James Hamblin
Why we took cocaine out of soda
Hale explains:
Anyone with a nickel, black or white, could now drink the cocaine-infused beverage. Middle-class whites worried that soft drinks were contributing to what they saw as exploding cocaine use among African-Americans. Southern newspapers reported that “negro cocaine fiends” were raping white women, the police powerless to stop them. By 1903, [then-manager of Coca-Cola Asa Griggs] Candler had bowed to white fears (and a wave of anti-narcotics legislation), removing the cocaine and adding more sugar and caffeine.
Blowback
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Baloney.
KS Rex on January 31, 2013 at 6:06 PM
“Cocaine is a hell of a drug.”
BigGator5 on January 31, 2013 at 6:13 PM
What “we”? Coca-Cola is, and was, made by a private company.
Leftists always love to speak about things as if they were community property … well, things owned by other people. Leftists never make that mistake with their own property. “What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is mine.”
ThePrimordialOrderedPair on January 31, 2013 at 6:15 PM
We took the cocaine out because snorting Coke-a-Cola with a straw was really painful, didn’t get you high and could possibly drown you.
Nethicus on January 31, 2013 at 6:19 PM
It seems they are trying to tie everything to Blacks or Gays.
I’m so tired of this.
portlandon on January 31, 2013 at 6:22 PM
And now we have to put it back in ourselves.
rbj on January 31, 2013 at 6:31 PM
“Cocaine is God’s way of telling you you are making too much money.”~Robin Williams
davidk on January 31, 2013 at 6:35 PM
I thought that story was reefer madness.
The Rogue Tomato on January 31, 2013 at 6:43 PM
Black and white nickels? Bring back the good ole days.
petefrt on January 31, 2013 at 6:43 PM
Why did they take lithium out of 7up?
tom daschle concerned on January 31, 2013 at 6:51 PM
Because they were bogarting it for themselves.
Flange on January 31, 2013 at 6:54 PM
No lithium in 7-Up nowadays? What good is it anyhow?
petefrt on January 31, 2013 at 6:59 PM
Hmmm, read this article. Funny, my Grandmother had one after lunch each day. So I am told. She only had four children. She did’nt take naps however.
Bmore on January 31, 2013 at 8:15 PM
I have a feeling that eventually everything will be blamed on racist whitey.
clearbluesky on January 31, 2013 at 8:19 PM
It just doesn’t taste the same since they took out the cocaine.
The hallucinations aren’t as good either.
SagebrushPuppet on January 31, 2013 at 8:30 PM
For some reason, people like this author are able to understand the basic concept of institutionalized racism without being able to understanding its effects in the real world. There would have been no need to take cocaine out of white people’s Coke in 1904 (for that is when it was removed) because “Middle-class whites worried that soft drinks were contributing to what they saw as exploding cocaine use among African-Americans”. The one and only reason the folks at Coke did anything back then, and do anything now, is for profit.
Knott Buyinit on January 31, 2013 at 8:42 PM
This is the biggest pile of tinfoil-hat Black Panther revisionist-history BULLCRAP I’ve heard in my life.
MelonCollie on January 31, 2013 at 11:36 PM