New Dark Ages USDA Crusade Against Coca

From my unpublished manuscript "Coca- Forgotten Medicine"

The U.S.D.A. campaign against coca: prosecutions and lobbying

Under the 1906 act, Coca products were perfectly legal if properly labeled.

The USDA would exploit its new power to declare substances, dangerous, habit-forming or deleterious, with prosecutions against the manufacturers of coca products sold as "foods", such as beverages, for “adulteration”.

This was a separate charge then that of “mislabeling”, with compliance with the latter no bar to such a prosecution for the former- a reality confirmed by Wiley's prosecution of Coca Cola for containing added caffeine- a substance NOT included in the 1906 Act's list of substances required to be labled.

Soon after being so empowered in early 1907, the U.S.D.A. began attacking Coca products sold as food products, with this very line of argument in the form of a series of prosecutions upon allegations of section 7 violations for "adulteration," with a 1909 list of USDA initiated prosecutions against a virtual whose-who list of Coca beverage soft-drink and syrup manufacturers for alleged 1906 Food and Drugs Act violations of “mislabeling" for the label failing to list quantity of cocaine content, and for “adulteration” for containing “added deleterious ingredient, to wit, cocaine, which rendered said syrup injurious to health. According to the USDA:

Koca-Nola, a beverage manufactured by the Koca-Nola Company of Atlanta Georgia was "adulterated in that said syrup contained an added deleterious ingredient, to wit, cocaine, which rendered said syrup injurious to health." (Guilty verdict, March 16, 1910), Notice of Judgement 202;

Kos-Kola, a soft-drink manufactured by the Sethness Company of Chicago, Illinois was "adulterated in that it contained an added poisonous and deleterious ingredient, to wit, cocaine." (Guilty plea, January 10, 1910);

Kola-Ade, a soft-drink manufactured by the Kola-Ade Company of Atlanta, Georgia was "adulterated in that it contained an added deleterious ingredient, namely cocaine and coca leaf alkaloids" (Guilty plea, March 19, 1910);

Celery Cola, a soft-drink manufactured by the Birmingham Celery Cola Company of Birmingham, Alabama was "adulterated, in that it contained added poisonous and deleterious ingredients which might render the article injurious to health, namely caffein, cocain, and cocain derivatives;" (Guilty verdict, March 11, 1910);

Rococola, a soft-drink manufactured by the Lehman-Rosenfeld Company of Cincinnati, Ohio was "adulterated within the meaning of the act in that it contained, in addition to the ingredients mentioned on the label, certain added deleterious ingredients, to wit caffeine and cocaine, which added ingredients rendered said article of food injurious to health;" (Guilty plea, May, 16, 1910);

Cola Syrup, a syrup produced by the Mound City Extract Company of St. Louis, Missouri was "adulterated in that the product contained in said barrel was a liquid consisting essentially of sugar, caffeine, cocaine and derivatives of cocaine... and that said product contained added poisonous and deleterious ingredients which might render such articles injurious to health, to wit, caffein, cocaine and derivatives of cocaine" (Guilty plea, November 11, 1910);

Great American Coca Cream, a soft-drink made by the American Beverage Company of St. Louis, Missouri was "[adulterated]..in that the contents of said bottles contained added poisonous and deleterious ingredients, to wit, cocaine and caffeine, which rendered said articles injurious to health;" (Guilty plea, November 10, 1910);

"Kola" Syrup, a syrup labeled "Dr. Don's Kola" produced by the Warner-Jenkinson Company of St. Louis, Missouri was "[adulterated because]...said article contained added poisonous and deleterious ingredients, to wit, caffein and cocaine derivatives, which rendered it injurious to health" (Guilty plea, no date given other then February 21, 1911 publication date);

"Red Seal" Cola Queen Syrup, a syrup also produced by the Warner-Jenkinson Company was "adulterated..in that the product contained added poisonous and deleterious ingredients, to wit, caffein and cocaine and derivatives of cocaine, which might render said article injurious to health" (Guilty plea, no date given other then February 21, 1911 publication date);

Vani-Kola Compound Syrup, a syrup produced by The Vani-Kola Company of Canton, Ohio was "adulterated in that it contained added deleterious ingredients, viz, caffeine and cocaine [and other coca leaf alkaloids." (Plea of nolo contendere, February 14, 1911

Soda Water Syrup Cola, a soft-drink syrup made by W.H. Hutchinson & Son located in northern Illinois was "adulteration was alleged because the article of food in said bottle contained an added deleterious ingredient, to wit, cocaine, rendering such article injurious to health" Plea of nolo contendere entered on February 23, 1911; at trial, "defendant admitted the charges in the information, and further admitted for the purpose of the case that cocaine was an added ingredient of the product, and also that it was a deleterious, but introduced proof to the effect that the cocaine in said product was mixed therein by accident." Jury verdict of not guilty.

The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 did not prohibit cocaine, only requiring its labeling in products where it was an ingredient, whether directly with isolated cocaine, or indirectly with Coca, even things that clearly enumerated they were Coca preparations and thus likely to contain cocaine, i.e. "Coke" Extract, manufactured by A.L. Pilsbury of New Orleans or "Coke Extract" manufactured by the Kumfort Company of Atlanta, Georgia, had to list cocaine and its proportion or quantity on the label. Yet such products which nonetheless conformed to this clear requirement would nonetheless fall to prosecutions for “adulteration” through the USDA’s open ended authority to declare a substance an “added, deleterious ingredient.”

This latitude of delegation of authority to the U.S.D.A. was an effective means to implement its political-mercantilist agenda to end Coca's use in the U.S. as a beverage to be consumed like Coffee or a daily stimulant, like Coffee or Tobacco -- in other words as a food product – was to be a major Washington, D.C. food and drug policy thrust, cir 1907+ as evident in numerous forums, as with the U.S.D.A.'s prosecutor's charge to the jury in a 1910 case against the Birmingham Celery Cola Company of Birmingham, Alabama:

As Celery Cola is intended for a beverage and not a drug, you have the right in determining this question to consider the injury from the probable and repeated use of the article as a beverage, rather than its rare and occasional use as a drug.

This would be sufficient to cow a good portion of the coca products market to eliminate the cocaine alkaloid from their product’s formulations – regardless of whether isolated or as a natural component of coca, if not eliminate the coca product altogether. This would spur Coca beverages’ retreat from food supermarkets, and to seek refuge in pharmacies. Coca product manufacturers took different responses. Some simply complied with the labeling requirements. Some simply removed the cocaine alkaloid, much as the makers of Coca-Cola did in 1903. In the period of time after this act took effect in 1907, numerous coca products were either de-cocainized or altogether eliminated, particularly those sold as food for regular use, but also against those sold as drugs for less frequent use, as the case with Vin Mariani. In 1907 Mariani & Company introduced a new version of Vin Mariani for US markets still made with Coca, but with the cocaine alkaloid removed. Starting in 1907, Vin Mariani for U.S. markets was of a revised formulation, without cocaine, with a then new label on the bottle’s rear side, stating:

GUARANTEED BY MARIANI & CO. UNDER THE FOOD AND DRUGS ACT, JUNE 30, 1906 VIN MARIANI [MARIANI WINE] 17 PER CENT. ALCOHOL BY VOLUME AN IMPORTED FRENCH BORDFEAUX WINE WITH A SPECIAL PROCESSING OF LEAVES OF ERYTHROXYLON COCA PREPARED AND BOTTLED AT OUR NEW YORK LABORATORY MARIANI AND COMPANY PARIS, FRANCE: 41 Boulevard Haussmann. NEW YORK: 52 West 15th Street. TO THE MEDICAL PROFESSION:

THE STANDARD OF MARIANI PREPARATIONS, established by us in France nearly half a century ago, is based upon the adaptation of Coca as employed by the Andeans during hundreds of years as a force sustainer. WE HAVE ALWAYS emphasized our use of Coca leaves chosen for their AROMATIC and MEDICIAL qualities and, as we have never considered the negligible content of the alkaloid in such leaves essential to our formula, our processing completely eliminates it from this preparation. AMERICAN LABEL ADOPTED 1907

“… as we have never considered the negligible content of the alkaloid in such leaves essential to our formula, our processing completely eliminates it from this preparation.”