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On 17th century "cocaine"
- mastazi 2y agoCan anyone with a scientific background give an opinion about the first comment to the linked post? They say they are sceptical because "there are a number of Tropane alkaloids which are very close to cocaine and are present in other plants - especially nightshades (e.g., belladonna) - which were known to and used for various purposes by Europeans for a long time."
- Etheryte 2y agoAs you would expect, this is covered in the actual paper [0]: > Therefore, the 3rd molecule detected in the brain tissues of our subjects, hygrine (an alkaloid present in the leaves of Erythroxylum spp. only), was essential to determine that the molecules detected in these human remains derived from the chewing of coca leaves or from leaves brewed as a tea, consistent with the historical period. If I'm reading this right, they checked for a number of markers and one of those is found only in coca leaves. [0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440324001080 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030544032...
- mastazi 2y agoThank you! I should have thought of checking the paper first
- benbreen 2y agoAuthor here, I had the same question and looked into it. The author of that comment seems to be onto something because hygrine is indeed found in nightshades as well as in coca. Interesting.
- lolinder 2y agoWhere are you getting that hygrine is found in nightshades? The authors of the paper specifically say it's only found in Erythroxylum and I'm not finding any references in my own research to that specific chemical being present in nightshades.
- DisgracePlacard 2y agoI'm no chemist, but according to wikipedia, cuscohygrine is found in belladona plants and it metabolizes into hygrine. So that could be what he's referring to?
- stef25 2y agoI read the same wikipedia page and that statement is confusing if not incorrect. Hygrine is a not a metabolite of cuscohygrine, it's in fact the other way round: hygrine is the precursor and cuscohygrine is the metabolite. The first reference on that page is "The role of hygrine in the biosynthesis of cuscohygrine and hyoscyamine"
- stef25 2y agoNo, it does not appear to be true that hygrine is found in nightshades. Cuscohygrine does occur in those plants yet it's precursor hygrine does not. How it then gets there without us being able to detect hygrine could be because it only occurs in very small concentrations or is produced and then quickly and wholly converted in to its cusco metabolite, or that it's produced through a different biosynthetic pathway.
- photochemsyn 2y agoThe research group behind the paper looks reliable, they have a publication record in the area and while it's surprising they can detect metabolites (and surprising that brains were preserved from the 1600s) they seem to have done a lot of detailed work, here's some of their other related work (they also found cannabis residues in some of their material): "Forensic toxicological analyses reveal the use of cannabis in Milano (Italy) in the 1600's (2023)" https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Forensic-toxicological-analyses-reveal-the-use-of-Giordano-Mattia/9b77a6b5bf825347cada397ea78c578082abd34f https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Forensic-toxicological...
- IAmGraydon 2y ago>As you can see, the Times was not the only news outlet to be confused about the distinction between cocaine and coca Unfortunately, the author of this article is the one who is confused. Cocaine is the name of the alkaloid present in the coca leaf, much like the coffee bean contains caffeine. If they were using coca leaf, they were using cocaine.
- Clamchop 2y agoTFA literally already says what you said. They're making a reasonable distinction between chewing coca leaves for mild stimulant effect and huffing a fat rail of the pure stuff. It gives the wrong idea to say these 17th century people were doing cocaïne.
- Mtinie 2y agoThey were using cocaine. It was a less concentrated form, sure, but it’s still using the same substance for a psychoactive effect.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> were using cocaine. It was a less concentrated form, sure I was going to say this is pedantically correct, but on closer inspection, it's not even that. Cocaine, the chemical, is present in both coca leaves and cocaine, the drug. When people say cocaine--particularly in this context--they're referring to cocaine the drug, not cocaine the chemical. Cocaine the drug and cocaine the chemical are homonyms, and it's incorrect--fully technically--to confuse their use.
- philwelch 2y agoCocaine, the chemical, is the active drug ingredient in coca leaves the same way caffeine, the chemical, is the active ingredient in coffee and ethanol, the chemical, is the active ingredient in beer. Powder and crack cocaine deliver much higher doses of cocaine than raw coca leaves, much like liquor is more potent than beer, but the chemical is the drug here. It’s not like it’s chemically transformed from one substance into another like with fermentation; it’s concentrated, like with distillation.
- JasserInicide 2y agoAnyone here ever actually try coca leaves? Going to guess its effects are somewhere between coffee and cocaine
- jbverschoor 2y agoOnly coca tea. It's a small boost, perhaps like coffee if you don't drink coffee everyday
- sddsdd 2y agoHad a lot of them chewed or in tea in Bolivia and it's pretty close to a caffeine buzz, it's very, very mild.
- _yb2s 2y agoCaffeine affects people differently… it has very intense effects on me- I would never call it “very very mild”
- sddsdd 2y agoFor the vast majority of people caffeine is very mild compared to cocaine. Coca leaves are in the ballpark of caffeine, however you would rate that subjectively. And personally I think I would have found it hard to tell which was which in a blind test. As a side note coca tea (or chewed leaves) are often recommended for managing altitude, and chewing leaves did seem to help with headaches I was having at > 12k feet, but again it was fairly subtle, and I am not convinced it's not just placebo/a nice distraction.
- cjbgkagh 2y agoIf I’ve gone a long time without caffeine a single coffee could keep me awake up for two consecutive all nighters. As a regular drinker I still cannot handle more than one cup of coffee per day. It turns out that I have a number of genes that increase the intensity and the duration of effect. I think genes explain most of the differences in experiences with caffeine.
- sevensor 2y agoNot the subject of the article, but in the vein (so to speak) of 19th century industrial refinement processes, gin and other cheap spirits were also a really big deal, and a really big problem at the time. The temperance movement didn’t come out of nowhere. I think it’s an interesting parallel between fermented beverages and coca tea on the one hand, and cocaine and hard liquor on the other.
- golergka 2y agoPeople somehow forgot the ether epidemic in some parts of Europe at the turn of the 20th century.
- Beijinger 2y ago"Analyzing mummified brain tissue from two men who died at the hospital in the seventeenth century, they found evidence of coca use—the earliest ever detected outside of South America. " There is at least one person who disagrees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henut_Taui https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henut_Taui
- dr_dshiv 2y agoCocaine in Egyptian mummies??
- doubled112 2y agoI’m not usually one to split hairs, but that Wikipedia page says “on” and not “in”. Had they found the cocaine in the mummies, I suspect there would be less reason to suspect contamination after they were dug up.
- lagniappe 2y agoOne does not simply waste it without tasting it
- tessierashpool9 2y agoegyptian mummies in the 17th century? o.0
- lazide 2y agoI guess strippers were in shorter supply at the time?
- md224 2y agoI wish the US would legalize coca leaves. Our nation's drug laws are so goddamn stupid. Two different Popes drank Vin Mariani! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vin_Mariani https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vin_Mariani
- kyleee 2y agoI am disappointed this product is not still available
- yourusername 2y agoIsn't cocaethylene profoundly unhealthy? Even if both components were legal i don't think any country would allow them to be sold combined in one beverage.
- Synaesthesia 2y agoCoca tea on the other hand, is not psychoactive, it's extremely mild and relaxing, similar to mint tea.
- KMag 2y agoIt's psychoactive, but not euphoric. Promoting wakefulness is a psychoactive property.
- herbst 2y agoThere is also this one from Italy: https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca_Buton https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca_Buton (Which is a actually buyable product that appearantly is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, coke leaf import company in europe. It's a lovely liqueur)
- sva_ 2y agoYou can buy coca tea in headshops in Netherlands as well.
- voidmain0001 2y agoI inherited a small hardcover handbook on the use of cocaine in medicine and the household. I don’t have it in front of me at the moment so I don’t remember the print date. I’m guessing late 1800 or early 1900. Ah. DDG to rescue, here is a version of it. https://www.thebookmerchantjenkins.com/product/coca-and-cocaine-their-history-medical-and-economic-uses-and-medicinal-preparations/ https://www.thebookmerchantjenkins.com/product/coca-and-coca... Certainly a different perspective on it from today.
- lqet 2y agoReading the complete Sherlock Holmes stories a few months ago, I also noticed how casually the frequent use of cocaine by Holmes is mentioned as a small vice, a recreational drug that is also "chemically clean", so nothing to worry about. Opium, on the other hand, is associated with disease, crime, and the criminal underworld.
- lazide 2y agoIs it not still the same? We won’t talk about crack, of course
- SoftTalker 2y agoProbably pretty hard to get "chemically clean" cocaine if you don't have a pharmaceutical source.
- lazide 2y agoI’m not sure Victorian England pharmaceutical grade cocaine would actually be much cleaner, but yeah.
- standardUser 2y agoI use cocaine semi-frequently but avoid all opioids. The people I've known with cocaine problems always have tangential problems with alcohol abuse, excessive/irresponsible partying and generally unstable lifestyles. I've rarely seem people with acute addictions. The (many more) people I've know with opioid addictions are often 'regular' people with moderate-to-severe pain or mental health issues that become severely addicted, usually starting with prescriptions. We shouldn't pretend that the use patterns or use cases of the two drugs are the same, even if the dug war tried really, really hard to make us think that way.
- cannonpr 2y agoThe ban on cocaine is kind of annoying even in its pure form, it’s a very useful local anaesthetic with good tolerance, low side effects that few people are allergic to. I have often wished it was included in some of the more advanced first aid kits, or used more widely for minor operations.
- rurban 2y agoJust take sugar instead. Cheaper, stronger and legal.
- wholinator2 2y agoAre you claiming sugar is a better local anesthetic than cocaine?
- rurban 2y agoI was referring to the widely unknown facts that sugar is a stronger drug than cocaine[1], and more addictive[2]. Also much more dangerous. [1] fedup movie (sundance 2014) [2] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0000698 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
- malfist 2y agoWe have good local anesthetics that don't carry the same addiction risk. There's no reason to provide such a potent addictive drug at OTC.
- whatshisface 2y agoAs it turns out, lidocaine causes a lot of nerve damage. It even has long-lasting cognitive effects, in some patients.
- floydnoel 2y agooh heck, i had no idea! i just bought a huge tube of it for an elbow injury. time to pitch it i suppose. thanks for the info. it's sad what the nanny-state babies inflict on society for lack of understanding second-order effects.
- golergka 2y agoCoca tea is very underrated. Too bad its probably impossible to legally buy outside of south America
- cynicalpeace 2y agoCoca-Cola still uses coca leaves in the production of its drink. The Stepan Company plant in New Jersey is the only place in the USA authorized to import coca. "Equality before the law" is unfortunately a farce in this country, if you didn't already know.
- tombert 2y ago> Coca-Cola still uses coca leaves in the production of its drink. Is this actually true? A quick search gives me a lot of sources like "Natural News" and similarly dubious sources. What do they actually use the Coca leaves for?
- cynicalpeace 2y agoIt is 100% true. It seems a DEA source would convince you: https://museum.dea.gov/exhibits/online-exhibits/cannabis-coca-and-poppy-natures-addictive-plants/coca#:~:text=Coca%20and%20Cola%3A%20In%20the,the%20flavoring%20for%20Coca%2DCola https://museum.dea.gov/exhibits/online-exhibits/cannabis-coc.... "In the late 1800s cocaine was used as a primary ingredient for flavor in Coca-Cola. In the early 1900s cocaine in its crude form was removed. Today the extract of the coca leaves, a de-cocainized version, is manufactured in the United States and used in the flavoring for Coca-Cola."
- tombert 2y agoFair enough!
- abcd_f 2y ago> DEA source It has a step-by-step description of cocaine extraction process further down the page. I mean you can probably find the same on the YT, but seeing it on a DEA site is still a bit jarring.
- Suppafly 2y ago>Today the extract of the coca leaves, a de-cocainized version, is manufactured in the United States and used in the flavoring for Coca-Cola." Interesting, I had always heard that they had to "de-cocainize" the extract outside the US and import the resulting product.
- doingtheiroming 2y agoStephen Maturin switches from opium to coca leaves about halfway through the Master and Commander series (around 1800). Ensuring a steady supply of the leaves becomes a recurring theme as is his sharing of their wonders with the various scientific personalities he comes across.
- lisper 2y agoThe difference between coca and cocaine is rather like the difference between sugar cane and refined sugar. In fact, that is quite a good analogy in more ways than one.
- gwbas1c 2y agoMore like the difference between a beer and grain alcohol.
- mossTechnician 2y ago> As David Courtwright writes in his book Forces of Habit, “factories did for drugs what canning did to vegetables. They democratized them. It became easier, cheaper, and faster for the masses to saturate their brains with chemicals.” This is a really interesting use of the word "democratize." I've seen it used in many other contexts (usually in a business sense), and some have been more ominous than others.
- dfxm12 2y agoAccording to oxford languages, the #2 definition of democratize is "make (something) accessible to everyone" [0]. Can you elaborate on why using the dictionary definition of a word is really interesting? 0 - just google define: democratize
- mossTechnician 2y agoI've seen the word used in different contexts, usually as a marketing buzzword, a shortcut to elicit a positive feeling. (This article does not take that route, which is why I found it interesting.) If you look at the Google search recommendations after typing in the word "democratize," for example, you get people trying to understand what it means to "democratize finance" (initially, the solution was almost exclusively paired with words like "unbanked", "cryptocurrency," and a rush to bring these products to Africa - rarely a particular place for a particular reason, just Africa in general). Other phrases like "democratize data" are used in a corporate sense. Apparently "democratize AI" is a huge one too, which is appropriate because Sam Altman of OpenAI fame is one of the people who wanted to "democratize finance" by expanding his Worldcoin project into Kenya. More recently, I've seen the phrase "democratize art" thrown around by people who support generative AI as a form of art.
- dfxm12 2y agoAll of these examples appear to have the same context: bringing something to the masses, just like a factory produced drug or can of corn. If you look at the Google search recommendations after typing in the word "democratize," for example, you get people trying to understand what it means to "democratize finance" I don't see these results (Google search results are personalized). I guess I took for granted that the meaning of the word was well understood or that people would look up words they thought were being used in an odd way.
- yandrypozo 2y ago“I was making frequent use of cocaine at that time ... I had been the first to recommend the use of cocaine, in 1885, and this recommendation had brought serious reproaches down on me.” “... a big wild man who has cocaine in his body.” ― Sigmund Freud
- BobaFloutist 2y agoOh, come on, you can't add that last quote without the rest of the context! "Woe to you, my Princess, when I come. I will kiss you quite red and feed you till you are plump. And if you are forward, you shall see who is the stronger, a gentle little girl who doesn't eat enough, or a big wild man who has cocaine in his body" - a letter to his fiance.
- gwbas1c 2y ago> Was recreational or medicinal coca use something that was happening all over Europe in the 1600s? I'd think we'd already know, because there would be historical (literature and records) references.
- randomNumber7 2y agoThe article is just hilariously bad. Whatever he writes about coca and cocaine is just wrong. The leaves contain the base. The base has a low melting point and can be smoked (crack). Cocaine hydrochloride is created chemically from the base. It is water soluble and can snorted. Because of the PH of the blood it decomposes into the base. Chemically there is no difference once the drug is in the blood stream