Cocaine

Brief History of Cocaine

Spanish colonists observed the practice by Indigenous South Americans of chewing coca leaves to enhance stamina and endurance. The Spanish introduced the coca leaf to Europe; unlike tobacco, [Page 110]it did not come into widespread use there. The coca leaf was subject to decay and loss of potency in the cargo holds of ships traveling from South America to Europe. In 1855, Friedrich Gaedcke isolated the cocaine alkaloid, named erythroxyline. When Dr. Albert Niemann subsequently completed a dissertation “On a New Organic Base in the Coca Leaves,” cocaine became widely known.

Various people experimented on the uses of cocaine. Dr. Carl Koller developed an experiment that involved placing drops of cocaine in his eye and pricking it with a needle to show its use as an ophthalmological anesthetic. Physicians and chemists alike were investigating and promoting its purported medicinal properties. Angelo Mariani produced an alcoholic beverage containing red Italian wine and cocaine. This beverage became known as “cocawine.” Endorsed by many popular figures of the day, including Pope Leo XIII, cocawine became a very popular remedy for hangovers. Along with hangovers, cocaine was thought to help with morphine addiction. Sigmund Freud reported on the popular use of cocaine as a cure for morphine addiction in his article “Über Coca.” Freud found the drug to be invigorating and helpful in enhancing energy with no addictive side effects. Drug companies began to market cocaine in a variety of forms, including as powders, cigarettes, and injectable liquids.

Cocaine also became popular as a cure-all stimulant. Famously, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle made his character Sherlock Holmes a user of the drug when his mind needed stimulation. Ernest Shackleton and other explorers used the drug on expeditions to provide their men with energy.

Along with the positive effects of cocaine, many found negative aspects to the drug's use. In the American South, the drug, given to black laborers to promote efficiency, eventually provided an impetus to pass laws concerning drug use and race. Cocaine was used as an excuse to legislate Jim Crow–era laws portraying the typical cocaine user as a drug-crazed southern Negro. Consequently, many southern states began to ban the drug in all of its forms except for medical purposes. Even those uses became restricted when in 1914 and 1922 Congress passed the Harrison Narcotics Act and the Jones-Miller Act, respectively.

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