The Truth About Coca-Cola & Cocaine | Dr. Chris McCurdy & Dr. Andrew Huberman

00:00:00.000 | so there's a myth that coca-cola at one point had cocaine in it not just the coca leaf but

00:00:08.920 | actual cocaine but then you hear various versions of this myth slash legend what's the deal with

00:00:16.760 | coca-cola the coca leaf and cocaine yeah so it's a it's a great old story i had john pemberton was

00:00:23.060 | a pharmacist in atlanta home of coca-cola these days and developed a formula that contained the

00:00:32.400 | coca leaf extract from the coca leaf and extract from the cola nut so coca-cola and put this together

00:00:43.220 | sold it as a tonic it's an interesting just a quick segue on soft drinks in general so soft drinks came

00:00:50.000 | about because they weren't hard drinks so it was an alternative to liquor so they weren't hard

00:00:55.700 | alcohol they were soft drinks or soft beverages they also generally had effervescence to them or

00:01:03.120 | carbonation and most of those were available at a pharmacist soda fountain so 7up had lithium in it

00:01:10.720 | in the past and it was um you know for mind wellness um pepsi had pepsinogen which is a digestive peptide

00:01:19.540 | in it um most of the soft drinks dr pepper was developed by dr pepper in waco texas and was a

00:01:26.540 | special formula that he had come up with for well-being as well so all these soft drinks have a

00:01:31.740 | really cool history but john pemberton's story of coca-cola was it actually goes way back further than

00:01:40.460 | coca-cola in terms of putting uh coca leaf into beverages um but we'll we'll just stick with coca-cola

00:01:47.520 | so coca-cola um definitely had cocaine in it in in its original setting um and then as time went on

00:01:57.400 | and we realized that cocaine was problematic and addictive um there was pressure for him to take

00:02:03.360 | that out of of the process and so and what they realized was the coca leaf in in many people that

00:02:11.480 | chew coca leaf talk about the different varieties that are available within south uh america and

00:02:18.520 | different flavor profiles that are there well the the specific um one that they use for coca-cola has a

00:02:25.640 | a definitive flavor profile to it and when they took that out it lost the flavor that people were used

00:02:36.060 | to um and so they they decided to keep this in there and coca-cola is still the major importer of coca

00:02:44.800 | leaves into the united states to this day they do it through a company called the stepan company in new jersey

00:02:50.280 | the leaf comes from peru uh comes from a state-run company in peru that oversees the production of the coca leaf

00:03:00.120 | comes into uh this company in new jersey they then process the leaf into um two parts so they take all of the

00:03:09.840 | cocaine and all of the cocaine metabolites essentially the alkaloids right we talked about these alkaloids

00:03:15.660 | they take the alkaloids out and that gets sent to a pharmaceutical company and those are processed

00:03:21.660 | into cocaine which is used as a pharmaceutical still to this day

00:03:26.080 | uh a lot of people probably don't know this but cocaine is the best local anesthetic that's ever

00:03:32.080 | been discovered uh it was the template for all the local anesthetics that we use now like lidocaine

00:03:37.920 | or bapivacaine um it was the template and it is still the best one that we have and it's used almost

00:03:46.240 | exclusively for nasal and eye surgeries now where you have to stay awake and you have to be functioning and we

00:03:52.480 | we can't intubate you and we can't do these things so this is the ideal uh drug um it's also obviously

00:03:59.920 | put into lots of drug testing kits and supplies and whatnot for for the forensics industries

00:04:06.720 | but what's the fate of what's left right well that coca leaf extract the dealkalinated extract

00:04:15.360 | decoconized extract if you will um is the secret sauce if you will for coca-cola still so that is a

00:04:25.680 | grass substance a gras generally recognized as safe food substance and that is the flavoring agent that

00:04:34.800 | gives coca-cola its unique flavor and there was a period of time i believe is in the 80s where coca-cola

00:04:42.880 | really wanted to distance itself from the cocaine industry cocaine became hugely the drug of choice

00:04:50.400 | sort of drug of abuse len bias one nba basketball player died from overdose it just became a very

00:04:58.640 | nationally uh aware drug of abuse and there was a problem associated with cocaine and so coca-cola

00:05:05.440 | said we're gonna cut our ties with the coca plant completely they came out with this product called new

00:05:11.120 | coke and it didn't last long because the flavor profile couldn't be replicated to the old coke and

00:05:18.960 | so indeed they re uh re-upped their their sort of contract uh and have been bringing it in ever since

00:05:28.000 | and to this day coca-cola classic and coke zero are the two products interestingly enough um you know diet

00:05:37.360 | coke does not taste very much like coca-cola original and a lot of people complained about that for a long

00:05:42.560 | time um they got smart and made this product called coke zero that has the flavoring agent from the coca

00:05:50.160 | plant in it and lo and behold everyone started saying gosh this tastes a lot more like coca-cola does well

00:05:58.000 | yeah it's got the flavoring ingredient in it and so everybody in the united states almost has had a

00:06:04.640 | coke at one point at a time so you've all had coca leaf already in your dietary chain and i think it'll

00:06:12.560 | be interesting to see where things develop as we start to do more research as the world health organization

00:06:19.840 | and reconsiders um removing uh coca leaf from an international ban and and looking at it as a potential product

00:06:29.120 | to work into food products and develop um further and so you know it supposedly has no abuse potential as the leaf

00:06:38.800 | but again it's that story of isolating that one alkaloid out and sort of destroying the rest of it

00:06:46.400 | forever however coca-cola was smart enough to keep sort of a monopoly if you will on on keeping that plant

00:06:54.240 | alive uh in their product and so it's it's there and um the next time you have a coca-cola or coke zero

00:07:03.520 | just realized that it's got natural product in it that's incredible and i'll keep that in mind the next

00:07:10.800 | time i have a coke zero is there any evidence that what's still retained from the coca plant in coca-cola

00:07:19.440 | is psychoactive and not just there for flavor that's a great question and that's been debated quite a bit

00:07:26.320 | so the one thing that we know um is that probably it is not having any psychoactivity

00:07:32.160 | um and the the other thing that we know um back to my pharmacy days we used to sell coke syrup so

00:07:39.920 | when coke is sold uh for fountain beverages um it's it's the syrup that's then blended with the carbonated

00:07:49.040 | water uh to make coca-cola and that's why a lot of people say coca-cola out of a fountain is so much

00:07:55.360 | better than out of a can or a bottle because it is it is a sort of formulated on the spot product if you

00:08:01.840 | will uh yeah on tap and um coke syrup we used to sell out of the pharmacy for uh nausea and vomiting

00:08:12.720 | particularly in pregnant women is one of the safest things you could use and it really calms and settles

00:08:19.120 | the gi tract and this is interesting because one of the big um benefits that people report drinking coca

00:08:29.280 | tea is that it soothes their gi tract and it calms their gi tract and it helps um them be able to be

00:08:37.600 | alert of course the coca tea's got all the alkaloids in it but that same gi tract benefit is still still there

00:08:46.160 | and that's probably what's still remaining within that extract that's now devoid of of the alkaloids

00:08:54.720 | and you are not paid for by coca-cola no in fact we went to coca-cola to see if we could work um with

00:09:03.280 | them on developing uh some type of medications or or something from the coca leaf and i have a former

00:09:12.400 | colleague that is in their natural products division at coca-cola and they said they won't even let us

00:09:19.040 | touch the the coca extract and they've also got all that cocaine that they've pulled out of the coca

00:09:24.800 | leaf in this plant in new jersey i can only imagine what the security is on this place i don't i don't

00:09:30.880 | know but if you you know you can you can fact check me on wikipedia or or which is not a great place to

00:09:37.200 | fact check but uh you got my agreement there but this the stepan company is listed there in new jersey and

00:09:44.240 | their connection to coca-cola and this whole this whole story is actually out there in front of

00:09:49.520 | everybody to see um it just takes knowing where to look and find it love it last question about soda

00:09:58.800 | is there still lithium and 7up no lithium has gone from 7up but that was the whole idea right up mood

00:10:07.440 | lift your mood up and lithium and we know lithium carbonate is still used to this day as a treatment

00:10:14.880 | for uh psychosis so

The Truth About Coca-Cola & Cocaine | Dr. Chris McCurdy & Dr. Andrew Huberman

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