Missing the Opportunity

O'Reilly makes a valuable mis-step/half-truth, which Nadelmann neglects to answer

"cocaine and meth incapacitate" (3:23)

Nadelmann could have at least mentioned the interply of pharmakokenetics and prohibition's iron law regarding Opiates and Cocaine in shifting markets to infinitely more concentrated forms of drugs and more problematic modes of drug taking.   For instance cocaine is a stimulant alkaloid found in small amounts in Coca leaves, as are caffeine and nicotine respectively in Coffee/other beverages and Tobacco.  But how much of the later two are consumed in white powder form, essentially unmeasured, of unstandardized potency, and in modes of taking that invite overdosing leading to the very incapacitation O'Reilly cites.   Do a tiny line of cocaine hci or chrystal meth and perhaps one is still within a range of enhancement -- aka a milder effect not interfering with life but rather the role of a gentle uplift.  But do a slightly larger amount, and they do interfere, like with cocaine crossing the threashold to where one does not want to hear music, and prefer to be alone or silent.   And they are easy to over-do in these concentrated forms.   So why Mr. Reilly do you insist upon a scheme that makes Opiates and cocaine only available in their dangerous forms, and which only really bans the safe forms?  

Imagine replacing Coffee with white powder caffeine.   Imagine replacing Coffee drinking with caffeine powder sniffing - or smoking or shooting.   Look at the caffeine overdose stories of those that have killd themselves with recklessly large doses of white powder caffeine, akin to BLAST.

http://www.possessedbycaffeine.com/2011/07/blast-caffeine-powder.html

 

Why is it ok to make cocaine powder and crack highly proftable and inefficent uses of police resources, while really banning only the safe and effective products such as VIN MARIANI?

Why is it ok to ban Coca/VIN MARIANI?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/12/us-drugs-un-bolivia-idUSBRE82B0QH20120312

 

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/19/us-bolivia-coca-idUSTRE70I0G920110119

 

Yet it is ok to permit the mass sales of cigarettes and other Tobacco products.  Nevermind that they are more physically addictive than heroin, and are most chronically deleterious, taking nearly half a million lives every year in the U.S., and over 6 million annually word-wide.

Especially so.  Why are these Tobacco products and alcohol the two classes of substances EXEMPTED from ingrediant retail labeling?   The initial 1906 U.S. Food and Drugs Act was predicated upon labeling some drugs, such as opiates and cocaine - but not others such as caffeine and nicotine.  Indeed it exempted Tobacco from its regulatory jurisdiction, by limiting such to substances listed in the U.S. Pharmacopeia which de-listed Tobacco in 1905, nevermind that this regulatory authority was vested with the U.S. Department of AGRICULTURE.   Wow!  the USDA gets to ban anything it declares as deleterious to health, yet could not regulate Tobacco- and apparantly was never challenged in a suit over this denial of equal protection under the law.  

Coca is the safest stimulant.

Tobacco is the most dangerous.

Why the hell is Coca illegal and Tobacco legal?  

Who decided that we had to ban Coca so that people could not go to the trouble of chemically processing it into concentrated cocaine, so that they no long had the option of Coca products, but only concentrated cocaine and Tobacco products?

What was the social costs of the 20th century ban on Coca and this protection of Tobacco and cigarettes?  Given their overlapping uses, the fact that the U.S.D.A. was exploring the feasibility of growing Coca in the U.S., that the U.S. had taken control of the Panama Canal project in 1903 to be completed in 1914 that would have significently shortened Coca supply lines from Peru to North Atlantic markets, and the U.S.D.A.'s stated concern specifically over the use of coca as a 'Tobacco Habit Cure', the drug war was anything other than about protecting the public's health.

That's a crime that's got to end.

Sadly, drug policy reform organizations as the Drug Policy Foundation now Drug Policy Alliance act fearful of addressing this point.

They act in defference to protecting existing markets, as part of Ira Glasser's 300 Year time frame to go as slow as possible, such as down-selling "harm reduction" as clean needles and safer crack pipes, bit don't talk about the parent plant drugs of Opium and Coca- nevermind their listing in the 1914 U.S. Harrison Narcotics Tax Act.  It is as if they were being yoked, perhaps in part by being feed some exceptionally questionable advice.

Drug War Cigarette Mercantilism
http://southmallblogger.blogspot.com/2012/08/drug-war-cigarette-mercantilism.html

 

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Legalize Coca & Opium, Not Just Marijuana

A serious flaw of the drug policy reform movement- limiting attention to Marijuana while acting afraid of Coca-cocaine and Opiates; from a comment at Drug War Rant that quotes this article:

"When we talk about legalizing marijuana, we inevitably have to decide what other drugs should be legalized. Do we legalize cocaine, crack, ecstasy, meth, heroin? If not, why not? Shouldn’t we legalize all drugs, regulate them and tax them like alcohol?

I’m all in on legalizing marijuana. Tax it and we can retire the deficit overnight. Smoke it in bars and coffee houses and have laws governing where it can be used.

I don’t know about the other drugs, though. We can debate it, but it seems futile to try to outlaw stuff that people want no matter the cost. At least maybe we could have a sane drug policy that recognizes reality.”

Why do we continue to hear/see such nonsense. There’s NO reason not to legalize Opium and Coca, indeed no reason they go un-mentioned- the plants and products representing them in their natural potencies at a minimum.  The prohibition ensures that we do not have Opium nor Coca, only instead the highly concentrated derrivitives of heroin and cocaine hci or sulfate- denying the safe while promoting the dangerous.  No way is that rational- except as a criminal scam of market protection - mercantilism.

Imagine an alternative reality where we made caffeine and nicoine into white powder poisons. Drug policy reform must break away from the death grip around Ira Glasser etc, like some sort of twisted advice from some cigarette-pharma conflict of interest law firm to protect pharma and cigarettes:

July 4, 2012 Seize the Day
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2012/06/july-4-seize-it.html

Douglas Andrew Willinger Angelo Francois Mariani Coca Activism
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2012/06/douglas-andrew-willinger-angelo.html

Drug War Tobacco Pharma Agricultural Mercantilism
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/03/drug-war-tobacco-pharma-agricultural.html

Drug War Criminal Mercantilism to Protect Pharma and Cigarettes
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/it-was-criminal-mercantilism-to-protect.html

Drug 'Warriors' Neglect History of Coca - Vin Coca Mariani
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/drug-warriors-ignore-history-of-coca.html

Drug 'Warriors' Neglect Pharmacokinetics - Promote Drug Abuse
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/drug-warriors-ignore-pharmacokinetics.html

April 1 "interview" concerning drug policy movement - pharma cigarette law firm advise program
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2012/04/about-drug-policy-covington-and-burling.html

NO discussion of the drug war should overlook the reality of it as an illegal market protection scam for cigarettes- which is obvious from that p 230 chart of cigarette production with the upturns happening with the various ‘drug control’ statutes in 1906, 1914 and 1937.

Yet we continue to see all of this ‘scholarly’ work that completely neglects this.

USDA Banned Coca to Protect Tobacco - Public Health DISASTER
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/coca-as-tobacco-habit-cure.html

By focusing upon MJ to the exclusion of Coca and Opium we have unwittingly extended prohibition. Why continue to do so?

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Douglas Andrew Willinger - Angelo Francois Mariani Coca Activism

Douglas Willinger and Ethan Nadelman -
1992 DPF conference

Mid 1986 - Became extremely concerned about Ronald Wilson Reagan's insane ratcheting up the socially destructive - mega continuing boondoggle 'drug war'

April 1987 - purchased the book 'Cocaine- Its History Uses and Effects' by Richard Ashley, where I first read about Angelo Francois Mariani and his Vin Mariani created amidst the 1860s female Parisian opera performer culture, and found safe and effective in western Europe and North America.

September-October 1987 - wrote the Fitz Hugh Ludlow Library Memorial Library about Mariani - Coca and received letter informing me of Chas Vermeulen Windsant in Amsterdam who got obsessed about the Mariani story, in spring 1978, at about the 64th anniversary of Mariani's April 1, 1914 death in southern France.

1, April MCMXIV

December 1987 - wrote letter to the Westchester Gannett newspapers about the banning of Coca and its perversion into concentrated cocaine while we push tobacco cigarettes upon the world - is published January 4, 1988

July 1989 - travelled to Amsterdam and Paris to persue the Mariani story.

November 1989 - attended my first international conference of the Drug Policy Foundation, and have attended every such annual and subsequently biennial conference since.

July 1990 - travelled to Amsterdam to persue the Mariani story.

November 1990 - attended my 2nd DPF conference, and published in their conference paper compendium my paper- 'The Ever-changing, Ever-confused Popular Conception of Cocaine'

November 1991 - attended my 3rd DPF conference; this is the 2nd time the DPF publishes a paper by me; this 1991 paper is 'Water or Gasoline- Cocaine Prohibition'; and its the first time that I apply and am approved to appear upon a DPF conference panel 'Cocaine and Crack' where I talked about the cocaine continunum from ultra concentrated cocaine to Coca.

November 1992 - attended my 4th DPF conference; this is the 3rd time the DPF publishes a paper by me: 'Cocaine Conversion- Onwards to Coca'.  And its the 2nd time I appear upon the 'cocaine and crack' panel, plus they put me upon an additional panel 'Is America Exporting Its Problems' that is moderated by Ethan Nadelman.

That's Nadelman I appear with in that newspaper photograph, doublessly seen by many people throughout the Washington, D.C. area, in an article about the drug policy reform movement and in particular the then recently held 1992 DPF conference.  The picture is simply captioned 'DPF to new administration- can we talk?'  My name does not appear.  But I am clearly recognizable.

After this point I am never again published by the DPF and its successor organization.  Asides from my successful COCA '95 panel at the October 1995 DPF conference, I am never again placed upon a panel, and the regular cocaine and crack' panel is deleted from the conference schedules, despite the DPF being established to deal with the drug war beyond Marijuana, and that it had been founded in response to the hysteria regarding 'cocaine'.

Douglas Andrew Willinger proposals mades after 1992 and all rejected by the Drug Policy Foundation - Drug Policy Alliance include:

'Coca - Turning Over a New Leaf Towards Reducing Health Care Costs', to be moderated by Dr. Lester Grinspoon of Harvard University

'Tinctures of Opium, Wines of Coca, etc: Popular, Pre-prohibition Uses of Natural Plants Perverted by Drug Prohibition into today's "Hard" Drug Plague'

A Douglas Willinger proposal for a 'History Panel' for 1999 was accepted, but neither Willinger nor the coca-cocaine issue were allowed.  This was so even with the subsequent 'History' Panel in 2003 which had only 2 or 3 panelists, rather than the overflowing amount on the 1999 panel that featured the final DPF appearance of Dr. Rufus King, who died that December.

Mis-managed Drug Policy 'Reform' to protect existing pharma-cigarette markets 
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2010/07/peter-lewis-ira-glasser-is-waste-of.html

Coca Come Back
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2009/02/coca-come-back.html

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Harvey Wiley Sugar Legacy

New York City's Mayor Bloomberg seeks to ban certain establishments from offering sugared drink sizes above 16 ounces.  No word how this shall impact my 32 ounce McDonald's *half* sweetened, *half* unsweetened habit which gives me the larger drink but with the limit of the 16 ounce size sweetened.  No mention is given to the sugar-high fructose corn syrup issue.

This makes me wonder about the pre-cigarette mercantilism days -- aka the early 1900s cocaine demonification scares of the infamous USDA-AMA-APhA drug racketeering to get people to fear cocaine in any form in order to clear the way for the increased marketing of Tobacco cigarettes -- when Coca Cola and other such soft drinks contained cocaine.  Small amounts of cocaine, often 3-4 milligrams per fluid ounce, or 6 or 7 milligrams per fluid ounce as in Coca wines such as Vin Mariani.

Do the math.  If say a Coca leaf extract or even isolated cocaine beverages contained for the sake of argument 5 milligrams per fluid ounce, we would have 35 milligrams in the 7 ounce drink; 60 mg in the 12 ounce drink; 80 in the 16; 160 in the 32; and 320 in the 64 ounce.   Such an era came when soft drink sizes were reletively low- in the 8/40 to 12/60 range; and such drinks may or may not also include caffeine, such as Coca-Cola.

Now do the logic.  Cocaine is not just a stimulant.  its also an anesthetic- drink a cocaine containing beverage  and one does not simply get a mild stimulant effect, one's stomach numbs out and one looses an appetite for more, making it somewhat self limiting.  Try it yourself with some Coca tea (I do NOT recommend using street cocaine unless perhaps one is a sufficently trained pharmacist), made with say 4 or 5 bags per large cup and you will find it way less swillable than a standard caffeine beverage or water.   Makes me wonder how much excessive consumption of sugar was initated by removing the whole coca-cocaine alkaloid from soft drinks, removing the "I am full signal" so people would drink larger servings.

I am sure there is a whole science within the food and drug and beverage industry to encourage excessive consumption, as with MSG type 'doping', and the burn aditives in cigarettes.

British and French and North Americans Examine Coca: 1870s-1880s
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.fr/2008/03/british-and-french-and-north-americans.html


Sugar Promoter Harvey Washington Wiley
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/08/sugar-pusher-harvey-wiley.html

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Radley Balko on CATO & REASON

Via Facebook:

Radley Balko You're onto them, Douglas. Obviously, the most pressing issue with current drug war is who is responsible for for its inception at the beginning of the 20th century. And Reason and Cato have ignored this because are firmly ensconced in the pockets of the 1906 tobacco companies. And they would've gotten away with it if it weren't for your detective skills!

Thursday at 8:15pm · · 14

Alas they are STILL getting away with it- at least as I am the ONLY person writing about it...

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Obama Hinted At Treating MJ Like Heroin

and that he "learned not to care"...


In the book bearing his name "Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance," by mentioning the terms "junkie" and "pothead" in the same breath- Obama hints that he views them as the same or similarly.

http://www.mapinc.org/newsnorml/v03/n1786/a06.html

"I had learned not to care," he wrote. "I blew a few smoke rings, remembering those years. Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though. ..."

"Blow" is a street name for cocaine. "Smack" is slang for heroin.

"Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man," Obama wrote. "Except the highs hadn't been about that, me trying to prove what a down brother I was. Not by then, anyway. I got high for just the opposite effect, something that could push questions of who I was out of my mind, something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory. I had discovered that it didn't make any difference whether you smoked reefer in the white classmate's sparkling new van, or in the dorm room of some brother you'd met down at the gym, or on the beach with a couple of Hawaiian kids who had dropped out of school and now spent most of their time looking for an excuse to brawl. ... You might just be bored, or alone. Everybody was welcome into the club of disaffection."

No shit that he "learned not to care". He not only speaks about heroin and Cannabis as if they were the same, he does so when stating that he did not use heroin, only cocaine on occasion, and Cannabis more frequently. How is using MJ and occasionally cocaine mean that one is destined to become a "junkie" - a term referring to heroin - unless one has "learned not to care" about truth?!

By so conflating and confusing the different drugs, "Obama" demonstrates what he here admits, that he learned "not to care".

It should be a textbook example of carefully chosen words- to suggest one thing, while really meaning something else - such as "change", suggesting that for something better, but in reality making no promise of something necessarily better.

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The Absurdity of Simply Defining 'Cocaine' as a drug of addiction

Even more intriguing to Freud were a series of clinical papers published in George Parke’s house organ, the Therapeutic Gazette. In 1878, an American physician named W.H. Bentley described successfully treating a patient addicted to the “opium habit” with coca. Two years later, in 1880, Bentley reported his success in treating both opium and alcohol abusers with cocaine. With the twenty-twenty vision of historical hindsight, it is easy to shake one’s head at such a harebrained theory. Substituting one addictive drug for another was a common medical means of treating substance abuse in the late nineteenth century and I fact, remains so to this day. It is impossible to give an accurate number of how many morphine addicts were unwittingly turned into cocaine addicts by well-intentioned physicians during this area; similarly, alcoholics were often prescribed morphine to the point of addiction, and later, cocaine and even nicotine to help them kick their drinking habits. At the dawn of doctors’ recognition of addiction as a disease, what all these games of medical musical chairs most reliably did was to create “new and improved addicts” – p76 An Anatomy of Addiction- Howard Markel

This quote is my nomination for most arrogant, deliberate mis-direct, representing the absurdity of viewing or defining a particular drug as primarily a drug of addiction, as done by the title of this book.



The term here is a negative spin confusing a phenomenon of physical withdrawal with another of toxic-mania, and mistakenly applied to the drug in general. We are to forget the real benefits of coca, by confusing Coca with cocaine either dilute or at any level of infinitely higher concentration. Cocaine is more correctly a drug of either great benefit as a superior alternative to caffeine and nicotine, or one of great detriment of toxic-mania- all depending upon the context, particularly of form.



Isolated cocaine was not even commercially available in 1880.



Yet – makes this deliberate misstatement of fact – Bentley used Coca leaf extract, diluted , not isolated cocaine concentrated.



An infinitely better account appears within the book by Joseph Kennedy, Coca Exotica:

In July of 1878, Bentley was called to a house somewhere in the hills of Kentucky; when he arrived there, he was astonished to find a tenth of an acre in opium poppies (Papaver somniferium). The lady of the house, a forty year old widow, confessed to the doctor that she had been an opium eater for quite some time, consuming about a half pound of the drug a year. Bentley says: “I persuaded here to give up the habit. She declared that she could not. She agreed, however, to try, so I sent her one pound of the fluid extract of coca to begin with. When used up, she sent for half the quantity, stating that she thought it would complete the cure. I sent her one half pound. She sent me her opium crop that winter, with the message that the medicine had cured her.



The medicine Bentley prescribed for her was the fluid extract of coca manufacture red by Parke Davis and Company in Detroit, Michigan. The preparation they offered was standardized in the United States Pharmacopoeia, 6th to 8th editions (1880—90), and contained 0.5 grams of coca alkaloids per one hundred cubic centimeters of solution. Of course, cocaine was one of those alkaloids contained in the fluid extract, but according to Bentley’s recommended dose (1 drachm of fluid extract when the desire for whiskey or opium is quite urgent), a patient would only consume .0185 grams (slightly more then 1/200 of a gram) of cocaine per dose, and even then it would automatically be taken in conjunction with coca’s natural complement of other alkaloids; because it was prescribed to be drunk, this solution would necessarily have to pass through the liver and kidneys. In these two important respects the use of the fluid extract closely resembled the Indian method of taking the drug, a procedure proven harmless by centuries of use. It is also interesting to note that one would have to take 13.5 one drachm doses of Parke Davis fluid extract just to get the amount of cocaine alkaloid consumed daily by an average Peruvian Indian. This is based upon Hanna’s study that estimates the average Indian digests approximately 0.25 grams of cocaine a day by normal coca use.

---



Bentley’s idea of curing these addicts with coca caught on immediately and was put into practice throughout the country. Reports of its effectiveness began to appear as a regular feature in the Therapeutic Gazette as well as the Philadelphia Medical Times, New Remedies, Medical and Surgical Report, and the New York Medical Review.

http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA14http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif8&dq=coca%20bentley&ei=n_FJTvriOcTx0gGhsfnqBw&ct=result&id=PioCAAAAYAAJ&output=text



As a valuable antidote to the opium habit, it is spoken highly of by Dr. W. H. Bentley, of Kentucky; Dr. G. Leforge, of Illinois; Dr. H. F. Stimmell, of Tennessee, and many others. Dr. R. P. Henderson states in the Louisville Medical Neii's that one patient who took as much as a pint of tincture of opium in a week, was cured by taking the coca in drachm doses as often as he felt that he could no longer do without the laudanum. He used it frequently for two or three days, gradually lessening the dose until cured. Dr. C. H. Poizat, of Eaton, Philadelphia, mentions in the Medical and Surgical Reporter two cases of asthma, in which coca afforded decided relief.

http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA457&dq=coca%20bentley%20opium&ei=efxJTpylKsbd0QGwnsjrBw&ct=book-preview-link&sqi=2&id=spgCAAAAYAAJ&output=text



Erythoxylon Coca on the Opium and Alcohol Habits



Dr. Bentley, in Therapeutic Gazette, reports the following cases:



Miss M., a sprightly, intelligent blonde, aet. 30. I had been acquainted with her for 15 years, and for several years of our early acquaintance, when the family lived near me, was her father's family physician. In June, 1878, I accidentally met her on a train. Eight years previous she had a protracted attack of pneumonia, during which she contracted the habit of using morphine, which she still retained. These facts were well known to me, so I took occasion to ask her if she had left it off. She replied in the negative, and told me that she then required 10 grs. twice a day. She had tried nostrums and had visited some advertising quack in another State, to no purpose. I then suggested the erythoxylon, fully explaining its action. The result was I prescribed a pound for her. I received a note from her when she had used this. She was much encouraged, and had ordered two pounds more. This quantity completed the cure. I saw her recently, when she assured me that she had no desire for morphine.



Case 2. July, 1878, was called to a case some 15 miles distant, and nearly all the way "in the hills." I was quite astonished to find about •one-tenth of an acre in poppies. On inquiry, the lady of the house, a widow, about 40, told me that she was an "opium eater," to use her expression, and that she used her own opium. From what I could learn, she used about half a pound of the drug a year. 1 persuaded her to give up the habit. She declared that she could not. She agreed, however, to try, so I sent her ? lb. fluid. extract coca to begin with. When used, she sent for half the quantity, stating that she thought it would complete the cure. I sent her a half pound. She sent me her opium crop that winter, with the message that the medicine had cured her.



Case 3. An aged lady, set. 72. She had been addicted to the habit for 35 years. I persuaded her to try the coca. She was then taking 2 drachm doses of opium three times a day. She said she felt sure she would be unable to leave off the opium, but as she was wealthy and extravagant, she readily consented to try the coca. She procured two pounds on my prescription, and began its use. The progress of the case is rather amusing. She uses one for a time, and then resorts to the other. Sometimes she does not taste opium for a fortnight, using the coca during the time, then she returns to her opium, and thus she alternates. Her doses of opium have been reduced, to as little, I think, as 10 grs., and her general health has greatly improved. Before using the coca, she was a great sufferer from duodenal dyspepsia. She has so far improved, in this respect, that she rarely suffers in this particular, and it is a wonder, too, for she is a ravenous feeder, and as fond of "cake and pastry" as a child, and, withal, uses a great deal -of wine.



Case 4. An unmarried man, aet. 27. Contracted the "opium habit" five years previous to using the coca. Had become a great slave to morphine. June, 1879, I put him upon coca. He ordered three pounds at the beginning. In October following, I met him, and he assured me that he was entirely relieved of the habit, and had one pound of his medicine left.

http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA143&dq=coca%20bentley%201880&ei=I_pJTr3QBMHW0QHvz5XrBw&ct=result&id=_g0CAAAAYAAJ&output=text



Medical summary, Volume 2

ERYTHOXYLON COCA.

BY W. H. BENTLEY, M. D., LL. D., VALLEY OAK, KY.

"NEW PREPARATIONS," JULY, 1878.



A FEW years since I procured six or eight pounds of the saturated tincture of erythoxylon coca from a druggist of Philadelphia, with a view of testing the virtues of the plant, therapeutically. I used all with the exception of a single bottle, within the course of about fifteen months. All the cases, but one, in which I prescribed it, were those of a chronic character affecting the lungs, and simulating phthisis.^ The excepted case was one of "nervous dyspepsia" complicated with uterine troubles and hysteria. The patient was married, the mother of two children, the youngest six months old, while the mother was herself 23 years of age. She was greatly emaciated, was very despondent, and was, withal, addicted to the opium habit. It was as a substitute for her accustomed morphine, the use of which I absolutely forbade, that I directed the coca, in drachm doses, three times a day. It answered the purpose admirably.



In short, the coca gave me entire satisfaction in all the cases in which I used it, acting promptly as a nervous stimulant, allaying irritation, reviving the despondent without depressing reaction, and all without producing febrile or other unpleasant symptoms. My only objection was the high price, which was such as to prevent the druggists from ordering it, unless I would guarantee its sale. I still had one pint on hand; which I used myself recently, and the good results were so remarkable, and I noted its action so carefully, that I think a detail of the case may be both of interest and utility to your readers.



My age is 43, height 5 feet 7 inches, weight 125 pounds, complexion rather dark, hair thin, fine, and dark; eyes dark, but neither hair or eyes black; the nervous temperament largely prevails; easily and unpleasantly affected by most stimulants and narcotics, and cannot bear opiates, even in medicinal doses, March 5th, 1878, had a most severe and prostrating attack of continued fever, which came very near a fatal termination. The fever, entirely subsided on the tenth day, leaving me greatly emaciated in body, and completely prostrated in strength. Convalescence was extremely tardy. My appetite returned slowly and digestion was quite good, yet there was not a corresponding return of strength. Alcoholic stimulants were used in moderation, and tonics, including both the mineral and vegetable, very freely. All seemed to be of little service, for, at the end of three weeks, I had made but little progress in the accumulation of either flesh or strength. At this juncture, I resolved to try the erythoxylon tincture. I accordingly began with teaspoonful doses three times a day, taken with an ounce of water before meals. The salutary effects were perceptible with the second dose. My appetite rapidly increased, and, although in a few days I grew to partaking too heartiest meals of flesh, vegetables, and at dinner, desert in variety, I would suffer from violent hunger, long before the hour for the next regular meal. My digestion, which as a rule, is feeble, became, under the use of the drug, perfect, while assimilation was likewise complete, and return of strength rapid.



To determine whether all was due to the medicine, I occasionally left it off a few days, when I soon could perceive that both appetite and digestion began to fail. Both always returned as above stated, with the resumption of the medicine.



On a few occasions, I experimented with large doses, or the ordinary doses repeated at short intervals, neither of which plans agreed with me. In either instance, if I pushed the drug, I became weak and tremulous, and several hours were required to wear off the unpleasant feelings.



A drachm dose, taken at any time, was followed immediately by feeling of agreeable warmth in the stomach, which was soon succeeded by moderate stimulation, exhilarating mental activity, and filling me with the most pleasant emotions. These effects would last from three to four hours, and were never succeeded by depression or other ill consequences. If I took a dose an hour after meals, I was never hungry until three hours after. Taken when quite hungry, the appetite was appeased for about the same period. Taken without the water, its effects were not so rapid, nor at any time so well pronounced.



After using all, I experienced considerable desire for the medicine for three or four days, which occurred two or three times subsequently at intervals of some days.

At no time did I ever detect any change in the numbers either of my pulse or respirations. I shall hereafter give Erythoxylon Coca a thorough trial in "wasting diseases," tardy convalescence from acute maladies, and certain forms of dyspepsia, and carefully test it in the "opium habit."

The Therapeutic gazette, Volume 1





http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA351&dq=coca%20bentley%201880&ei=I_pJTr3QBMHW0QHvz5XrBw&ct=result&id=liziAAAAMAAJ&output=text



[Written for the Therapeutic Gazette.]

Erythroxylon Coca.

By W. H. Bentley, M. D. I_L. D., Valley Oal', Ky.



THE first time I heard of Erythroxylon Coca, was in 1869, when I received a pamphlet with the request to take, on agency, certain proprietary medicines therein described, and which were prepared by an advertising physician, now deceased, but then living in one of the eastern states. Among them was a very highly recommended cough mixture, certified to be very efficacious in all chronic diseases of the lungs and of the air passages. The medicines were not nostrums as all the formulae were given, or, at least, purported to be given. Among the ingredients one with the title "Ninga," was mentioned. A very long and minute description of this plant ensued. Highly stimulant, tonic and nutritive properties were claimed for this plant, which the writer claimed to have discovered from information received from the natives, and especially the Indians, during his South American travels, extending over a period of several years. Among other things, it was claimed that the Indians would perform long journeys with no other food than a few "Ninga" leaves.



I found that the writer possessed much learning, a good deal of genius and superior shrewdness. I wrote to him declining the sale of his medicines, but asking a confidential, yet candid, statement in regard to the wonderful plant, and asking for a sample at even an unreasonable price. I received a reply in due course of mail informing me that the statements in the pamphlet were true, entirely declining to furnish me any of the plant, but stating that " Ninga" was one of the local Indian names, and that the botanical name was Erythroxylon Coca.



At that time I had a lay friend residing in South America with headquarters in Lima, though his business required much travel, and, in this way, he visited Paraguay, Bolivia, Equador, etc. I knew, too, that he was perfectly reliable, for we had been room-mates during two years in college, graduating in the same class. After this he went to the law, I to medicine. He soon abandoned his profession for trade, and went to reside in South America as above stated. To this friend I wrote, requesting all the information he could conveniently obtain from South American physicians respecting the Erythroxylon, (provided it was not a myth,) together with a small supply of the plant.



In about nine months I received his reply, with some seventy-three pages of manuscript, containing statements from thirty-three different physicians together with about one pound of the Erythroxylon leaves made up in different parcels, as my friend could purchase.



The samples were mostly different in appearance, and as I found, different also in active properties. I went to work making tinctures, being guided in their use by the manuscript statements of the South American doctors, cautiously feeling my way, so to speak, for there was great diversity in the statements both as to the diseases in which it was indicated, and as to its physiological effects.



I prescribed it in chronic diseases of the lungs and bronchi, leucorrhoea, spermatorrhoea, etc., and, when the article was good, always, or nearly so, with gratifying results; but, as my supply was small and much of it nearly or quite worthless, I did not reach any very definite conclusions. My first practice with the Coca was in the year 187o-71. In 1872 I saw the saturated tincture, also the Cocoain advertised by an eastern house. I immediately ordered a dozen pints of tincture and one-fourth dozen bottles of the Coca---. I used all of this except a single pint of the tincture within about one year—this pint I took myself in a case of convalescence from an attack of fever, in the spring of 1878. Some of this was used successfully in combating the opium-habit as indicated in an. article which I furnished New Preparations, and which was published in that journal July, 1878. I then promised a more extended research into the properties of the Erythroxylon Coca, which I have made under more favorable circumstances, for I have used the fluid extract as prepared by Messrs. Parke, Davis & Co., and since the date of my communication to New Preparations, I have purchased on an average one pound of their fluid extract Erythroxylon Coca a month, testing it in every variety of cases (except paralysis) that I considered dependent upon defective innervation.



My theory of tubercular consumption, for instance, is, that it is nervous disease, so, I think are dyspepsia and numerous other chronic diseases. Take consumption for an illustration: I think the brain and nerves become enervated from various causes, and from whatever cause, digestion and assimilation become impaired; next the blood, by losing some of its healthy constituents, becomes too thin and watery, and the circulation thereby languid and sluggish. Then, as it passes through the lungs, a spongy tissue, it parts with a portion of its fibrine, which, being semi-vitalized, organizes in the form of tubercle.



The opium and alcoholic habits, I conceive are formed thus: Both opium and alcohol are stimulants, and, if pushed, become narcotics. When taken into the stomach both alike produce, at first, an agreeable feeling of stimulation. Both soon pass away and leave the system more or less depressed. This condition calls for more stimulation, oft repeated the nervous system is more or less broken down, and a real disease is found, weakening the will-power—so much as to bring about a complete surrender of humanhood to the new master.



Now to cure any of these, we want, not only a stimulant, but a new tonic, something that will produce the stimulus of opium or alcohol, as the case may be, and leave the nervous system braced, so as not to be followed by any depression. My long experience with Erythroxylon Coca, and my close observation of its action in both disease and health, I believe that in this valuable agent we possess the very desirable drug—the desideratum.



In the country producing it, the natives eat it, and become as much its slave as De Quincy ever was to opium, or Beau Brummel ever was to wine, yet it produces no bad results. It promotes not only longevity but vital energy, enterprise and a desire for labor. Those addicted to the Coca habit are, at least in some places, called coqueros, and according to Dr. Quisina, one of the physicians reporting in my manuscript, live to an indefinite age. He reports an old man, a half-breed, 17o years old, and numbers of others over 1oo years of age, but states that the coqueros loose all their virile powers. Dr. Q, is a Bolivian physican, then (Jan. 187o) 58 years old. He and several others stated that it would, if used to excess, entirely destroy the sexual desire. My experience, however, is the reverse of this as far as it goes, but, I have made no "coqueros" in my practice. In two cases of impotency, treated with Coca alone, the desired effect has been produced, after the strychnia, savin, Ignatius bean and phosphorus treatment had utterly failed.



Mr. G. A., bachelor, about 47, residing on a farm with his servants only, came to me October 1879. He was greatly distressed in mind and utterly depressed in spirit. He had been a "great rake," and had, consequently, indulged to extreme excess his sexual passions, or, as Mrs. Elmira Slenker would put it, had been guilty, of great "sexual intemperance." He had lost all sexual power; had a serious gleet; was much reduced in flesh; was sullen and morose, sitting for hours silently gazing at vacuity, and then talking with great volubility of his affections as long as he could retain an auditor.



At first I gave him iron, quinine and strychnia in combination. He took this for six months. His appetite and digestion returned. He also regained his color and flesh, but his craziness remained because there was no amelioration of his impotency I then put him upon phosphorus with no better result after thirty days' use. At this juncture I prescribed for him two pounds fluid extract Coca| to be taken in teaspoonful doses four times a day, namely, before meals and at bed time. "It acted like a charm," and he was perfectly well of all his diseases before he had used all his medicine, and remains so at this writing, November, 188o.

---



Such is the intrinsic problem of any academic work that insists upon defining a particular drug was an object of “abuse”. Though it may certainly be, it may hardly necessarily be. --- would have done better to target not “cocaine” but instead “isolated cocaine in concentrated doses” or simply “concentrated cocaine”.



The purpose is to confuse. To confuse the acute and chronic effects of high doses of concentrated cocaine with the effects of low dose dilute cocaine. It is the sort of nonsense we can expect from an 'academia' utterly rotted out by 'good old boys' fraternal-ism, as is our government.





The dangers of alcoholism would be avoided if no other stimulant was taken...than...Vin Mariani

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/dangers-of-alcoholism-would-be-avoided.html





Coca as Tobacco Habit Cure

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/coca-as-tobacco-habit-cure.html

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1905 Proposal Would Still Allow Cocaine under 1/8 grain per fluid once

American Journal of Pharmacy. April, 1904



Drafts of Bills.

Relating to Sales of Narcotics and of Proprietary Medicines Containing Alcohol.

On December 27 and 28, 1905, upon the invitation of the Legislative Committee of the American Pharmaceutical Association, a conference was held at the Hotel Stratford in Chicago to consider legislation to regulate the sale of narcotics and proprietary compounds containing alcohol. There were present at this conference delegations representing the American Pharmaceutical Association, the Proprietary Association of America, the National Wholesale Druggists' Association and the National Association of Retail Druggists.

The delegates were not authorized to take final action as to any particular form of a law, but were merely appointed to confer together and refer back to the bodies which appointed them. There was considerable discussion and the following was regarded as a good working basis for a discussion of possible laws to regulate the sale respectively of narcotics and of proprietary compounds containing alcohol.

Albert E. Ebert,
Of the American Pharmaceutical Association.

J. M. Good,
Of the National Association of Retail Druggists.

M. N. Kline,
Of the National Wholesale Druggists' Association.

John W. Kennedy,
Of the Proprietary Association of America.

A BILL

To Provide Against the Evils Resulting From the Traffic in Certain Narcotic Drugs, and to Regulate the Sale Thereof.

Be It Enacted by the General Assembly of the State of • .

Section I. That it shall be unlawful for any person, firm or corporation to sell, furnish or give away any cocaine, alpha or beta eucainc, opium, morphine, heroin, chloral hydrate or any salt or compound of any or the foregoing substances, or any preparation or compound containing any of the foregoing substances, or their salts or compounds, except upon the original written order or prescription of a lawfully authorized practitioner of medicine, dentistry or veterinary medicine, which order or prescription shall be dated and shall contain the name of the person for whom prescribed, or if ordered by a practitioner of veterinary medicine shall state the kind of animal for which ordered, and shall he signed by the person giving the prescription or order. Such written order of prescription shall be permanently retained en file by the person, firm or corporation who shall compound or dispense the articles ordered or prescribed, and it shall not be again compounded or dispensed, except upon the written order of the original prcscriber for each and every subsequent compounding or dispensing. No copy or duplicate of such written order or prescription shall be made or delivered to any person, but the original shall at all times be open to inspection by the prescribcr and properly authorized officers of the law.

Provided, however, that the above provisions shall not Apply to preparations containing not more than two grains of opium or not more than one-fourth grain of morphine, or not more than one fourth a grain of heroin, or not more than one-eighth grain of cocaine, or not more than one-eighth grain of alpha or beta eucaine, or not more than ten grains of chloral hydrate, in one fluid-ounce, or if a solid preparation, in one avoirdupois ounce. Provided also that the above provisions shall not apply to preparations containing opium and recommended and sold in good faith for diarrhea and cholera, each bottle or package of which is accompanied by specitic directions for use, and a caution against habitual use, nor to powder of ipecac and opium commonly known as Dover's Powder, nor to liniments or ointments when plainly labeled "for external use only.'' And provided further that the above provision shall not apply to sales at wholesale by jobbers, wholesalers and manufacturers to retail druggists or qualified physicians, or to each other, nor to sales at retail by retail druggists to regular practitioners of medicine, dentistry or veterinary medicine, nor to sales made to manufacturers of proprietary or pharmaceutical preparations for use in the manufacture of such preparations, nor to sales to hospitals, colleges, scientific or public institutions.

Sec. 2. It shall be unlawful for any practitioner of medicine. dentistry or veterinary medicine to furnish to or to prescribe for the use of any habitual user of the same any cocaine, heroin, alpha or beta eucaine, opium, morphine, chloral hydrate, or any salt or compound of any of the foregoing substances, or any preparation containing any of the foregoing substances or their salts or compounds. And it shall also be unlawful for any practitioner of dentistry to prescribe any of the foregoing substances for any person not under his treatment in the regular practice of his profession, or for any practitioner of veterinary medicine to prescribe any of the foregoing substances for the use of any human being.

Provided, however, that the provisions of this section shall not be construed to prevent any lawfully authorized practitioner of medicine from furnishing or prescribing in good faith for the use of any habitual user of narcotic drugs who is under his professional care such substances as he may deem necessary for their treatment,

when such prescriptions are not given or substances furnished for the purpose of evading the provisions of this act.

Sec. 3. Any person who shall violate any of the provisions of this act shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction for the first offense shall be fined not less than $25.00 nor more than $50.00, and upon conviction for a second offense shall be fined not less than $50.00 nor more than $100.00, and upon conviction for a subsequent offense shall be fined not less than $100.00 nor more than $200.00, and shall be imprisoned in the county jail for not more than six months and if a licensed pharmacist, physician, dentist or veterinary surgeon, his license shall be revoked. It shall be the duty under this act of ail judges of the courts of common pleas in this State, at every regular term thereof, to charge all regularly impaneled grand juries to diligently inquire into and investigate all cases of the violation of the provisions of this act and to make a true presentment of all persons guilty of such violations. It shall be the duty of the Board of Pharmacy to cause the prosecution of all persons violating the provisions of this act. No prosecution shall Ix.* brought for the sale of any patent or proprietary medicine containing any of the drugs or preparations hereinbefore mentioned until the Hoard of Pharmacy shall certify that such medicine contains any of the said drugs or preparations in excess of the maximum percentages hereinbefore mentioned.

Sec. 4. In any proceedings under the provisions of this act the charge may be brought against any or all of the members of a partnership, or against the directors or executive officers of a. corporation, or against the agent of any person, partnership or corporation.

Sec. 5. All laws and parts of laws in conflict with this act are hereby repealed.

Sec. 6. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after the day of 19

A BUI

To Regulate the Sale of Certain Proprietary Medicines.
He It Enacted, Etc.


Section 1. Any proprietary medicine which contains a percentage of alcohol greater than is reasonably necessary for the extraction and dissolving of the active constituents of the druies used in the preparation of said medicine or to prevent the precipitation of such active constituents, or to preserve the medicine from fermentation or freezing, shall be deemed to be an intoxicating liquor and shall be sold only under the provisions of the law regulating the sale of intoxicating liquors. Provided that this act shall not be construed to apply to preparations compounded according to any formula embraced in the United Slates Pharmacopeia or the National I'ormulary, when sold under a title recognized by the said t'nited States Pharmacopeia, or National Formulary.

Sec. 2. No prosecution shall be brought for the sale of any proprietary preparation in violation of the provisions of this act unless the Hoard of Pharmacy shall, after due investigation, certify that such proprietary preparation contains alcohol in a percentage greater than the limit fixed by Section 1.

1874-1906.

Thirty years ago cod liver oil had to be forced down the patient's throat. Invalids could not take it and the children would not. But the doctors prescribed it and it had to be taken. Yet it cured people, for it has ever been the greatest of all tissue-builders and general reconstructives. About 1874 came the change. Tt was then Scott's Emulsion first appeared. The days of dreading the dose ceased. Cod liver oil taking became easy. The palate was pleased, the stomach was satisfied, the patient prospered and the doctor was delighted. Druggists everywhere commenced to order the old remedy in its new dress. And from those early days began the enormous' demand of today for cod liver oil. Scott & Bowne are responsible to a great extent for the present extensive use of cod liver oil either plain or as an emulsion. They first made it palatable, fir^t made it popular, first extensively told of its therapeutic value, first brought out a pleasant, permanent emulsion of the oil with hypophosphites. Thirty years have passed and, notwithstanding the countless thousands of imitations, Scott's Emulsion is known to be the standard preparation and most staple and reliable emulsion on the market.

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Harvey Wiley's Abuse of the Public Trust

Ignored pharmacokineticspushed for law allowing him to do so while forever forbidding his office from looking at that agricultural commodity of tobacco.

Demonified substances in campaign for agricultural mercantilism - pro coffee, tea, tobacco monopolising of stimulant-tonic markets against coca leaf and other medicinal herbs -- through confuse the public yellow journalism eschewing science nor safety in favor of brain-deadening sloganeering:

In the sudden light which the Pure Food law throws into certain dark corners, that widely-bruited pick-me-up for lassitudinous ladies, Vin Mariani, takes on a changed aspect. From the enthusiastic encomiums, given out for advertising purposes by sundry actresses, one might suppose that the so-called French preparation was at once the most bracing and the most harmless of concoctions. Across its label, however, the pure food law has recorded the warning fact: "Each ounce represents one-tenth of one grain of cocain." This shuts it out of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, all cities and towns in Massachusetts, and many other places. As the average American woman can read and is not a fool. I fancy that even in those localities where cocain can be sold only in patent medicine form without a prescription (as has been the case until recently in the District of Columbia, thanks to Senator and ex-Doctor Gallinger's efforts on behalf of the nostrum people), the Vin Mariani trade will rapidly decline.

Next to cocain nostrums, the most dangerous class of patent medicines is that containing narcotics, such as opium, morphin and cannabis indica. Various are the evasions and contortions resorted to by these dopes in their efforts to make the best of the new law.

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Harvey Wiley's U.S.D.A. Condemnation of Coca

1910 U.S.D.A. Farmer's Journal article "Habit-Forming Agents: Their Indiscriminate Sale and Use A Menace to the Public Welfare"

During the last twenty years a large number of soft drinks containing caffein and smaller or greater quantities of coca leaf and kola nut products have been placed upon the market.

Preparations of this class, on account of insufficient information, were formally looked upon as harmless, but they are now known to be an impending evil.

Centuries before cocain was introduced as a remedial agent, wonderful accounts of the energy-creating properties of coca leaves were chronicled. The phenomenal endurance attributed to the Peruvians and others was often ascribed to the stimulating effects produced by the chewing of coca leaves, and this idea has been widely exploited. It is believed to some extent at present that the use of cocain taken internally produces a sense of exhilaration, and the amount of muscular and mental power appears to be temporarily increased. Impetus was given to this belief by the enthusiastic reports of this drug, published not only in medical literature but in the secular press as well.

Cocain is one of the most insidious and dangerous habit-forming drugs at present known. Many lives have been wrecked and many crimes have been committed as a result of its use, and strenuous efforts are being made to curtail its employment. The amount present in certain soft drinks is small, to be sure, but such an insidious, habit-forming drug certainly has no place whatsoever in these products. The presence of tropococain, an ally of cocain, has also been established.

Not only is it pernicious to add cocain to soft drinks in any quantity (usually in the form of coca leaf extract), but even the use of coca leaf extract so manipulated as to reduce the amount of cocain, or eliminate it altogether, must be looked upon as a questionable practice, because any product or name which would suggest the presence of cocain or its allies, by taste or otherwise, must have a baneful influence. It is known that the very small amounts of morphine or cocain, or even the suggestion of their presence, will tend to destroy the equilibrium of reformed addicts and bring back the former craving.

The virtues of coca leaves and kola nuts have been exploited together, and it is only natural that they should be combined in preparations which would represent the purported virtues of both. Such combinations were made with the result that quite a number of so-called soft drinks now on the market contain both of the habit-forming agents, cocaine and caffeine. It was not uncommon to find persons addicted to the use of medicated soft-drinks. It is well-known fact that many factory employees, stenographers, typewriters, and others subjected to mental or nervous strain spend a large part of their earnings for drinks of this character.

In passing, it may be of interest to note that life insurance companies are considering the status of soft-drink habitués as future risks.

Various arguments have been advanced in justification of the use of caffeine and the extract of coca leaves, treated or otherwise, in soft drinks. It is a well known that parents, as a rule, withhold tea and coffee from their children, but having no knowledge of the presence of cocain, caffeine or other deleterious agents in soft drinks, they unwittingly permit their children to be harmed by their use. Manufacturers of drinks of this class, containing cocain, have been successfully prosecuted, for example, Koca Nola, Celery Cola, Wiseola, Pillsbury's Koke, Kola-Ade, Kos-Kola, Cafe-Coca, and Koke.

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Harvey Wiley's AMA/APA Condemnation of Coca

1905 was the year of Tobacco’s deletion from the U.S. Pharmacopoeia, and hence its shielding by the impending 1906 US Food & Drug Act, from its definitions of regulatable substances, and of the A.M.A. founding its "Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry" consisting of 15 men. (in 1906-07). These included U.S.D.A. Bureau of Chemistry Chief, Harvey Washington Wiley; U.S.D.A. Drug Division Lyman.F. Kleber, A.M.A. General Secretary; and Journal of the American Medical Asosciation J.A.M.A. editor Gene Simmons.

It wasted little time in setting out to condemn the best known Coca product, Vin Mariani, with a report on a Vin Mariani dated March 10, 1905, and published in J.A.M.A. on November 24, 1906, at pages 1751-1753 Vin Mariani Official Report by Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry- With Comments...

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-dark-ages-ama-apha-crusade-against.html

This 1905 AMA-APhA report on Vin Marinai saying nothing about health matters, instead condemning Vin Mariani sold in North America as a fraudulant foreign product when such was in fact blended in Mariani's New York (W 15th Street, Manhattan) factory from the identical ingrediants used in France where it was initially formulated.

The following 1909 Journal of the American Medical Association article disregards public health issues, juxtapositioning its hypocritical stance against "cocaine" perfectly with its double standards regarding the very substance that the AMA was here placing its highest level of concern regarding "habit-forming agents" by condemning "cocaine" with zero regard to matters of concentration-potency-dose (a coca chewing gum would replicate coca chewing due to the requirment to chew- aka work for that dose), all for the sake of opposing its use in particular as a "Tobacco Habit Cure"; From The Journal of the American Medical Association, May 29,1909:

COCA-BOLA

[The following article by Mr. E.F. Ladd, Food Commissioner of North Dakota, appeared in the October. 11)00, bulletin of the North Dakota Experiment Station.]

We have recently had - occasion to examine a sample of Coca-Bola, a product labeled as having been produced by Charles L. Mitchell, M.D.. Philadelphia, and the face label bears the following statement:

Each ounce contains 0.71 grains 0f cocaln. A chewing paste of leaves of the coca plant, combined with other valuable tonics.

The directions for use say eoca-bola is made in the form of flat cakes or plugs divided into squares and should be used by chewing one of the small squares marked on the plug and swallowing the saliva. They further say it should be used at occasional intervals as needed throughout the day. To get its full effect it will be necessary to use several squares. They further say:

Although a powerful muscular or nervous tonic, coca-bola has no evil after-effects, and hence is far superior tu any other stimulant in the materia medica.

Now this information given out in tlie advertising which accompanies each package is. it would seem, intended to give the impression that this product is an entirely harmless one; in other words, that a preparation containing cocain as an active constituent, is to he generally recommended for use without any caution as to the harm that may come from forming a habit for cocain. They further say:

A small portion chewed occasionally acts as a powerful Ionic to the muscular and nervous system, enabling the chewer to perform additional labor, and also relieves fatigue and exhaustion without evil after-effects. It contains no injurious Ingredients and is perfectly harmless.

So we might quote fr.om the circular which is sent out by a man who claims to be a physician, urging, as it were, on the people the use of a product of this kind, which, as has clearly been shown, must in the end result in the formation of the cocain habit, if not in the complete demoralization and degradation of the individual himself.

The laws of North Dakota prohibit the sale of any compound or product in the state which contains cocain in any form. It further prohibits the refilling of a physician's prescription that contains cocain, and yet a product of this kind, it would seem from information that has been gathered, is sold directly to the consumer, although it is true the proprietor of the product maintains that it is now sold only to physicians. In a letter under date of Aug. 19, 1909, signed by Charles L. Mitchell, M.D., he says:

What little we sell now conforms strictly with the requirements of the United States Pure Food and Drug Law, and is sold only on special order of physicians and their prescriptions.

Under date of September 7. I called the attention of the proprietor to the fact that the laws of this state would not permit of the sale of such a preparation in North Dakota. In reply, I received a letter which is self explanatory, as follows:

September 13, 1909. E. F. Ladd, South Dakota Agricultural College, Agricultural College, S.D.

Dear Sir:

Your favor of September 7th duly received for which please accept my thanks.

Owing to the "crank" legislation of many states we have discontinued the manufacture of all coca and cocain preparations.

Any "fool" druggist of your state who gets or fells an old package of our coca-bola does it at his own risk, as necessarily, having been put out some time ago, there is no guarantee, and we will not protect him.

The people are getting a little sense into their beads, however, gradually, and they will sometime realize that preparations of both coca and cocain have an honest and legitimate use by the medical profession.

Your state law is silly, and on a par with the 9-foot bed sheet laws of Texas and Oklahoma Of course, your duty is to enforce the law, not to criticise it. I can do that. I am.

Yours very truly. Diet, by C. L. M. Charles L. Mitchell, M.D.

A letter of this kind needs no comment, and a product of this kind, in the judgment of the writer, can only be sent out for malicious purposes and its sale is illegal in North Dakota. We warn the public against* either handling the same or using the same, if they would avoid the formation of a serious drug habit and one that must result in positive injury to our people.

This product, put up in the form of a gum, would easily take the place—for one who had formed the habit for cocain— of tobacco; and it might be made to take the place of chewing gum with young people who would be entirely innocent of the intentional use of any such preparation, not knowing the evil effects that would come from its continued use.

In the judgment of the writer, no man who will allow his name to be connected with a scheme of this kind should bo permitted to digrace the profession of medicine by using the title M.D. (from The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) January 9, 1910.

That's a most ironic statement, given that Coca or even isolated cocaine (in properly buffered dilute form) would be an infinitely safer healthier substitute for Tobacco consumption.

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What Obama Could Say About Criminal Mercantilism

Obama’s Reckoning
What he could say
About the ‘drug war ‘ as criminal mercantilism

I smoked marijuana many times and did blow on occasion. I also smoked cigarettes. I quit marijuana and cocaine. But I can’t quit cigarettes.

Marijuana takes about 0 lives, the concentrated forms of cocaine and other widely available contraband drugs take 5,000-8,000 annually, and cigarettes 6 million annually worldwide.

And they pass this off as moral? Or sane?!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I asked for your votes by promising to review and discontinue government programs that are unworthy.

Such is what our selective drug laws are: a means to protect markets in certain favored agricultural commodities from the competition.

It’s a favoritism cast in stone- literally at the top of the columns of the very U.S. Capitol building where these laws were passed through of cornstalks and tobacco leaves.

Cigarettes were the beneficiary of last century’s criminal mercantilism laws – against opium coca and their derivatives, and later marijuana; their sales took off after the 1906 Pure Foods and Drugs Act and the 1914 Harrison ‘Narcotics’ Act.

It was coca’s sale and use as a tobacco habit cure that especially incensed the USDA cir 1910.

It was criminal mercantilism to protect cigarettes, pacing our populace at risk to the deadliest most dangerous substance in its near natural form, while making the competition into something more dangerous via prohibition’s iron law of promoting more concentrated forms of drugs.

This market shift has cost us uncounted billions, and we have barely scratched the surface in prosecuting those entities culpable.

It is what it is: a scam of epidemic proportions: a criminal conspiracy to fix drug markets.

Hence I am announcing that the U.S. Department of Justice under Attorney General Eric Holder shall be instituting a lawsuit against the perpetrators of this criminal mercantilism, that will be a sharp break from the past with my predecessor’s administration’s intervention via Skull & Bones Yale gang member Associate Attorney General Robert D. McCallum, in the U.S. DOJ suit against the cigarette industry reducing the sought damages compensation from $130 billion to $10 billion: a scandal of favoritism that .led to the resignation of the prosecution team leader Sharon Eubanks, who denounced what Bush Administration officials were doing. I am offering Ms. Eubanks her job back with extra pay and an expanded role over this new law suit. It shall involve:

(a) criminal racketeering for cigarette market protection. Conspiracy to enact selective prohibition laws to protect the trade in cigarettes that would be considered adulterated, misbranded schedule 1 ‘controlled substances’, starting with early 1900s efforts to consolidate markets

(b) criminal subversion of civil rights, to wit kidnappings and extortions Conspiracy to enact criminal retribution laws for prohibition violators to deprive people of their liberty and property

(c) a special aggravated class of violation combining criminal racketeering for substance market protection combined with systematic judicial conspiracy to subvert various constitutional rights protections, notably the 1^st and 4^th amendment.

Action would be for the so called drug war, namely its prohibitions of coca, opium and cannabis (marijuana).

Action would be for loses to liberty or property as a result of the enforcement of these unconstitutional laws, as well as to health from the abuse of the protected/promoted substances.

Action would go against those entities conspiring and undertaking this criminal enterprise.

Lead defendant would be that enumerated here, and here.

Hopefully Changed

Barack Obama

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Bolivia - Coca as Obama's Barometer

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-contradictions-facing_b_160180.html

The Contradictions Facing a Black President of the American Empire

Johann Hari

Columnist, London Independent

Posted January 23, 2009 | 03:11 PM (EST)

The tears are finally drying - the tears of the Bush years, and the tears of awe at the sight of a black President of the United States. So what now? The cliché of the day is that Barack Obama will inevitably disappoint the hopes of a watching world, but the truth is more subtle than that. If we want to see how Obama will change the world - for good or bad - we need to trace the deep structural factors that underlie US foreign policy, and tease out what he will do about them. A useful case study of these pressures is about to flicker onto our news pages for a moment - from the top of the world.

Bolivia is the poorest country in Latin America, and its lofty slums 4000 meters above sea level seem a world away from the high theatre of the inauguration. But if we look at this country closely, we can explain one of the great paradoxes of the United States - that it has incubated a triumphant civil rights movement at home, yet thwarted civil rights movements abroad. Bolivia shows us in stark detail the contradictions facing a black President of the American empire.

The President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, has a story strikingly similar to Obama's. In 2006 he became the first indigenous President of his country - and a symbol of the potential of democracy. When the Spanish arrived in Bolivia in the sixteenth century, they enslaved the indigenous majority and worked millions to death. As recently as the 1950s, an indigenous person wasn't even allowed to walk through the centre of La Paz, where the presidential palace and city cathedral stand. They were (and are) routinely compared to monkeys and apes.

Morales was born to a poor potato-farmer in the mountains, and grew up scavenging for discarded orange peel or banana skins to eat. Of his seven siblings, four starved to death as babies. Throughout his adult life, it was taken for granted that the country would be ruled by the white mestizo minority; the "Indians" were too "child-like" to manage a country.

Given that the US is constitutionally a democracy and its Presidents say they are committed to spreading democracy across the world, you would expect them to welcome the democratic rise of Morales. But wait. Bolivia has massive reserves of natural gas - a geo-strategic asset, and one that rakes in billions for US corporations. Here is where the complications set in.

Before Morales, the white mestizo elite was happy to allow US companies to simply take the gas and leave the Bolivian people with short change: just 18 percent of the royalties. Indeed, they handed almost the entire country to US interests, while skimming a small percentage for themselves. In 1999, an American company, Bechtel, was handed the water supply - and water rates for the poor majority doubled.

Morales ran for election against this agenda. He said that Bolivia's resources should be used for the benefit of millions of bitterly poor Bolivians, not a tiny number of super-rich Americans. He kept his promise. Now Bolivia keeps 82 percent of the vast gas royalties - and he has used the money to increase health spending by 300 percent, and to build the country's first pension system. He is one of the most popular leaders in the democratic world. In slums across South America, I have seen this pink tide rising through the barrios and favelas, where millions of people are seeing doctors and schools for the first time in their lives.

I suspect that a majority of the American people - who are good and decent - would be pleased and support this process if they were told about it honestly. But how did the US government (and much of the media) react? George Bush fulminated that "democracy is being eroded in Bolivia", and a recent US ambassador to the country compared Morales to Osama Bin Laden. Why? To them, you are a democrat if you give your resources to US corporations, and you are a dictator if you give them to your own people. The will of the Bolivian people is irrelevant.

There is another layer of disagreement between Morales and US power. Bolivians have a widespread millennia-long tradition chewing coca leaves, or brewing them in tea: it's a good way of keeping your energy up when you are doing grinding work at such a high altitude. But in the 1980s, the Reagan administration announced that this was contrary to the demands of the "war on drugs". They trained and paid for elite white military units to forcibly "eliminate coca." They rampaged across the Bolivian countryside destroying the crops of desperately poor people. Evo Morales - a coca farmer himself - saw them burn a peasant farmer alive, an experience he says "changed me forever." He wants to legalize coca for private use - and he is supported by 80 percent of Bolivians.

For these reasons, the US has been moving to trash Morales. Latin America still lives in the shadow of its own 9/11: on September 11th 1973, Henry Kissinger and the CIA backed the coup that led to the violent death of the freely elected President of Chile, Salvador Allende, to stop his programme of democratic socialism from proceeding

Over the past few years, the techniques have become a little less crude. By an odd quirk of fate, almost all of Bolivia's gas supplies are in the east of the country - where the richest, whitest part of the population lives. So the US government has been funding and fueling the hard-right separatist movements that want these regions to break away. Then the mestizos would happily hand the gas to US companies like in the good ol' days - and Morales would be left without resources. The interference became so severe that last September Morales had to expel the US Ambassador for "conspiring against democracy." This weekend, Morales is holding a major referendum on a new constitution for the country which will entrench the rights of the indigenous people.

Enter Obama - and his paradoxes. He is obviously a person of good will and good sense, but he is operating in a system subject to many undemocratic pressures. Bolivia illustrates the tension. The rise of Morales reminds us of the America the world loves - its yes-we-can openness and civil rights movements. Yet the presence of gas and coca reminds us of the America the world hates - the desire to establish "full spectrum dominance" over the world's resources and send troops barging into their countries, whatever the pesky natives think.

Which America will Obama embody? The answer is both - at first. Morales has welcomed him as "a brother", and Obama has made it clear he wants a dialogue, rather than the abuse of the Bush years. Yet who is Obama's Bolivia advisor? A lawyer called Greg Craig, who represents Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada - the hard-right former President of Bolivia who imposed some of the most extreme privatizations of the 1980s, and is now wanted on charges of genocide in Bolivia for the massacres of indigenous protesters. Craig's legal team says Morales is (yes) leading "an offensive against democracy."

The structural pressures within the US political system that drove hostility to a democratic civil rights leader like Morales up to now have not dissolved in the cold Washington air. The US is still dependent on foreign fossil fuels to keep its lights on, the drug war bureaucracy will continue its senseless crusade, and US corporations still buy Senators from both parties. Obama will still be swayed by those factors.

But while this is a reason to be frustrated, it isn't a reason to be cynical. Why? Because while he will be swayed by those factors, he will also subtly erode them over time. Obama has made energy independence - a massive transition away from foreign oil and gas, and towards the wind, sun and waves - the centre of his governing programme. If the US is no longer addicted to Bolivian gas, then its governments will be much less inclined to topple anybody else who wants to control it. (If they're off oil, they'll be much less invested in the Saudi tyranny and petro-wars in the Middle East too.)

Obama also says he wants to peel back the distorting effect of corporate money on the US political system. He is already less slathered in corporate cash than any President since the 1920s. The further he pushes it back, the more breathing-space democratic movements like Morales' get to control their own resources. He also seems to be a less fanatical drug warrior than his predecessors, offering praise in the past for those who believe the US should concentrate on treating addicts at home rather than trying to burn and fumigate their supply from every forest or mountain on earth.

But we will see. If you want to know if Obama is really altering the tectonic forces that drive American power, keep an eye on the rooftop of the world.

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