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While framed as a "black and mixed-race working class vs white middle class" conflict, the remainder of the article suggests that burgeoning recreational use of

While framed as a "black and mixed-race working class vs white middle class" conflict, the remainder of the article suggests that burgeoning recreational use of the pure drug informed removal of that drug from a drink where it was included in sub-therapeutic doses (9mg/drink vs 50-75mg in a recreational "dose" [0]). It's unclear to me, as written, how race was causal and why it's included as in the article. There are plenty of real problems, past and present, which we can point to as indicative of racial prejudice. The insistence on its insertion into other areas, lacking supporting evidence, is, imho, overtly harmful to discourse. I have not read the book linked as the source of this article, so I'm happy to be shown to be wrong. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola#Coca_leaf https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola#Coca_leaf

Aloisius 2y ago
That 9 mg number appears to be off by an order of magnitude. The original recipe coca-cola recipe contained 3/200th of a grain of cocaine per serving, which would be 0.972 mg. It was then lowered to 1/400th of a grain (0.2 mg) before being eliminated.
seoulmetro 2y ago
It's an American trend to write history as if everything was invented just to spite one race or one group of people.
- Fauntleroy 2y ago
  Tit-for-tat, it's also an American trend to write history as if racism didn't exist at all.
  - gamepsys 2y ago
    People who write histories often frame the past in order to impact how people think about the present.
    - seoulmetro 2y ago
      Except people are rewriting history for fun in America's case.
      - seattle_spring 2y ago
        What are some specific examples of what you're referring to?
        seoulmetro 2y ago
        Slavery seems to be very "American" even though it's not. A lot of ideas and movements during BLM supported the narrative that certain figures were crazy racists. OP mentions about how illicit drugs were all just tools used to control minorities and are still used that way.. There are more serious ones, but most are just used as talking points about how the modern people are smarter and that people in the past were somehow bad people when trialled against their new modern ideals.
        bawolff 2y ago
        I don't think anyone would suggest that slavery was an exclusively american concept, but there are ways that slavery impacted america and is still impacting america that i don't think is true of other first world countries (e.g. how financially dependent early america was on it, how late in history relative to other countries it was abolished, how it was one of the causes of the civil war, which in turn significantly shaped america, etc)
        j16sdiz 2y ago
        > There are more serious ones, but most are just used as talking points about how the modern people are smarter and that people in the past were somehow bad people when trialled against their new modern ideals. 100% on this. Sometimes I feel we are like salt water fish talking about how ridiculous and miserable the fresh water fish in the upstream are.
        Spooky23 2y ago
  - jrflowers 2y ago
    There’s a recent and ongoing concerted effort to push that narrative in the US that can be observed directly in book bans and school board fights about curriculums. Florida is an interesting contemporary example of a new history being mandated and previously mundane and uncontested accounts being declared ahistorical. https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/floridas-new-african-american-history-standards-whats-behind-the-backlash/2023/07 https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/floridas-new-africa...
iambateman 2y ago
I’m not an expert on the origins of Coke, but I do find it very plausible that white people in 1890’s Atlanta heard that “black people are doing it” and that was enough. Plus the article mentions specific writing from the time which supports their view (quote from AJC). It’s hard to overstate the level of anger white people had toward black people in post-reconstruction Georgia and how fundamental it was to their actions.
- argiopetech 2y ago
  I don't have the time to do the research justice at this moment; however, let me lay out a rough argument. Let us say, for the sake of argument, that poverty and drug abuse are strongly correlated. Poverty does not cause drug abuse, but people in poverty are more likely to abuse drugs, and people who abuse drugs are more likely to be in poverty due to their drug abuse. The article seems to agree with this point, as it points to working class people as the focal point of abuse of cocaine. In 1900, the white population was approximately 60 million and the black population was approximately 9 million. Casual research suggests that 50% of children were in poverty, which I will extend to suggest that 50% to families were in poverty. Let us; however, assume that only 30% of whites and 100% of blacks were in poverty. In this case, black working-class people were still a minority of working-class people, at a ratio of 2:1. Under this assumption, is it reasonable to assume that cocaine abuse in non-white communities was the sole catalyst for this change?
  - iambateman 2y ago
    I’m not saying it’s the sole catalyst. no one is putting cocaine in a drink today, so it’s certainly possible that people were starting to figure out that it’s a bad idea. But what I am saying is that white fear of “anything perceived to be black” was absolutely a driver of behavior at this time/place. I believe the popular cultural understanding of how bad race relations were at this time is understated.
  - meroes 2y ago
    My drug use has stopped when Im at my poorest simply because I can’t afford it. Without some sources I’m not even willing to get past your first premise.
jrflowers 2y ago
>The insistence on its insertion into other areas, lacking supporting evidence, is, imho, overtly harmful to discourse. There is a lack of supporting evidence that race has historically been a deciding factor in US drug policy in the same way that there is a lack of supporting evidence for the historical existence of the Romans. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5614457/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5614457/ https://www.case.org/system/files/media/file/Penn%20Stater%20Harry%20Anslinger.pdf https://www.case.org/system/files/media/file/Penn%20Stater%2... https://eji.org/news/nixon-war-on-drugs-designed-to-criminalize-black-people/ https://eji.org/news/nixon-war-on-drugs-designed-to-criminal...
- toast0 2y ago
  > there is a lack of supporting evidence for the historical existence of the Romans. Pshaw, if they existed, how come the Internet Archive doesn't have any of their government webpages archived?
  - jrflowers 2y ago
    The Internet Archive must be ran by some dang Goths!!
- argiopetech 2y ago
  I counter with this article [0], which I believe to be more historically relevant due to its closeness in time to the discussion in question. Race is not mentioned as a factor here, and cocaine is described as "the American habit". Having noted my inability to thoroughly research this topic at this time in reply to a sibling post, I'll point to that post for my back of the envelope calculation regarding the number of working class whites versus blacks and suggest that, as poverty and drug abuse seem, to me, linked, that it is just as plausible that widespread abuse of the drug was the catalyst for change in this case. [0] https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1914-02-15/ed-1/seq-29/ https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1914-02-1...
  - jrflowers 2y ago
swatcoder 2y ago
People write about history through the lens of their specialty and personal interests, which is what the author of the underlying article was doing when they published in their academic journal, Southern Culture. The author has a lot of insight and foreknowledge into their field of expertise and can situate this story within that context better than others can, and more deeply (probably) than they could do in some other context. It's pretty normal, and helps develop a lot of different perspectives on history so that the bigger picture can be understood in a lot of different ways. It's fair to call it out, but it's not going anywhere and it's not really a problem in the writing. Taking this history and reconciling it with other accounts is a reader literacy thing. You should take a similar eye to pretty much all history you run across.
- dissent 2y ago
  This is all well and good, except we all know the current zeitgeist is to go to any length necessary to frame absolutely everything in terms of race. As a reader, it's hard to distinguish between that and genuine academic interest. I now tend to close the tab the moment race is mentioned. I'm glad I don't live in the USA, it must be awful.
  - Spooky23 2y ago
    One of the core concepts used to push anti-marijuana campaigns was that marijuana would enable black men to seduce innocent young white woman, and create a mixed race. That message was being pushed at a time where the US Senate, controlled by Jim Crow southerners, killed legislation making lynching a federal crime for 50 years. A common pretext for lynching was for a black man to be accused of having sex with, or talking to, a white woman.
meiraleal 2y ago
> There are plenty of real problems, past and present, which we can point to as indicative of racial prejudice. The insistence on its insertion into other areas, lacking supporting evidence, is, imho, overtly harmful to discourse. Would you mind disclosing in which camp you stand? I need it to confirm if your disregard for discussing racial problems and warning about "harmful discourse" is real or just racism.
- argiopetech 2y ago
  I don't believe in camps (with regards to allying myself with one — obviously they exist). I believe in seeking truth (to the extent possible) through discourse. See the rest of this thread for how I conduct that process and what I do when confronted with reasonable evidence. I have no problem discussing racial problems. I just didn't see this as one (I've changed that opinion), and didn't appreciate the framing of the article (still don't, but the linked 25 pager is more nuanced). Finally, I didn't say it was harmful discourse. I said it was "harmful to discourse".
  - meiraleal 2y ago
    Any time you are racist, intentionally or just because you can't grasp the full picture, you believe in camps and worse, you choose a side.

Aloisius 2y ago

That 9 mg number appears to be off by an order of magnitude. The original recipe coca-cola recipe contained 3/200th of a grain of cocaine per serving, which would be 0.972 mg. It was then lowered to 1/400th of a grain (0.2 mg) before being eliminated.

seoulmetro 2y ago

It's an American trend to write history as if everything was invented just to spite one race or one group of people.

Fauntleroy 2y ago
Tit-for-tat, it's also an American trend to write history as if racism didn't exist at all.
- gamepsys 2y ago
  People who write histories often frame the past in order to impact how people think about the present.
  - seoulmetro 2y ago
    Except people are rewriting history for fun in America's case.
    - seattle_spring 2y ago
      What are some specific examples of what you're referring to?
      - seoulmetro 2y ago
        Slavery seems to be very "American" even though it's not. A lot of ideas and movements during BLM supported the narrative that certain figures were crazy racists. OP mentions about how illicit drugs were all just tools used to control minorities and are still used that way.. There are more serious ones, but most are just used as talking points about how the modern people are smarter and that people in the past were somehow bad people when trialled against their new modern ideals.
        bawolff 2y ago
        I don't think anyone would suggest that slavery was an exclusively american concept, but there are ways that slavery impacted america and is still impacting america that i don't think is true of other first world countries (e.g. how financially dependent early america was on it, how late in history relative to other countries it was abolished, how it was one of the causes of the civil war, which in turn significantly shaped america, etc)
        j16sdiz 2y ago
        > There are more serious ones, but most are just used as talking points about how the modern people are smarter and that people in the past were somehow bad people when trialled against their new modern ideals. 100% on this. Sometimes I feel we are like salt water fish talking about how ridiculous and miserable the fresh water fish in the upstream are.
        Spooky23 2y ago
- jrflowers 2y ago
  There’s a recent and ongoing concerted effort to push that narrative in the US that can be observed directly in book bans and school board fights about curriculums. Florida is an interesting contemporary example of a new history being mandated and previously mundane and uncontested accounts being declared ahistorical. https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/floridas-new-african-american-history-standards-whats-behind-the-backlash/2023/07 https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/floridas-new-africa...

iambateman 2y ago

I’m not an expert on the origins of Coke, but I do find it very plausible that white people in 1890’s Atlanta heard that “black people are doing it” and that was enough. Plus the article mentions specific writing from the time which supports their view (quote from AJC). It’s hard to overstate the level of anger white people had toward black people in post-reconstruction Georgia and how fundamental it was to their actions.

argiopetech 2y ago
I don't have the time to do the research justice at this moment; however, let me lay out a rough argument. Let us say, for the sake of argument, that poverty and drug abuse are strongly correlated. Poverty does not cause drug abuse, but people in poverty are more likely to abuse drugs, and people who abuse drugs are more likely to be in poverty due to their drug abuse. The article seems to agree with this point, as it points to working class people as the focal point of abuse of cocaine. In 1900, the white population was approximately 60 million and the black population was approximately 9 million. Casual research suggests that 50% of children were in poverty, which I will extend to suggest that 50% to families were in poverty. Let us; however, assume that only 30% of whites and 100% of blacks were in poverty. In this case, black working-class people were still a minority of working-class people, at a ratio of 2:1. Under this assumption, is it reasonable to assume that cocaine abuse in non-white communities was the sole catalyst for this change?
- iambateman 2y ago
  I’m not saying it’s the sole catalyst. no one is putting cocaine in a drink today, so it’s certainly possible that people were starting to figure out that it’s a bad idea. But what I am saying is that white fear of “anything perceived to be black” was absolutely a driver of behavior at this time/place. I believe the popular cultural understanding of how bad race relations were at this time is understated.
- meroes 2y ago
  My drug use has stopped when Im at my poorest simply because I can’t afford it. Without some sources I’m not even willing to get past your first premise.

jrflowers 2y ago

>The insistence on its insertion into other areas, lacking supporting evidence, is, imho, overtly harmful to discourse. There is a lack of supporting evidence that race has historically been a deciding factor in US drug policy in the same way that there is a lack of supporting evidence for the historical existence of the Romans. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5614457/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5614457/ https://www.case.org/system/files/media/file/Penn%20Stater%20Harry%20Anslinger.pdf https://www.case.org/system/files/media/file/Penn%20Stater%2... https://eji.org/news/nixon-war-on-drugs-designed-to-criminalize-black-people/ https://eji.org/news/nixon-war-on-drugs-designed-to-criminal...

toast0 2y ago
> there is a lack of supporting evidence for the historical existence of the Romans. Pshaw, if they existed, how come the Internet Archive doesn't have any of their government webpages archived?
- jrflowers 2y ago
  The Internet Archive must be ran by some dang Goths!!
argiopetech 2y ago
I counter with this article [0], which I believe to be more historically relevant due to its closeness in time to the discussion in question. Race is not mentioned as a factor here, and cocaine is described as "the American habit". Having noted my inability to thoroughly research this topic at this time in reply to a sibling post, I'll point to that post for my back of the envelope calculation regarding the number of working class whites versus blacks and suggest that, as poverty and drug abuse seem, to me, linked, that it is just as plausible that widespread abuse of the drug was the catalyst for change in this case. [0] https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1914-02-15/ed-1/seq-29/ https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1914-02-1...
- jrflowers 2y ago

swatcoder 2y ago

People write about history through the lens of their specialty and personal interests, which is what the author of the underlying article was doing when they published in their academic journal, Southern Culture. The author has a lot of insight and foreknowledge into their field of expertise and can situate this story within that context better than others can, and more deeply (probably) than they could do in some other context. It's pretty normal, and helps develop a lot of different perspectives on history so that the bigger picture can be understood in a lot of different ways. It's fair to call it out, but it's not going anywhere and it's not really a problem in the writing. Taking this history and reconciling it with other accounts is a reader literacy thing. You should take a similar eye to pretty much all history you run across.

dissent 2y ago
This is all well and good, except we all know the current zeitgeist is to go to any length necessary to frame absolutely everything in terms of race. As a reader, it's hard to distinguish between that and genuine academic interest. I now tend to close the tab the moment race is mentioned. I'm glad I don't live in the USA, it must be awful.
- Spooky23 2y ago
  One of the core concepts used to push anti-marijuana campaigns was that marijuana would enable black men to seduce innocent young white woman, and create a mixed race. That message was being pushed at a time where the US Senate, controlled by Jim Crow southerners, killed legislation making lynching a federal crime for 50 years. A common pretext for lynching was for a black man to be accused of having sex with, or talking to, a white woman.

meiraleal 2y ago

> There are plenty of real problems, past and present, which we can point to as indicative of racial prejudice. The insistence on its insertion into other areas, lacking supporting evidence, is, imho, overtly harmful to discourse. Would you mind disclosing in which camp you stand? I need it to confirm if your disregard for discussing racial problems and warning about "harmful discourse" is real or just racism.

argiopetech 2y ago
I don't believe in camps (with regards to allying myself with one — obviously they exist). I believe in seeking truth (to the extent possible) through discourse. See the rest of this thread for how I conduct that process and what I do when confronted with reasonable evidence. I have no problem discussing racial problems. I just didn't see this as one (I've changed that opinion), and didn't appreciate the framing of the article (still don't, but the linked 25 pager is more nuanced). Finally, I didn't say it was harmful discourse. I said it was "harmful to discourse".
- meiraleal 2y ago
  Any time you are racist, intentionally or just because you can't grasp the full picture, you believe in camps and worse, you choose a side.