We’ve all heard the story of the original Coca-Cola recipe containing small quantities of cocaine, but as it turns out on behalf of Coca-Cola a discreet factory in New Jersey imports coca leaves and produces billions of dollars worth of pure cocaine every year. As far as pharmaceutical hustles go, cooking up the Devil’s Wizz Fizz remains a pretty lucrative one.
This secretive drug manufacturing facility owned by the Stepan Company imports coca leaves into the United States thanks to an exclusive agreement with the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), which sees it being the sole importer of the otherwise illegal plant product. While the recipe for Coca-Cola was changed in 1903 to remove cocaine from its ingredients list, the soft drink still requires a coca leaf compound to create its unique flavour in a process that sees pure cocaine produced as a by-product.
What to do with this highly illegal and valuable substance? You sell it to dentists, of course. In the manufacturing of Coca-Cola around two million grams of cocaine are produced every year, which the Stepan Company then sells to the largest opioid manufacturer in the US, a company called Mallinckrodt.
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In another exclusive arrangement with the US government, since 1988 Mallinckrodt has been the only company allowed to buy this cocaine, which is then used to make prescription drugs such as numbing agents and topical anesthetics for dentists. Earlier this year the Stepan Company renewed its license with the DEA to be the exclusive manufacturer of cocaine in America, in a deal that obviously benefits the soft drink manufacturer hugely.
As an interesting sidebar that could suggest just how important such a process is to some businesses, the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs from 1961 contains a fascinatingly specific mention in Article 27 relating to “provisions relating to coca leaves”. Despite it being a wide-ranging document that outlines the general controls of substances such as opium, cannabis and beyond, the convention includes a very deliberate mention that, “Parties may permit the use of coca leaves for the preparation of a flavouring agent”.
More than worth mentioning the next time you enjoy a can of black doctor with your mates.
