The 'Drug War' - Banning the safest stimulant (Coca) for the sake of protecting and promoting the most dangerous (Virginia Bright Leaf Tobacco)
The last U.S. Bottle of Vin Mariani?
the 1906+ restrictions and ban of Opium and Coca and the protected market growth of Virginia Bright Leaf Cigarettes- against the 'Tobacco Habit Cure' of CocaIt's a pity that a man as Ronald Wilson Reagan ignored the utter inconsistencies of his political sloganeering about excessive and fiscaly unwise government, particularly concerning such governments' choice of agricultural commodities we are offered for our daily stimulation and relaxation, cir:1884-1906
- machines for the mass production of cigarettes are 1st deployed; previously they had to be hand rolled. Nonetheless sales of such cigarettes grew reletively slowly until 1906.
- isolated cocaine is introduced commercially. Introduced in a variety of forms, with the more potent concentrated forms remaining a minor niche item, and most use the dilute useful Coca products, until 1906. Until the USDA was able to step in with its goal of protecting U.S. domestic agriculture.
U.S. Cigarette production spiked with drug prohibition: 1906, 1914,1937;
coinciding with the crackdowns on Opium, Coca and Cannabis
(p230 Licit & Illicit Drugs Breecher)
1906 U.S. Food and Drugs Act - key points - selective listing of ingrediants - alcohol, morphine, opium, cocaine, heroin, alpha or beta eucaine, chloroform, cannabis indica, chloral hydrate, or acetanilide, or any derivative or preparation of any such substances contained therein, but not caffeine or nicotine - granted dictatorial power to the USDA Bureau of Chemistry to ban whatever it determined as 'dangerous or detrimental to health ingrediants, while excluding Tobacco from this USD of Agriculture regulatory authority for being de-listed from the U.S. Pharmacopeia which this Act defined the sope of the regulatory authority to those substances (drugs) contained within. The Act was used by USDA Bureau of Chemistry Chief (1883-1912) Harvey Wiley, paradox - also of the AMA-APhA Council on Pharmacology, who developed a strong thrust to inveigh against 'cocaine' regardless of dosage or form in 1904, including via a media campaign designed to confuse the public about the dangers of concentrate cocaine in some vaguely defined way to imply dangers nonexistent with dilute cocaine. Dilute cocaine/Coca products dissapear from retail and altogther, while concentrated cocaine - infinitly the most dangerous for of the drug become's its sole available form.
Harvey Washington Wiley
Lyman Frederick Kebler
Of particular 'concern' to the USDA, 'cocaine' or more accurately dilute cocaine in products either or by the isolated alkloid or the more or less whole leaf extract, used as a substitute for Tobacco. According to the overtly mercantilist propaganda piece April 20, 1910 USDA. Farmer's Journal article "Habit-Forming Agents: Their Indiscriminate Sale and Use A Menace to the Public Welfare" by L.F. Kebler:
There are quite a number of so-called tobacco habit cures on the market.The USDA here wrote "so-called tobacco habit cures.." in refusing to acknowledge the utility it was here condemning, continuing:
All of them are ineffective, and some contain cocain in one form or another, which at once indicates the purpose of the promoter of the remedy. Instead of eradicating what is commonly believed to be a comparatively harmless habit, there is grave danger of fastening a pernicious drug habit upon the user. Examples of preparations of this character recently examined and found to contain cocain and caffein derivatives are Coca-Bola, Tobacco Bullets, and Wonder Workers. The Coca Bola is marketed by Dr. Charles L. Mitchell, of "Philadelphia, and the Tobacco Bullets by the Victor Remedy Company, now the Blackburn Remedy Company, of Dayton, Ohio, while the Wonder Workers were produced by George S. Beck, of Springfield, Ohio.That followed a January 1, 1910 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) 'Pharmacology' review (at pp 63-64 of Volume LIV, Number 1), “Coca Bola and Oxy-Tonic: Two Nostrums Exposed by the Chemists of the North Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station” by E.F. Ladd, a chemist at the North Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station
"We have recently had occasion to examine a sample of Coca Bola, a product labeled as having been produced by Charles L. Mitchell, M.D., Philadelphia, and the face label bears the following statement:The JAMA article echos the assumptions of "Habit-Forming Agents: Their Indiscriminate Sale and Use A Menace to the Public Welfare"
Each ounce contains 0.71 grams of cocain. A chewing paste of leaves of the cocoa [sic] plant, combined with other valuable tonics. The directions for use say coca-bola is made in the form of flat cakes or plugs divided into squares and should be used by chewing one of the small squares marked on the plug and swallowing the saliva.They further say it should be used at occasional intervals as needed throughout the day. To get its full effect it will be necessary to use several squares. They further say:
"Although a powerful muscular or nervous tonic, coca-bola has no evil after-effects, and hence is far superior to any other stimulant in the material medica"Now this information given out in the advertising which accompanies each package is, it would seem, intended to give the impression that this product is an entirely harmless one; in other words, that a preparation containing cocain as an active constituent, is to be generally recommended for use without any caution as to the harm that may come from forming a habit for cocain. They further say:
"A small portion chewed occasionally acts as a powerful tonic to the muscular and nervous system, enabling the chewer to perform additional labor, and also relieves fatigue and exhaustion without evil after effects. It contains no injurious ingredients and is perfectly harmless."So we might quote from the circular which is sent out by a man who claims to be a physician, urging, as it were, on the people the use of a product of this kind, which, as has clearly been shown, must in the end result in the formation of the cocain habit, if not in the complete demoralization and degradation of the individual himself.
The laws of North Dakota prohibit the sale of any compound or product in the state which contains cocaine in any form. It further prohibits the refilling of a physician’s prescription that contains cocain, and yet a product of this kind, it would seem from information that has been gathered, is sold directly to the customer, although it is true that the proprietor of the product maintains that it is now sold only to physicians.
During the last twenty years a large number of soft drinks containing caffein and smaller or greater quantities of coca leaf and kola nut products have been placed upon the market. Preparations of this class, on account of insufficient information, were formally looked upon as harmless, but they are now known to be an impending evil.Absent was any demonstration, only baseless presumption, that use of products as Coca-Bola resulted in a 'cocaine habit' of any greater legitimate public health concern than a 'caffeine habit' or a 'nicotine habit'. Indeed at the COMMlTTEE ON lNTERSTATE AND FORElGN COMMERCE hearing on the Food and Drug Act, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, April 3, 1912, L.F. Kebler testified about Tobacco products:
Centuries before cocain was introduced as a remedial agent, wonderful accounts of the energy-creating properties of coca leaves were chronicled. The phenomenal endurance attributed to the Peruvians and others was often ascribed to the stimulating effects produced by the chewing of coca leaves, and this idea has been widely exploited. It is believed to some extent at present that the use of cocain taken internally produces a sense of exhilaration, and the amount of muscular and mental power appears to be temporarily increased. Impetus was given to this belief by the enthusiastic reports of this drug, published not only in medical literature but in the secular press as well.
Cocain is one of the most insidious and dangerous habit-forming drugs at present known. Many lives have been wrecked and many crimes have been committed as a result of its use, and strenuous efforts are being made to curtail its employment. The amount present in certain soft drinks is small, to be sure, but such an insidious, habit-forming drug certainly has no place whatsoever in these products. The presence of tropococain, an ally of cocain, has also been established.
Not only is it pernicious to add cocain to soft drinks in any quantity (usually in the form of coca leaf extract), but even the use of coca leaf extract so manipulated as to reduce the amount of cocain, or eliminate it altogether, must be looked upon as a questionable practice, because any product or name which would suggest the presence of cocain or its allies, by taste or otherwise, must have a baneful influence. It is known that the very small amounts of morphine or cocain, or even the suggestion of their presence, will tend to destroy the equilibrium of reformed addicts and bring back the former craving.
The virtues of coca leaves and kola nuts have been exploited together, and it is only natural that they should be combined in preparations which would represent the purported virtues of both. Such combinations were made with the result that quite a number of so-called soft drinks now on the market contain both of the habit-forming agents, cocaine and caffeine. It was not uncommon to find persons addicted to the use of medicated soft-drinks. It is well-known fact that many factory employees, stenographers, typewriters, and others subjected to mental or nervous strain spend a large part of their earnings for drinks of this character.
In passing, it may be of interest to note that life insurance companies are considering the status of soft-drink habitués as future risks.
Various arguments have been advanced in justification of the use of caffeine and the extract of coca leaves, treated or otherwise, in soft drinks. It is a well known that parents, as a rule, withhold tea and coffee from their children, but having no knowledge of the presence of cocain, caffeine or other deleterious agents in soft drinks, they unwittingly permit their children to be harmed by their use. Manufacturers of drinks of this class, containing cocain, have been successfully prosecuted, for example, Koca Nola, Celery Cola, Wiseola, Pillsbury's Koke, Kola-Ade, Kos-Kola, Cafe-Coca, and Koke.
http://books.google.com/books?output=text&id=dgE9AAAAYAAJ&dq=food+drugs+act&jtp=1
Dr. Kebler. Yes; and investigation has shown that tobacco and preparations of tobacco contain arsenic and lead, due to the fact that there has been used in the growing of tobacco lead arsenate, a chemical to deter or kill certain pests. As a matter of fact, some tobacco contains a goodly quantity of arsenic.... We have not been able to go into that as fully as we would like. We know that tobacco is adulterated, but how generally it is adulterated we do not know.Get that. Kebler knew Tobacco products contaned lead and arsenic from their methods of commercial agriculture, yet his "Habit-Forming Agents: Their Indiscriminate Sale and Use A Menace to the Public Welfare" concern about this Tobacco, was it being displaced by Coca - of course as the U.S.D.A.'s very mission from its onset was promoting domestic agriculture.
Mr. Hamilton. I suppose you would be able to cite certain brands that are dangerous to health, would you not?
Dr. Kebler. I suppose most of them would be dangerous to health.
Likewise, Wiley knew Tobacco as harmful. Writing for an article published in 1922:
What does tobacco do to us? There is in it a poison called nicotine so deadly that one full drop of it would kill an adult. A smaller portion of it taken for the first time by a boy makes him deathly sick. That gives warning of its poisonous character, but doesn't usually wean him from the folly. It did not in my case, for I speak as an ex-smoker. I quit at the end of my first week, after.
I had got over the nausea and had begun to enjoy "a good cigar." But I had already discovered that tobacco would hobble my brain and lead others to follow my bad example. Tobacco of any kind puts a soft-pedal on efficiency of mind and body. It puts us in a state of narcosis. We are half chloroformed. The Literary Digest of April 15, 1922, records a test of the effects of tobacco on efficiency at Stanford University. Telegraph operators of three kinds were selected for the test. None of them smoked on duty. Those who smoked much when off duty were regarded as "heavy smokers." Their percentage of efficiency was 38. Those who smoked two pipes a day or one cigar, or two or three cigarettes before and after work and at noon, were regarded as "light smokers." Their efficiency was 40.1. The women operators, non-smokers, though of the "weaker sex," excelled both the other groups with an efficiency record of 46.6. The nicotine not only dulls our nerve cells, but kills some of them. If you have brains to burn, a tobacco bonfire is a good way to get rid of the surplus. One criminal lawyer argued jocosely to me that it was better for the world that he should smoke as he could in that case do less harm in his profession. I seriously agreed that was one of the many cases where "truth had been spoken in jest." If your work for the world is a curse, the more you dull your powers and shorten your life through "Lady Nicotine," the better.
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/protect-growing-youth-against-habit.html
1916: We begin speaking out against the dangers of smoking and the effect advertising has in recruiting new smokers. "Unfortunately, there are many subtle ways of encouraging young men to smoke," writes Dr. Wiley. "Hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent every year in telling the readers of periodicals of the merits of this, that, and the other brand of tobacco."
1921: Dr. Wiley links tobacco use to heart disease, noting that men smoke more and so suffer more heart disease than women. Seven years later, he warns women that use of tobacco is a cause of mouth, tongue, and throat cancer, more than 30 years before the U.S. Surgeon General officially acknowledges the connection. http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/product-testing/history/good-housekeeping-research-institute-timeline
Absent was any demonstration from Wiley/Kebler's AMA-APha of any dangers with dilute cocaine in products as Vin Mariani (the 1905 Council of Pharmacy condemnation focused upon its labeling as foreign, when in fact its foreign formulation was replicated in Mariani & Co.'s New York facility for North American sales with the identical formula and ingrediants). Although Wiley was famous for his USDA 'Poison squad' volunteer tests of foods laced with varius additives, he apparantly never had such a demonstration even attempted for coca or cocaine. This was even as he persued numerous prosecutions of Coca or otherwise dilute cocaine food products for "adulteration" - for containing a dangerous substance to wit cocaine. Usually such prosecutions were coupled with those for "mislabeling" for not stating cocaine on the label; however, as his famous prosecution against Coca-Cola demonstrated, Wiley did not see himself needing a charge of "mislabeling" required for one of "adulteration" which he brought against Coca-Cola for containing the 'dangerous' substance of caffeine.
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/post-1906-demise-of-us-coca.html
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-dark-ages-usda-crusade-against-coca.html
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/wiley-cocaine-policy.html
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/harvey-washington-wiley-paradox.html
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/wileys-usurpation-of-power-over.html
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/wileys-subversion-of-our-freedom-of.html
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/harvey-wiley-resume-1915.html
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/wileys-great-american-fraud-of.html
What is a drug habit? .... The habit-forming drugs which are most extensively used are alcohol, nicotine and caffeine. If we class as drug addicts those who have acquired the habit for one or more of these drugs the number of them in the United States would be very close to half or two-thirds of the population. When we speak of drug addicts, however, we usually have in mind a more restricted sense and refer rather to those who are slaves to opium or the coca leaf and their derivatives. ... I would not favor of any restrictive legislation respecting tobacco and tea and coffee, except in so far as children are concerned. [box 201 - Harvey Wiley papers]
In the sudden light which the Pure Food law throws into certain dark corners, that widely-bruited pick-me-up for lassitudinous ladies, Vin Mariani, takes on a changed aspect. From the enthusiastic encomiums, given out for advertising purposes by sundry actresses, one might suppose that the so-called French preparation was at once the most bracing and the most harmless of concoctions. Across its label, however, the pure food law has recorded the warning fact: "Each ounce represents one-tenth of one grain of cocain." This shuts it out of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, all cities and towns in Massachusetts, and many other places. As the average American woman can read and is not a fool. I fancy that even in those localities where cocain can be sold only in patent medicine form without a prescription (as has been the case until recently in the District of Columbia, thanks to Senator and ex-Doctor Gallinger's efforts on behalf of the nostrum people), the Vin Mariani trade will rapidly decline.This 1904+ campaign against 'cocaine' (to confuse the public about the vast difference between dilute and ultraconcentrated drug-dosing- try sniffing Blast caffeine instead of drinking Coffee) centered around the Harvey Wiley AMA-APhA campaign against the substances 'habit-forming' as what people choose to consume regularly and hence the greatest market threats to their alliance of synthetic pharamceuticles and Tobacco cigarettes- an alliance marked by several decades of medical journals featuring cigarettes advertisements with doctors implying the 'healthiness' of cigarettes.
Next to cocain nostrums, the most dangerous class of patent medicines is that containing narcotics, such as opium, morphin and cannabis indica. Various are the evasions and contortions resorted to by these dopes in their efforts to make the best of the new law. [*JAMA 'The Nostrum Evil']
This campaign included the AMA-APhA 'model legislation' campaign in the various State legislatives to enact prohibitions upon foods containing any amount of cocaine, and to require a non refillable prescription for any such drug products.
On the federal level this included the efforts within the U.S. Congress to 'amend' the 1906 Act, leading to what became the Harrison Act, signed into 'law' December 17, 1914.
Internationally it included U.S. State Department participation in this agricultural racketerring via the 'Opium Convention' scheme, with the ultimate goal of getting other nations to ban low dose dilute cocaine, as well as decieving the Emperor of China.
This all came upon the heels of the USDA's experimentation in assessing the commercial potential of Coca and other drug crops as domestic U.S. agriculture, likely confirming U.S. domestic Coca's requirement of greehouses- making it costlier then say Tobacco.
It is my opinion that the Coca plant is adapted for culture in many countries where it is now unknown. Among the countries where it would be well to experiment with it are Guatemala, Mexico, the East and West Indies, India, Southern China, potions of Africa, and possibly India. It is doubtful if it would grow in any portion of the United States. Requiring an average temperature of at least 70o, the only districts at all suited would be Florida and Southern Texas [this was written before the 1898 U.S. acquisition of the Kingdom of Hawaii]; and it is highly probable that proximity to the sea-coast at so low an altitude would prove fatal. Nor would irrigation prove adequate in those countries possessing a long dry season. The plants must not only have an abundant supply of water at the roots; they must be bathed in a humid atmosphere for the greater portion of the year. But from what I have read of some of the countries above named, I am confident that the plant would there find a congenial home. Jamaica offers especially hopeful conditions. U.S. William Martindate, p 37 1892 book Coca and Cocaine: [see: Journal of a Voyage on the Amazon and Rio Negro, Hooker's Journal Of Botany, vol. 1853, p. 212; Therapeutic Gazette, January 1886, p. 14 Pharmacy Journal 1886, p.705]
January 10, 1904 issue of The Boston Sunday Globe ‘Uncle Sam’s poison Farm.’
‘Government Conducts a Novel Industry on the Potomac Flats- plants which yield the most powerful and valuable drugs known to science- will start growing opium growing, too, in Texas’.This experiment ended at roughly the time that the U.S.D.A. adopted its stance against Coca in food and drug products, which was mere months after the U.S.A. aquired control over the construction of the Panama Canal, which would have drastically shortened the shipping routes of Coca from the Peruvian coast to North Atlantic markets, and which was completed and opened for traffic in 1914- the year of the Harrison 'Narcotics' Act.
Overlooking the Pharma-Tobacco Connection
For Coca was already being seen as a market alternative to other stimulants, such as Coffee/caffeine, and particularly to Tobacco, at least since sometime after the initial apparance of Vin Mariani.
Initially sold as an energizer for overworked, overstressed Parisian opera performers, and inspiring other such Coca leaf derived herbal products as other Coca beverages, lozenges, Vin Mariani was found to have numerious therapeutic virtues:
“I have also employed it in cases, happily rare in our army, of chronic alcoholism resulting from the abuse of brandy, absinthe or strong liquors. The produced all the excitement sought by drinkers, but had at the same time a sedative influence on their nervous systems. I have frequently seen hardened drinkers renounce their fatal habit and return to a healthy condition." "I have also used to save smokers of exaggerated habits, from nicotinism. A few glasses of taken in small doses, either pure or mixed with water, acted as a substitute for pipes and cigars, because the smokers found in it the cerebral excitement which they sought in tobacco, wholly preserving their intellectual faculties." -- Dr. Liberman and VilleneuveAnd also with smoking Coca leaves.
According to an article by Dr. F.E. Stewart in the September 19, 1885 Philadelphia Medical Times, about a newer form of Coca leaf products introduced by the 1880s- Coca leaf smokables- cigars, cheroots and even cigarettes.
"Coca has been used with great success in the treatment of the opium habit, it is also an excellent substitute for Tobacco [emphasis added]. It has been successfully used in dyspepsia, flatulency, colic, gastralgia, enteralgia, hysteria, hypochondria, spinal irritation, idiopathic convulsions , nervous erethism, and in the debility following severe acute affections. As it is a valuable restorative agent, checking tissue-waste, it is also a useful remedy in consumption [?] and wasting diseases generally. It is also of value in the nervous forms of sick-headache, migraine. It is also said to be an aphrodisiac." -- Dr. F.E. Stewart appearing in the September 19, 1885 Philadelphia Medical TimesReporting on several cases of experiences with smoking Coca, Stewart found that most found them useful, with a high percentage finding Coca cigars as useful for stemming depression -- the "blues" -- and as a mild stimulant. Citing one example of a leading Wilmington, Delaware physician:
"After dinner, he smoked a couple of the cigars, with the effect that the blues were expelled and he felt the exhilarating effect of the drug in the same manner as after a dose of the wine. It is his opinion that the effect of the cigars is milder than that of the wine, but he is satisfied that he experienced the peculiar power of the coca by smoking it."Citing others, a man suffering dyspepsia -- a digestive disorder -- and its attendant depression:
"smoked the cigars...the result being to dispel the depressed feeling and remove the fullness experienced after each meal. Repeated experiments confirm this. As coca is said to stimulate the gastric nerves and greatly facilitate digestion, the above experiment seems to prove that the cigar has a similar effect."These experiments included Dr. Stewart's own use. Writing upon his personal discovery of Coca leaf smoking as a treatment for hay fever:
Personally, I have found the effect of smoking coca leaves to bear out the statement that the drug produces a general excitation of the circulatory and nervous systems. Smoking and inhaling the smoke of one or two cigars will increase my own pulse rate some eight or ten beats to the minute.And with Coca chewing gum, such as Coca-Bola.
It certainly relieves the scene of fatigue. Smoked at night, in my own case and in the cases of several of my patients, it produces wakefulness similar to strong coffee. The exaltation produced by it does not seem to be followed by any feeling of languor or depression. I find it a relief after a full meal, like a good tobacco cigar. It seems to impart increased vigor to the muscular system as well to the intellect, with an indescribable feeling of satisfaction. I have never experienced any intoxicating effects from smoking it.
Dr. Bartholow says that coca, as in the case with tea and coffee, acts as an indirect nutrient by checking waste, and hence a less amount of food is necessary to maintain the bodily functions; and as I have just learned, in a letter from Messrs. Parke, Davis and Company, that "a Mr. Stevens, a citizen of Abilene, Kansas, who was afflicted with hay fever, and was about to go to the mountains, has concluded to remain at home, having obtained relief from the use of cigarettes of coca. Every morning he uses a cigarette and perfect relief. He uses three per day.
After many trials I succeeded in having the coca put up as a masticatory in the form of plugs like tobacco. These were made at my suggestion by C.L. Mitchell, M.D. & Co., Pharmaceutical Chemists, of Ninth and Race Streets, Philadelphia. I have given this preparation the name of “Coca-Bola” from coca and bolus, a mass. Each plug is about the size of an ordinary plug of chewing tobacco, and contains about 200 grains (nearly half its weight) of coca leaves, besides a small quantity each of tea, coffee and coinchona bark. Each plug is marked off for convenience into squares, each square containing about 16 grains of coca leaves; this quantity is about sufficient for a single dose or chew and even a smaller portion my suffice. It is to be thoroughly masticated in the same manner when chewing tobacco, the saliva being swallowed, not ejected as in tobacco chewing. After the mass has been masticated for some time and the virtues of the coca leaf pretty well extracted, the residue is to be ejected. A chew of the “Coca-bola” take in this manner occasionally throughout the day will generally completely satisfy the craving for stimulants, and at the same time remove any feeling of depression or fatigue. The addition of the tea and coffee seem to assist considerably the sustaining and stimulating effect of the coca leaves without producing any injurious after effects.
The advantages of this method of administering were found to be many and removed completely all the difficulties previously referred to. It contained no alcohol, did not require the use of the objectionable bottle and spoon, was exceeding convenient, and as it so closely resembled tobacco, its continued use excited no remark. Besides it could be easily carried in the vest pocket and was always at hand when needed.http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/coca-to-combat-opiate-alcohol-and.html
By the use of the “Coca-bola,” in the treatment of the class of cases previously referred to , we substitute for the objectionable habit of drinking liquor the harmless use of coca. So free is it from all injurious effects that I can say that in my opinion no greater boon could be conferred on humanity that in the conversion of all alcohol drinkers into coca chewers. At my request, Dr. Mitchell has now prepared the “Coca-bola” for sale and will shortly place it on the market, when I would ask its careful trial by such of my professional brethren as are interested in the treatment of this class of cases.
Coca-Bola will also be found to be a very valuable substitute for tobacco, especially in the treatment of those who are suffering from the pernicious effects of its excessive use in the habit of chewing. It is a well known fact in the treatment of the cases that the greatest obstacle, and the one which meets the physician at the very outset, is the difficulty experienced in providing a suitable substitute for the offending “quid.” The chewing of tobacco, soon leads almost unconsciously to the formation of a habit of chewing, and when the mouth becomes accustomed to the frequent regularity of the movements of mastication, and the continued presence of a foreign body, the action becomes in a certain sense an involuntary one, and any interruption or break in its regular performance adds a disturbing element which greatly enhances the depression naturally resulting from the withdrawal of the physiological stimulus of the tobacco. A habit soon becomes a second nature, and a habitual chewer of tobacco derives as much satisfaction, and from the “company” of the “chew”, to which he had accustomed himself, as he does from the drug itself.
The use of tobacco in chewing or smoking, as well as the frequent drinking of liquor, produces a catarrhal condition of the mouth which also adds to the desire for the presence of the quid. The oral mucosa are in a state of sub-acute congestion, and while the first result of the habit is to stimulate their secretions, this is soon followed by catarrhal changes, whereby the saliva and other juices become greatly diminished in quantity. An uncomfortable feeling of dryness and heat in the mouth soon results, only alleviated by the employment of the alcohol, or the tobacco. To relieve this condition of affairs in many different "tobacco substitutes" have been recommended, but with very little success. They are generally compounds containing large quantities of licorice-root, and while they partly satisfy the taste, they do not supply any stimulus or sustaining agent to take the place of the refreshing and almost nourishing tobacco, neither do they allay the congestion of the mouth.
Coca leaves should, theoretically, be an excellent substitute for tobacco.
They have an agreeable, bitter aromatic taste when chewed in the mouth; they greatly diminish the blood supply in the superficial capillaries of the mucous membrane, and should thus relieve the congestion of the oral mucosa; and the general tonic, stimulating and sustaining powers of the drug should render it a suitable and innocent substitute to take the place of tobacco. Moreover, it leaves behind it no injurious after effects, and its use can be at any time suspended after the patient has lost his desire for the former drug. When, therefore, the coca leaves can be presented in the form of a masticatory, and satisfy both the physiological requirements of the case and the "habit" of the chewer, it would seem as if every condition for a perfect substitute for chewing tobacco had been fulfilled. – C.L. Mitchell, M.D. in "Clinical Notes".http://books.google.com/books?id=vzj0SGBjK_4C&pg=PA36-IA4&lpg=PA36-IA4&dq=coca+substitution+for+tobacco&source=bl&ots=TV6P-OVKGV&sig=phe_-y4Ai7oex5X14nmFWgFOWPE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=D1APUJ2KJIa36wGR2oDwBw&ved=0CFMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=coca%20substitution%20for%20tobacco&f=false
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/coca-as-tobacco-habit-cure.html
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/criminal-mercantilism-public-health.html
Meanwhile attempts were made to hide Tobacco addiction with claims that Tobacco cigarettes were being laced with Opium in order to make them more habituating, as if the more physically addictive substance, Tobacco needed such. Or if this was even ethical, given what was already known on the very floor of the U.S. Congress as it debated the 1914 Harrison 'Narcotics' Act.
... there are tens of thousands of people in the United States who die every year from the excessive use of cigarettes; and yet I find Senators still pulling away at the cigarette as though t were a perfectly harmless thing. I believe the Senator will agree with me that there are many thousands of people who die from what is called tobacco cancer, a cancerous growth affecting the throat from overuse of cigars; and we find perhaps 60 percent of the Senators pulling away at the cigar as unconcerned as though no one were dying as a result of these cigars...
U.S. Congress, Senator Porter James McCumber (R) North Dakota, August 15, 1914
With Tobacco so protected by the 1906 Food and Drug, and the 1914 Harrison Acts, cigarette manufacturers were not only free of the market competition of herbal Opium and Coca leaf products, they were additionally free to be exempt from the basic requiring of labeling of the ingrediants of their cigarettes, required for anything else except alcoholic beverages.
Powder cocaine and heroin could become the new scapegoat used to 'justify' this repression, forgetting the numerous benifits and safety of Opium and Coca as plant drugs compared to the refined ultraconcentrates favored by prohibition, along with with the officially protected cigarettes.
In each major category of intoxicant used by our species, there appear to be one or two drug plants that researchers have noted, are more controllable, hence safer, than all the other plants or synthetics in that category. Coca leaf stands out among all the stimulants, licit and illicit, as the easiest to control and the one least likely to produce toxicity or dependency. http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/coca-leaf-stands-out-among-all.htmlAnd this is what the USDA was able to ban, for the sake of protecting the most dangerous option of Virginia Bright Leaf Tobacco, particularly as cigarettes, more physically addictive then heroin, and way more intrinsically harmful -- imagine taking nicotine as heroin is customerily under prohibition -- taking nearly half a million lives annually within just the U.S.A.
Adulterated, Mis-Branded Cigarettes
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/04/adulterated-tobacco-cigarettes.html
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/04/adulterated-tobacco-cigarettes.html
And that, along with alcoholic beverages are the only two class of consumables exempt from retail product labeling requirements- you can't even find labling informing if your beverage is sweetened with regular sugar or HFCS.
Yet we have this empire of a 'drug war' to deny us Opium and Coca, perverting them into concentrated heroin and cocaine, for the sake of protecting all of that space behind cash register counters everywhere for cigarettes.
That's some drug war.
Production of Cigarettes 1880 - 1968
From Licit & Illicit Drugs, by Edward M. Brecher and Consumers Reports at page 230 showing upturns in cigarette production, following the times of the 1906, 1914 and 1937 U.S. 'drug control laws'
From Licit & Illicit Drugs, by Edward M. Brecher and Consumers Reports at page 230 showing upturns in cigarette production, following the times of the 1906, 1914 and 1937 U.S. 'drug control laws'
Missing the Opportunity
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2012/08/missing-opportunity.html
Drug Policy Reform Subverted by Cigarette Industry Influence?
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2010/07/peter-lewis-ira-glasser-is-waste-of.html
AMA self styled 'quackbuster' shilled for big Tobacco
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2015/03/self-styled-quackbuster-jama-editor-dr.html
No comments:
Post a Comment