# Coca-Cola
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coca-cola/146536
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 4, 2003, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coca-cola/146536 "2003-01-04T01:49:57Z")
**Posts on this page:** 17
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@SuziQ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuziQ)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2003, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coca-cola/146536/1 "2003-01-04T01:49:57Z")
Any truth to these two urban legends??
Back in the early 60’s Coca-Cola would remove rust from your bicycle, today it will only make it sticky. They’ve definitely changed the formula. I heard back then you could get stoned by mixing Coca-Cola with asprins. Coca-Cola was much better back then.
They use to put cocaine in certain brands of wine too. There was even a Pope at the time who drank cases of it. He obviously became addicted to cocaine, and probably didn’t even realize it.
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### Author:  [@Orange\_Skinner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orange_Skinner)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2003, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coca-cola/146536/2 "2003-01-04T01:58:46Z")
Hmm, I’ve heard a combination of the two…that they used to put cocaine in coca-cola…?
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### Author:  [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2003, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coca-cola/146536/3 "2003-01-04T02:00:52Z")
uh, you could check out [www.snopes.com](http://www.snopes.com) and look up their coke section
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### Author:  [@Dynomutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dynomutt)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2003, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coca-cola/146536/4 "2003-01-04T02:14:35Z")
snopes only mentions that it used to contain cocaine, it doesn’t mention if the coca cola formula has changed from the 1960’s or about the pope and the wine.
And no it’s not true that in 2003 you can get high from taking an aspirin and drinking coca cola, now maybe in the 60’s…
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### Author:  [@Fatman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fatman)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2003, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coca-cola/146536/5 "2003-01-04T02:48:11Z")
Coca Cola changed the receipe and supposedly changed it back. In truth the current Coca Cola has more corn syrup and less real sugar. (Corn syrup is a sweetener.) It still has the same amount
of acid. To remove rust using Coca Cola, you have to soak the
metal for a long time.
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### Author:  [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2003, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coca-cola/146536/6 "2003-01-04T03:38:36Z")
The pope actually appeared in an ad for the cocain-laced wine. I have a book which has a picture of the ad, in which His Excellency strongly recommends it, for medicinal purposes, of course.
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### Author:  [@Caesar\_s\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caesar_s_Ghost)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2003, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coca-cola/146536/7 "2003-01-04T03:52:39Z")
_An Underground Education_, which may be the book **Lissa** is referring to, has a picture of the Pope in an ad for cocaine-laced wine, among other ads for cocaine and drugs for medicinal purposes.
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### Author:  [@Rookie1979](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rookie1979)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2003, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coca-cola/146536/8 "2003-01-04T04:17:20Z")
I’ve Heard that cocaine is still a by-product of the coca cola manufacturing process. Don’t know if it’s entirely true, but it raises the question, How much profit actually comes from the coke?(I mean the cola!).
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### Author:  [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2003, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coca-cola/146536/9 "2003-01-04T07:56:21Z")
Check out the book _Big Secrets_ by William Poundstone (he of the Poundstonian heresy). The coca-laced wine was called “Vin Mariani” and was purportedly enjoyed by President Grant, the Tsar of Russia, Thomas Edison, and Pope Leo XIII. Coca-Cola still contains a small amount of coca leaf as an ingredient, but the cocaine is removed before it is added. The byproduct (cocaine) is legally used as a local anesthetic (with a prescription).
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### Author:  [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2003, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coca-cola/146536/10 "2003-01-04T08:03:11Z")
Here’s an ad for Vin Mariani featuring Leo XIII: [http://www.cocaine.org.uk/popecoke.htm](http://www.cocaine.org.uk/popecoke.htm) I have no idea if he authorized the use of his image in this way.
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### Author:  [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2003, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coca-cola/146536/11 "2003-01-04T08:34:37Z")
[_Two_ Popes](http://www.loompanics.com/Articles/WhoPut.htm) apparently liked Angelo Mariani’s product:
> [@](#):
>
> Two Popes (Pius X and Leo XIII) went on public record as long-time devotees of Vin Mariani. Leo in fact was so enamored of coca that he had a gold medal struck bearing his “venerable image” and sent it to Mariani as a sign of his approval. His Holiness included a personal note saying that he “had been supported in his ascetic retirement by a flask of wine which was never empty.”
Mariani claimed his Vin Mariani extended people’s lifespans. Sounds like stuff just out of the league of snakeoil, to me.
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### Author:  [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2003, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coca-cola/146536/12 "2003-01-04T20:30:08Z")
I can attest even in the 60s coke NEVER made you high if you took it with an aspirin.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2003, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coca-cola/146536/13 "2003-01-04T21:53:36Z")
Check out the aforementioned **Big Secrets** by Pounstone, and also **For God, Country, and Coca-Cola** by Cunningham, a excellent history of the beverage (which essentially confirms the recipe in Poundstone, by the way). There’s also an nteresting history of Coca Cola at the Loompanics site (or at least there was.)
From the above, we learn that:
1. Coke, even when it contained “a lot” of cocaine, didn’t really have enough to get you noticeably high. You’d get sick from all the sugar in it first if you drank enough for a buzz.
2. Aside from changing the cane sugar to fructose from corn syrup, there’s o difference between 1960s Coke and current Coke.
3. Coke + Aspirin never gt ou high, either. Another urban myth.
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### Author:  [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2003, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coca-cola/146536/14 "2003-01-04T23:41:44Z")
Yes, \*\* Ceasars Ghost, [b/] that was the book I was referring to, but its title had escaped me. What a fun book that is!
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### Author:  [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2003, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coca-cola/146536/15 "2003-01-05T02:29:37Z")
One thing you must understand about Coca-Cola is that it was originally marketed as a patent medicine, only different from laudanum (cocaine-alcohol concoction) in formulation. It contained cocaine (Coca-) and kola nut extract (Cola) for their medicinal value, not for prurient purposes. Sugar was added to make it more palatable (A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, after all.) and, soon enough, people started drinking it for the flavor, getting the corporation to market it as a soft drink. The cocaine content, always slight, was further reduced in the 1920s when cocaine was officially declared a controlled substance.
Dr Pepper began in much the same way, same with a lot of the sodas invented in the late 19th - early 20th centuries.
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### Author:  [@JaxBeachBoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JaxBeachBoy)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2003, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coca-cola/146536/16 "2003-01-05T02:40:42Z")
FWIW, cocain is not very active orally, as it breaks down too fast to be absorbed. You must ingest ALOT of it to use it this way. Snorting, injecting, or smoking all get it into the blood fast enough to be effective.
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### Author:  [@john\_hill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/john_hill)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2003, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coca-cola/146536/17 "2003-01-06T02:17:13Z")
If you are searching for Coke the way it was (after the cocaine was removed but before the corn syrup became the main sweetener), seek ye the passover coke. It is made with only cane sugar and tastes great.
In the spring, I (a large, very gentile looking man) haunt the kosher grocery stores in search of cases of the stuff.
John