11/25/19
Cocaethylene is what forms in the body when somebody ingests cocaine and alcohol. Cocaethylene works like cocaine, but with more euphoria.
A snapshot of America after the Civil War involves an uptick in morphine addicts, one of whom was Dr. John Stith Pemberton of Atlanta. In the late 1800s, he learned about wines rife with coca that were doing gangbusters, some of which were "wonderful invigorators of the sexual organs." He made his own French Wine Coca until a prohibition was passed in his county. His product became illegal - not because of the cocaine - but because of the alcohol.
Not to be deterred, he replaced the wine in the formula with sugary syrup and by 1886 he debuted his new product: "Coca-Cola: The temperance drink." It quickly caught on as an 'intellectual beverage" among well-off whites. But when the company started selling it in bottles in 1899, minorities who couldn't get into segregated soda fountains suddenly had access to it. Anyone with a nickel, black or white, was now privy to the cocaine-infused beverage. But middle-class whites, those affable goofballs, blamed soft drinks for the exploding cocaine use in African Americans. Southern newspapers super-casually spoke of "negro cocaine fiends" raping white women, with a police force that was powerless to stop them. By 1903, the manager of Coca-Cola, Asa Griggs, bowed to white fears and removed cocaine from his product, instead replacing it with (safer amounts?) of more sugar and caffeine. Cocaine wasn't even officially illegal until 1914. Then came the bursts of applause, not because everyone's physical health concerns were addressed, but because something was done about all that white girl raping. Social effects shaped the discussion; this skittering from black hypersexuality added to cocaine's bigoted indictment.
In 1910, U.S. State Department official Dr. Hamilton Wright said, "The use of cocaine by the negroes of the South is one of the most elusive and troublesome questions which confront the enforcement of law... often the direct incentive to the crime of rape by the negroes."
Four years later, Dr. Edward Williams wrote in the Medical Standard that "... the negro who has become a cocaine-doper is a constant menace to his community. His whole nature is changed for the worse... timid negroes develop a degree of 'Dutch courage,' which is sometimes incredible.
All this talk about how people used the word 'negroes' makes me very uncomfortable, along with blaming many of society's ills on skin color. People were really terrible to each other back then, and not much has changed. The awful wretch of orange dung we have (barely) serving as president eagerly extends this idea of scapegoating by calling the people of Mexico "criminals" and "rapists." It's downright amazing that human beings still can't embrace our differences while working to lift one another up. It suggests the world is lazy and continues to favor ignorance instead of making the effort to focus on good and decent guiding principles and teaching objectivity.
Why does the sun go on shining?
Why does the sea rush to shore?
Don't they know it's the end of the world?
'Cause we don't love each other anymore...
My research on cocaine and caffeine led me down this rabbit hole, but the main reason I'm here is because of its effect on my health. The Coca-Cola we know today still contains coca, but the ecgonine alkaloid has been removed. Perfecting that extraction happened in 1929, so before that there were still trace amounts of coca's psychoactive elements in the product. The extraction is now done at a New Jersey chemical processing plant by a company called Stepan. They refer to the coca leaf extract simply as "Merchandise No. 5." Given all the pill-heads in the tri-state area, it's no wonder the facility is guarded.
It's clear that Coca Cola is still addictive. When you stop like I have, you get the feeling you're an addict, always thinking about Coke, always craving it. Order a pizza? You need to wash it down with a 2-liter bottle. Yearnings are not always expressible in language. There's always that tug. Is it the sugar? Is it the caffeine? Are there still some scant remnants of the coca leaf still lingering? Or some combination of all three? I sputtered through all of my twenties without having even having a single drop. I viewed the stuff as vile. It wasn't until I went to medical school at thirty when I became glued to the stuff. It began abruptly, like some of my fellow students who faced the stress of becoming a doctor and then suddenly took up smoking. Even then, I tried to limit my intake - no more than one can per day. Then I fell in love with iced tea. Arizona iced tea for 99 cents, Swiss Farms, WaWa, SNAPPLE. I couldn't get enough of the stuff. My mother makes her own iced tea, which I poured over ice cubes covered in table sugar for the perfect amount of sweetness. I drank it by the gallon... until I noticed by heart rate was through the roof. I learned of xanthines in school and their relation to caffeine.
Changes in blood pressure for people not in emergencies rarely have discreet beginnings or endings; it's a gradual insidious process. Having a healthy blood pressure at around 120/80 is by now well known, and I wore it like a badge. It was only around 2010 that I went in for my annual physical when I first noticed that it was headed into the stratosphere. Worse still, my pulse was bounding, speeding. My primary care doctor rested his fingertip on my radial artery, and I watched as his eyes grew wide.
"Are you feeling nervous?"
"Um... no. I feel pretty good right now."
"Did you jog here?"
(*laughs) "No. I don't jog anywhere. I hate the stuff."
His questions were both funny and disquieting, because I knew something was wrong. I told him about the palpitations in my chest - how randomly my heart would slip into and out of them. Sometimes I'd get heavy knocking under my sternum, like a THOOM! THOOM! THOOM! and then it would subside. Other times, I'd feel my heart moving around like a fetus in the womb, followed by a squirting PWOOSH!
"Arrhythmias, too," I added.
The full weight of mortality was revealed in that visit. He had me do a cardiac stress test (sound medical advice) and he wanted to get me to get on beta-blockers (Ew! NO). I said let's wait and see on the latter. I knew all this iced tea and coca cola were the root cause. Stimulants are bad. I spent the next two weeks laying off and with that came a drop in my symptoms. Thinking I had put enough distance from my iced tea intake and its cessation, I had a cup of green tea, and guess what? The problems returned. I compensated by taking deep breaths. If my cardiac tissue is going to act up, I'm gonna make sure it's at least well-oxygenated.
TWOOM! TWOOM! PWOOOOOOSH!
Now I'm watching out for other people. My mother's boyfriend, Brian, is a gym nut. Yet his blood pressure is creeping up at an alarming rate. When I asked if he drank coffee every day, he confirmed my suspicions. As a matter of fact, I'm willing to bet millions of coffee drinkers over the decades have high blood pressure, and just think it's all a part of growing old, when I'm pretty sure it's from long-term use. Just as Big Oil knew of climate change in the seventies but didn't say anything, the coffee industry knows about caffeine's effects on the heart. It's their dirty little secret, I'm sure. Compare it to, let's say the Mormons, who stay away from the junk and I'm willing to bet their heart health overall is a lot better than the coffee drinking population. Researchers? Have at it.
So I'm miserable. No longer can I indulge if I want to feel better. I'm drinking more water (which I'm sure has its own poisons, given that I live on the east coast).
That's me, the caffeine-doper, traipsing down the soda aisle, pointing to the caffeine-free Coke, my smile bittersweet and drearied by all things carbonated, counting the days when my blood pressure is back to normal... yet might it all not make me stronger? ?
P.S. The whole reason I didn't write about my day is because nothing of significance really happened. I went over to Ray's, we had breakfast, his daughter told me he likes me, I told her I liked him, then I went home an hour early to watch MJ do laundry. She was here for only an hour between her obscenely long shifts and then I watched Peep Show and an excellent movie called the Witch. I dozed off, but then stayed up until 4AM afterwards to explore my ideas on sugary drinks.
c'est ça!
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