposes.”
The company in question is Mallinckrodt Incorporated, which is also the country’s largest importer of opium and also dabbles in THC, the active ingredient of marijuana.
“Obviously coke is not responsible for what these other companies do with their products, but they are responsible for its presence. If they didn’t use the coca leaves there would be no cocaine produced. They aren’t directly responsible for the drug, but without them it would be there,” continued the insider. “Don’t get me wrong, I like working for Coke. I drink it all the time. But there is a strange discrepancy here where these companies can make billions off these drugs while regular people go to jail for doing the same thing. I mean most people who import cocaine aren’t in the soft drink manufacturing industry, that’s for sure, but the principle is the same. Coke is responsible for most of the cocaine in the U.S.”
Officials for Coca-Cola had no comment. Apparently they were sleeping off a rough weekend.
“Obviously no sensible person would look at Coke’s use of these drugs and think that is an argument for legalization. The bigger question is what is being done with all that
coke. That’s a whole lot of sugar and I doubt that all of it is being used for medical purposes. You are looking at hundreds of thousands of kilos of cocaine, which would have quite the street value,” said Scrape TV Business analyst Ken Green. “That said, it is probably in everyone’s best interest to keep the drugs off the streets. There are only so many addictions that people can have and if cocaine became popular it might squeeze out other ones, like say Coke. It’s really hard to make cocaine all Christmasy or to market it to children. It may be worth more itself, but you would lose the ancillary markets and that isn’t something Coke would be looking to do I would guess.”
Pepsi currently doesn’t import any coca leaves, though they do have an application pending with the DEA.
William Ashford, Business Correspondent
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