Coca-Cola hasn't contained serious levels of cocaine since 1903, although it did use some coca leaf extracts up to New Coke, but that is not the same as cocaine

Coca-Cola hasn't contained serious levels of cocaine since 1903, although it did use some coca leaf extracts up to New Coke, but that is not the same as cocaine just as poppy seeds are not the same as heroin. It's not clear that they were "forced" to remove that. The New Coke story is quite interesting, but I don't buy in to most "explanations" of it. I think it's far more likely it's a case of "competitor X is more popular! We need to do something! Let's copy competitor X!" This is a classic business mistake, because customers are choosing you instead of X because it's not X, and if you merely copy X you lose your value.