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Coca-Cola used coca leaf extract in its products from 1885 until about 1903, when it began using decocainized leaf extract. [9] [10] [11] Extraction of cocaine from coca requires several solvents and a chemical process known as an acid–base extraction, which can fairly easily extract the alkaloids from the plant.
Drug precursors, also referred to as precursor chemicals or simply precursors, are substances used to manufacture illicit drugs. Most precursors also have legitimate commercial uses and are legally used in a wide variety of industrial processes and consumer products, such as medicines, flavourings, and fragrances.
In South America, coca paste, also known as cocaine base and, therefore, often confused with cocaine sulfate in North America, is relatively inexpensive and is widely used by low-income populations. The coca paste is smoked in tobacco or cannabis cigarettes and use has become widespread in several Latin American countries.
The highest prevalence of cocaine use was in Australia and New Zealand (2.1%), followed by North America (2.1%), Western and Central Europe (1.4%), and South and Central America (1.0%). [36] Since 1961, the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs has required countries to make recreational use of cocaine a crime. [37]
Black cocaine, and cocaine paste, are impure forms of cocaine. The most common cocaine adulterants found in 1998 in samples in Rome , Italy were lidocaine and caffeine . [ 20 ] Cocaine is sometimes mixed with methylamphetamine , methylphenidate , and ephedrine , but is usually mixed with non psychoactive chemicals such as mannitol , inositol ...
Trituration of the free base from cocaine hydrochloride (or "cooking") is done by dissolving the cocaine hydrochloride in water over constant heat, while simultaneously adding a base (such as baking soda) to form the free base cocaine. The free base of cocaine forms a solid "rock", pieces of which can be smoked directly (crack cocaine). [4]
Normally, metabolism of cocaine produces two primarily biologically inactive metabolites—benzoylecgonine and ecgonine methyl ester. The hepatic enzyme carboxylesterase is an important part of cocaine's metabolism because it acts as a catalyst for the hydrolysis of cocaine in the liver, which produces these inactive metabolites.
[5] [6] Coca leaves were used in Coca-Cola's preparation; the small amount of cocaine they contained – along with caffeine originally sourced from kola nuts – provided the drink's "tonic" quality. [6] [7] In 1903, cocaine was removed, leaving caffeine as the sole stimulant ingredient, and all medicinal claims were dropped.