Vin Mariani- The Latter Years

Historical accounts of Vin Mariani focus perhaps exclusively upon the years prior to the prohibition era.

Here is a bit of the history following the 1906 U.S. Food and Drug Act that effectively blacklisted cocaine via including it on a list of ingredients that had to be labeled, though not including the other popularly used stimulants of caffeine and nicotine.

1907: Vin Mariani for the U.S. market deleted the cocaine, adding a rear side label- see below.  I don't yet have information if they continued to provide the regular version as an alternative.

GUARANTEED BY MARIANI & Co. UNDER THE FOOD AND DRUGS ACT JUNE 30, 1906; SERIAL No. 448

VIN MARIANI

[MARIANI WINE]

17 PER CENT ALCOHOL BY VOLUME

AN IMPORTED FRENCH BORDEAUX WINE WITH A SPECIAL 

PROCESSING OF LEAVES OF ERYTHROXYLON COCA

PREPARED AND BOTTLED AT OUR NEW YORK FACILITY 

MARIANI AND COMPANY

PARIS, FRANCE: 41 Boulevard Haussman.   NEW YORK: 52 West 15th Street

  "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 AROMATIC and MEDICINAL qualities and, as we have never considered the negligible amount of alkaloid in such leaves essential to our formula, our processing completely eliminates it from our preparation”

That was actually a bad move for it implied that cocaine was something that did not belong in dilute amounts, never-mind that the real problems with cocaine came with it in concentrated forms, and that there was never any showing that cocaine in dilute form was any more "dangerous" than such other naturally occurring stimulant alkaloids as caffeine and nicotine,, both used in dilute form and both likewise poisonous in concentrated forms.

The 1906 Act neither banned cocaine as an ingredient in food or drug products.  It simply required labeling the cocaine content- itself a reasonable requirement, though actually misleading - by not likewise require the labeling of caffeine and nicotine it created a false assumption of cocaine being somehow more dangerous in likewise dilute form.

However the 1906 Act would serve as a means to bring about the deletion of dilute cocaine, via its un-fetted delegation of regulatory power to declare an ingredient unsafe to the Bureau of Chemistry of the U.S.D.A.

That started happening in 1907 with U.S.D.A. prosecutions not only against manufacturers for 'mislabeling' for failing to label the cocaine content, but others for adulteration for containing cocaine- even if properly label, with the U.S.D.A. declaring without basis that such cocaine content was dangerous.  For instance, though Wiley was well known for his "poison squad" experimentations upon food containing various substances used as preservatives, he apparently never conducted any such researching upon beverages that contained cocaine.


Such 'adulteration' prosecutions by the U.S.D.A. were done with products sold as foods.  Never-mind that the 1906 Act's inclusion of cocaine as an ingredient that had to be labeled in food and drug products implicitly meant that it remained legal.

Perhaps as a way of bolstering his authority to ban substances by declaring them unsafe Harvey Wiley initiated a famous prosecution against the Coca Cola Company for containing added caffeine- that is caffeine in pure form as a dilute ingredient- for he not only never targeted Coffee or Tea but actually praised them.

Such prosecutions would only go after products sold as foods, and hence could conceivably be sold as drugs.  However the political campaign being carried out by the U.S.D.A. Chemistry Bureau Chief Harvey Wiley - who was also prominent in the American Medical Association and its allied American Pharmaceutical Association - also targeted cocaine containing medicinal preparations via a massive lobbying effort of 'model legislation' for the individual U.S. States to ban the sale of such outside of a physicians prescription, with such prescriptions being mandated a s"non-refillable".

Political machinations in the 1908 to 1914 period would work upon amending the 1906 Act to outright ban products containing any amount of cocaine and to severely restrict those containing at least above a certain amount of opiates- efforts that culminated in 1914 with the U.S. Harrison Act.  While the particular political fear of cocaine was sold in newspapers as a fear of Negroes in the south, a 1910 U.S.D.A. Farmer Bulletin article more honestly presented the U.S.D.A.'s fear of Coca being sold and used as a "Tobacco Habit Cure".

That Act would exempt products containing below a certain amount of opiates though not of cocaine from over the counter -- that is without a physician's prescription -- from a deceptively innocuous appearing to some tax requirement, to be administered by a U.S. Department of Treasury that was not actually required to honor requests for market participation thus effectively empowering that entity to enact a virtually blanket prohibition.  This delegation of regulatory authority would be upheld by a U.S. Judge who had served in the U.S. Congress from 1909 until his resignation in 1914, and who was present in deliberations regarding amending the 1906 Food and Drug Act leading to the crafting of the 1914 Harrison Act: James Harry Covington.

As requiring non refillable prescriptions for products containing any amount of cocaine effectively made their sale and use impractical -- e.g. by requiring a separate physicians visit for each non refillable prescription -- cocaine containing preparations dissipated from OTC sales, with any such prescriptions effectively confined to a far narrower spectrum of uses, such as the use of the more concentrated  preparations in surgical anesthesia.  Any physician considering prescriptions outside of such a narrow range of uses would likewise soon be effectively cowed by the U.S. Treasury Department's abuse of its delegated regulatory authority to essentially practice medicine without a license.

Other nations would adopt such polices, though for a time some exempted dilute cocaine products as Vin Mariani.  Conceivably, Vin Mariani was produced in different versions for different market jurisdictions, though such information so far remains elusive.

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/us-state-departments-opium-convention.html

1938

1938

1946- this shows the classic Vin Mariani bottle

1938

According to an article by Walter Helfland, Vin Mariani was sold in some form until 1963.

Dilute Cocaine in Vin Mariani, Coca-Cola & Harvey Wiley - According to Steven B. Karch

A Brief History of Cocaine - Steven B. Karch

pp 100-102

If our drug policies appear convoluted today, think how they must have looked to the owners of the Coca-Cola Company just after the turn of the century.  In 1911, company officials found themselves in federal court, charged with, among other things, not putting cocaine in Coca- Cola.  Popular histories of this period usually lump Coca-Cola with the [sic] other quack nostrums [sic- a nostrum is simply a medicated liquid meant to be take orally], often suggesting that the problem of cocaine abuse in America was, in some way, connected to the successes of the Coca-Cola Company.  Except for the titillation factor, the idea has little to recommend it.  Even when Coca-Cola contained cocaine, the amounts were trivial; too small to produce measurable physiological or behavioral changes.  Coca-Cola was not responsible for America's cocaine problem, but government harassment of the Atlanta soft drink maker did mark an important turning point in the development of American drug policy, and is worth examining in some detail.

Government moves against Coca-Cola were orchestrated by Dr. Harvey Wiley, a zealous bureaucrat.  Wiley was the first head of the Bureau of Chemistry within the Department of Agriculture, the agency responsible for enforcing the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.  Wiley was one in a series of government officials, such as Hamilton Wright and Harry Anslinger, who made their living by campaigning against the evils of drug abuse.  These anti drug crusaders had more in common than just the desire to rid society of its drug problem; all were willing to use very bad, sometimes fraudulent science to advance their arguments.  The duel problem of "drug careerism", and the tendency to use political considerations as a means of determining scientific truth, have not gone away.  However, the issues were more clearly framed at the turn of the century.

During the early 1900s, the patent medicine [sic- a 'patent medicine' would be something that is patentable, aka a synthetic creation today known as a 'pharmaceutical', what is referred to here are actually 'proprietary medicines' generally blended compounds of naturally existing substances] market was crowded and fiercely competitive [ahh!!- generally meaning less expensive].  No central registry for these products ever existed, but informed estimates suggest that, at one time, more than 25,000 different patent medications were for sale in the United States.  As is true today, the success or failure of a new product was determined by the amount of money producers could spend on advertising.  Millions upon millions were spent promoting these products, and since the market was completely unregulated, even the most outrageous claims were permitted.  Revenues from patent [sic] drugmakers turned publishers into lobbyists for the drugmakers. Drug producers offered long term advertising contracts, but the contracts all contained automatic cancellation clauses, if by some accident, laws were passes prohibiting sales of heir product.  The publishers, of course, made every effort to see that that did not occur.

While some of the claims for Angelo Mariani's wine may have been overblown, there never was any doubt that the product contained wine and coca.  Using only coca leaf meant that there was a limit on how much cocaine Mariani could get into the wine.  By the mid 1890s, however, there was a glut of cocaine on the market, and patent [sic] drugmakers were able to dump large amounts of cocaine into their products [sic- I've seen no indication of this with the beverages, rather the problem were types of preparations meant for more direct use, such as intranasal or by injection], making them very popular, but addictive [sic- a better term would be 'toxic-maniac] and dangerous.

The medical literature of the late 1800s contains dozens of reports describing severe, occasionally lethal, reactions to cocaine anesthesia.  But as far as anyone knows, no one ever became ill, let alone addicted, to Vin Mariani, or any other coca-based wine.  Vin Mariani contained only a very small amount of cocaine, probably less than 6 mg per ounce, not enough to cause toxicity.  When combined with alcohol, however, a 6 to 8 ounce serving would have been more than enough to create feelings of well being.  The real secret behind Vin Mariani's success was not even known to Mariani, and was only discovered more than a century later.

In the late 1980s, the number of cocaine-related deaths in Miami, Florida began to explode.  lee Hearn, a toxicologist with the Miami Dade County Medical Examiner office, and Deborah Mash, a neurochemist at the University of Miami, first noted that when the deceased had been drinking alcohol and using cocaine at the same time, a new molecule, somewhat like cocaine, could be detected in their urine.  These observations were confirmed by Peter Jatlow at Yale, and another group of scientists in Barcelona.  It is now clear that cocaethylene has most of the same stimulant properties as cocaine, but that it lasts much longer.  Even though the cocaine content of Mariani's wine was relatively low, mixing the cocaine with alcohol resulted in a much higher effective dose!

Coca-Cola contained even less cocaine than Vin Mariani.  According to a formulation held by the great-grandson of Frank Robinson, one of Coca-Cola's founders, 10 pounds of coca leaf were used to make 36 gallons of syrup.  Coca leaf from South America contains very little cocaine, probably less than 0.5%, and not all of that can be extracted.  Thus Coca-Cola, as originally produced, would have contained about 100 mg of cocaine per gallon (10lb=22.5 kg, 55 x 22.5 kg = 112 mg) or 1.5 mg per ounce, only one-fourth the amount of cocaine found in Vin Mariani.  Such minute amounts of cocaine would certainly not have been enough to produce a detectable physiological response, and it is absurd to suggest that Coca-Cola ever had addictive properties, or that its cocaine content was responsible for its success.  Coca-Cola was successful for the very same reason that Vin Mariani was successful: it was brilliantly promoted.  Coca-Cola's managers were better salesmen than Mariani's, and Coca-Cola prospered, while Mariani gradually lost market share.  Coca-Cola continued to grow and prosper long after the cocaine had been dropped from the original formula.  Vin Mariani was not so well promoted, and after World War I, it simply faded from existence.

Vin Mariani After 1914

Angelo Francois Mariani died April 1, 1914, yet his product existed for some time afterwards.

This is the first Vin Mariani item that I've seen that appears to be post 1914- date unknown

This has an address of 10 rue de Chartres - Neully.

Vin Mariani Cir 1900

From Figures Contemporaines Tires de L'Album Mariani 1902

Vin Mariani U.S. Penetration

Angelo Francois Mariani b. December 17, 1838 - d. April 1, 1914

http://alcoholanddrugshistorysociety.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/shad-23-1-smith1.pdf

Perhaps the best way to explain Mariani’s success, however, is the examination of Mariani and Company’s promotional materials and published consumer responses in the United States from 1886 to 1910. It seems clear that Mariani’s wine, and its many imitators, were quite popular in the United States during these years.

Actual business records of the company do not seem to exist, but at least one unique source exists: The Efficacy of Coca Erythroxylon: Notes and Comments by Prominent Physicians, a Mariani pamphlet published in 1888 and apparently distributed as promotional material. Its contents include published letters from numerous doctors across the United States praising Mariani wine. 24

Of course, this data is not as reliable as say, sales figures, and certainly there could be letters received by the company that were unpublished. However, this evidence deserves consideration. There is no doubt Mariani’s company printed the pamphlet to help sell its product. On the other hand, given the randomness of the locations of the letter writers and the diverse numbers from those particular locations, it would be hard to conclude that the company simply made up the data to sell the product. Therefore, it is quite possible to treat this evidence like a primitive form of consumer research or polling data.

Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia were represented in the pamphlet, clearly indicating a nationwide distribution system. Roughly 300, or over a quarter of these letters, came from New York State. The second most represented state is Pennsylvania with about 10% of the total. Coming in third is Massachusetts with roughly 6% of the total. Ohio followed with about 5%. 25

One interesting aspect of the distribution of these letters is their concentration in some of the most heavily industrialized parts of the country. Here, Spillane and Gootenberg’s recognition of coca/cocaine as being an aspect of modern society, and a way to cope with it, rings true.

According to U.S. Census statistics New York, the state with the most letters, was the most industrially developed state in the union in 1890, with 65,840 manufacturing establishments, and 752,066 wage earners.26

Pennsylvania had 39,339 manufacturing establishments and an average number of 570,393 wage earners.27  Massachusetts and Ohio also had high levels of industrialization with 26,923 manufacturers and 447,270 wage earners in Massachusetts and 28,673 establishments and 292,982 wage workers in Ohio.28

Although those four states were the leaders, it is important to note that the wine was present in all regions of the country.

All the Border States of the near southern United States, Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware (combined about 10% of total letters) had doctors who sent the company letters.29

The South is represented by Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Virginia, South Carolina, and Louisiana (about 8%).

The Midwest represented by Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, and Wisconsin (about 22%).

The West is the smallest by proportion, represented by Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Oregon, and California (5%).

A little over half then (55%) of the correspondence is from the heavily industrialized Northeast: New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island, and the District of Columbia.30

The lowest levels of penetration are in the west, where levels of industrialization were low: Colorado, Utah, Oregon, and California combined for 11,495 manufacturing establishments and 108, 821 wage earners, only a fraction of just one state in the Northeast, like New York.31 The numbers of imitators spawned can also measure Vin Mariani’s success.

The Druggists Circular Price List of Drugs” published in April, 1903, lists 27 wine-medicines, out of over 100, that have the word coca in their name. The number increases to almost half if one counts the appearance of the word cocoa (the terms were often confused, however one cannot discount the possibility that cocoa and wine were mixed).32

There are also 24 total listings with “Vin,” “Vinum,” and “Vinegar,” in the name, showing the presence of many other wine-medicines.

Vin Mariani also appears to be affordable; it is listed at $1.75 a bottle.33

In 1910, the price decreased to $ 1.00.34

Who consumed Vin Mariani?

The price range of $1.00 to $1.75 probably fit the average wage of $543 a year in 1902. It is likely that factory workers making $61.20 a week (on average), or $3,182 a year, or clerks making an average of $1,037 a year, could consume more than low skilled workers or domestics making $501 and $270 a year respectively.35

The price of the wine also compared favorably to that of liquor at $1.00 a quart in 1902, and other
wines priced at $5.00 for 12 quarts.36  Vin Mariani consumers were for the most part, middle class, and that appears to be the audience they reached with their advertising.

"The Goddess Bringing the Coca Branch to Europe" and Families

Angelo Francois Mariani's
Neuilly-sur-Seine Coca Salon ceiling painting
by Eugene Courbin
The Goddess Bringing the Coca Branch to Europe

To me this looks like slightly more than half of a giant family portrait. Take an extra close look not only at the scan obtained from the book Coca Exotica by Joseph Kennedy, and likewise with those below directly from an Album Mariani showing the shoulder of a figure to the right of the Goddess in the Middle, with presumably another set of people on the right-hand side of this painting which is alas cut off.


Was painted or affixed to the ceiling of the Salon at Angelo Francois Mariani's Coca product production facility in Neuilly-sur-Seine, demolished, reportedly in 1948.

I have not found information whether this painting survived the buildings' demolition.

Surely someone out there has a full photo of this interesting painting to share about this most special 'gal' whose essence had been bottled ...



Trio of Most Ancient She-Spirits
http://continuingcounterreformation.blogspot.com/2012/04/trio-of-ancient-she-spirits.html

About the Drug Policy - Covington and Burling Connection

An Interview By The Federal Triangle:
About Appearances of Conflict of Interest with Covington & Burling’s pro-bono advisement relationship with drug policy reform organizations

With 'ML' Marialuisa S. Gallozzi, with C&B since 1987, in 1988 “assigned to take primary responsibility for advising the [drug policy] foundation”

By “FMD” Freedom of Medicine and Diet/ Douglas Willinger

FMD- As reported in FMD, from the initial Drug Policy Foundation biennial report, Arnold Trebach-Kevin Zeese preface letter identifies Covington & Burling’s pro-bono program linkage to the Drug Policy Foundation:

“… the leading Washington, D.C. law firm Covington & Burling accepted the Foundation as a pro bono publico [for the public good] client in regard to cooperate and tax matters in 1988. We have received valuable advice from Marialuisa Gallozzi, the Covington & Burling associate assigned to take primary responsibility for advising the Foundation. Having Covington and Burling in our corner is a source of great comfort.”

People throughout the drug policy reform movement are asking about this advisor-advisee relationship- owing to what they see as a clear potential for how advice from this law firm may affect the drug policy reform organizations, owing to C & B’s long history of clientele. Founded in 1919 at the start of the great growth in U.S. regulatory law, C&B is big into pharmaceuticals and other industries that benefit from the hysteria over the illegalized drugs, particularly Tobacco, there’s a clear interest in keeping up the hysteria over “cocaine” in order to obscure and keep illegal Coca Leaf, and thus a potential conflict of interest in this C&B relationship with drug policy reform organizations.

ML- Absolutely, FMD. A great many thanks for the opportunity to address this appearance of conflict of interest. As the attorney ‘assigned primary responsibility for advising the Foundation’ of this pro-bono program of this major food-tobacco-pharma industry law firm, I have an obligation to the public and to Covington & Burling to make myself available to answer questions regarding this pro bono relationship with the Drug Policy Foundation- now Drug Policy Alliance and other such organizations dedicated to reforming the laws regarding the now illicit drugs. Particularly at a time of this “Fast & Furious” controversy regarding a government program under U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, to flood illicit gun markets in order to better arm the various drug gangs so they may shoot and kill more people, including U.S. border guards, and thereby continue and even escalate this drug war that was started in part by Covington & Burling’s co-founder, James Harry Covington, one time U.S. Congressman from the Maryland eastern shore. You see, Holder is from Covington & Burling, and so is his assistant AG Breuer. And Holder in particular, among his legal practices, represented some pharmaceutical companies- indeed as Covington is perhaps the largest legal representative of much of the pharmaceutical industry. Indeed, with the Controlled Substances Act granting so much power to the USAG, it can be said that the CSA thus so empowers a recent former Covington & Burling attorney who has represented big pharma- so likely guaranteeing a good show at some upcoming Congressional hearing on Fast & Furious.

FMD- Go on.

ML- Covington is the largest representative of so much, including food, drugs-pharmaceuticals. Its first client was the National Canners Association- still a client as the National Food Processors Association. The firm became THE firm for coordinating the defense of the cigarette industry- to sell what would be otherwise deemed a adulterated and mis-branded substance- oh but for the tradition established with that 1906 act for excluding a list of the additives.

Indeed Covington was established in the wake of and along with the tremendous rise in government regulatory expansion, indeed so much centralization in so much at that time, like a re-codification of cannon law to further centralize power within and near Rome.

Indeed, our founder James Harry Covington was involved in the drug war’s creation. Our founder was in the U.S. Congress when the 1906 U.S. Food and drug act was being crafted into the 1914 Harrison Narcotic Act which he than upheld as a federal judge regarding giving the power over health choice to the U.S. Department of Treasury!
As so much of this has created problems that concern many people, such as the tremendous increase in the prison population, it leads us to assist the various organizations that are set up to challenge such problems; but since we represent such a broad array of industry, that we inevitably get caught up in issues that threaten the established interests that we have and continue to represent. By long representing much of the drug-pharmaceutical industry for instance we end up representing those that benefit from the current century old drug control scheme. Hence our involvement with the drug policy reform or legalization movement inevitably raises conflicts with our established interests we represent.

FMD- Such as interests benefiting from this drug war as …?

ML- Various drugs that would be to some degree displaced by legalized Marijuana, Opium, Coca leaf.

Recently 10 pharmaceutical products were enumerated as potentially threatened by legalized Marijuana. Jack Herer of course pointed out the numerous industrial products likewise threatened by legalized Marijuana or rather, in many cases, Hemp, as they don’t use it for its medicinal-psychoactive properties. And of course that elephant in the living room ignored by everyone but yourself of Tobacco-Virginia Bright Leaf cigarettes by Coca Leaf particularly as both are plant-stimulants each respectively with nicotine or cocaine- two well known substances though blatantly perceived differently. You already done a masterful job with your DPF published papers during the early 1990s, though they have not published you since 1992. That is so weird given the potential effectiveness of your arguments to actually undermine support for the drug war regarding cocaine. Yet Ira Glasser, who anyone who can google can find takes Tobacco cigarette industry money, runs away from addressing the issue.

FMD- Oh yes. Did you read my accounts about him? Asides from 1995 with my COCA '95 panel they have not placed me on any panels, nor accept any of my panel proposals except the 1999 History Panel which nonetheless did not include any speakers on the Coca-cocaine issue, even rejecting such proposals as Coca Turning over a new leaf towards reducing health care costs with Dr Lester Grinspoon and Tinctures of Opium Wines of Coca Popular Pre Prohibition Uses of what became today’s white power poisons of abuse, with numerous speakers including Dr, John Morgan and former DPF employee, the writer Cynthia Cotts. The pharma tobacco drug legalization conflict is undeniable. The DPF clearly went away from the Coca cocaine issue, for instance discontinuing holding a regular “cocaine” panel after the 1992 DPF conference- though all in spite of the clear message of 1986 that reformers had to address the drug that was used for the post death of Len Bias by overdose hysteria used to generate public support for more draconian drug contraband penalties of cocaine. And it has gone conservative. We already had NORML and were to additionally get Marijuana Policy Project. Groups as the Drug Policy Foundation and its successor Drug Policy Alliance are about the broader issue of the popular illicit drugs which of course includes cocaine. So why not address it to belay the hysteria? Why keep cocaine a feared “narcotic” while nicotine remains part of a larger chronic poison taking some 440,000 premature lives annually within the U.S. and 6 million plus (if not as high as 40 million) annually worldwide, and 100+ million within the last calendar-century. Why deny the benefits of the Coca leaf- the stimulant according to UCLA’s Dr Ronald K. Siegel, the toxicologist who testified at the trial regarding Len Bias’s cocaine overdose supplier’s trial, that is the safest of its category? Why? Just look at the history, the 20th century drug control scheme in the U.S. came via the USDA- Department of Agriculture. Agricultural Mercantilism. This has raised numerous eyebrows.

ML- I can imagine seeing those eyebrows. A food and drug and insurance attorney at this powerhouse of a law firm for big pharma and the cigarette industry with a pro bono program advising drug policy reform/legalization organizations. And oh boy what a conflict. Our firm represents the interests that benefit from the “drug war”- so people are naturally going to wonder. Especially with no information forthcoming from myself, Covington nor any of these drug policy organizations since FMD began spotlighting this connection back in early 2008.

FMD- Indeed.

ML- This cigarette industry and that of the patent – aka patentable synthetic substances rather then un-patentable natural plant substances were and are the main beneficiaries of this new drug control scheme, of cocaine something to be feared by being required to be labeled while caffeine and nicotine were not, and to be arbitrarily deemed deleterious to human health irregardless of the concentration by a USDA that had been established to protect the interests of domestic business rather than health, thus favoring domestic Tobacco from the foreign market threat of the ‘Tobacco Habit Cure” of Coca Leaf.

Anyone with a background in vocal arts or anesthesiology would know this history.

FMD- Ah yes- Vin Mariani!

ML- Indeed, Vin Mariani.

Way better than powder cocaine, or cigarettes.

Popularized by Angelo Francois Mariani.

He was born December 17, 1838; and died April 1, 1914.

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2009/02/coca-come-back.html

A Corsican by birth who moved to Paris to become a pharmacist in service to Parisian women who liked performing in opera, who all found Coca beneficial for the vocal cords and providing useful energy.

He understood Coca, deemed in South America as the essence of MamaCoca - the Earth Mother Figure - Most Special Gal. He bottled her essence. It gave a lot of people benefit, and was a good thing.

Alas the public allowed itself to be bamboozled by a “liberal-progressive” media that lied through its teeth, confusing “cocaine” in people’s minds from delightful alternative to caffeine to alluring concentrated white power poison of abuse. A mind over matter. Confuse the mind to allow destructive policies confused as beneficial and necessary but rather a deceptive self perpetuating lie. Result countless trillions in law enforcement/civil rights violations, plus trillions in added health care costs with some 100 million premature deaths resulting from this market distortion suppression of cocaine, protection-promotion of tobacco actually meeting the definition of adulterated and mis-branded.

This is to the benefit of a disastrous decision made in the early 1900s.

With the dragging of their feet regarding the Coca leaf issue, it is understandable that people are going to inquire upon what is tying this down and hence wonder about this linkage between the drug policy reform organizations and Covington & Burling.

What are they going to do- have the world think they hired me to suppress drug policy reform, drastically needed change in policies that are a continuing mega boondoggle health care human rights disaster?! Google my name with the terms “pharmaceutical” and there will be hits, only leading people to further wonder about this Covington and Drug Policy Reform organizations relationship. Even moreso given that current USAG Eric Holder's scandal- "Fast & Furious."

Tobacco the most dangerous was protected by the ban on Coca via the ridiculously overly simplistic hysteria against “cocaine”.

A mega colossal disaster, with a chain reaction of effects and successive reactions like a dog eternally chasing its tail.

We get the crack epidemic.

We get the trillions on added health care costs from the cigarettes.

We get amnesia about the Vin Mariani era.

Don’t they remember Vin Mariani?

It started as a favorite of Parisian stage performers helping tone their voices and given useful energy, not the up – down and afterward harshness of refined cocaine.

That was why cocaine was remembered favorably- as a delightful alternative to caffeine and even nicotine. And who would think of using the latter two as they bastardized cocaine starting during the mid 1880s.

So why has the Drug Policy Foundation stopped your excellent efforts to address cocaine after the 1992 conference?

People going to ponder that, knowing that its my name, an attorney specializing in food, drug and insurance, from Covington with its lengthy and extensive experience, and plus that with the clear market protection angle of the drug war that you cover but which all of the good old boy, fraternalistic orderesque organizations are naturally too chicken to do, so people are going to wonder about this program and ask, Bottleneck or Facilitator?

They have not yet let me stand up. The DPA would not even approve that excellent plenary panel on Agricultural Mercantilism with the former U.S. prosecutor Sheila Eubanks you made for the 2009 and 2011 DPA conferences.

Either we continue to stonewall, but more people will see this as an admission of the utter corruptness of Washington D.C. Fewer may want to send money to such foundations as the “Drug Policy Foundation” or Drug Policy Alliance” if it is seen as a tool of a Washington D.C. cigarette-pharmaceutical legal powerhouse founded by a man who helped found prohibition!

Or we do the right thing- for freedom of diet and medicine.

Covington & Burling has a long history going back to the very foundations of the great 20th century “war on drugs” or rather some drugs, a great deception that gets people to confuse its effects as somehow its continuing justification. People see the problems with prohibition and with ultra concentrated drugs – a situation engendered in most cases by Prohibition’s Iron Law that was the subject of an article by NORML’s Dick Cowan in the National Review way back in December 1986. They overlook the iron law of prohibition – remember when cocaine was in Coca Cola rather than taken as now. The FDA has been reluctant to approve other drugs taken in such a manner, such as nicotine nasal spray because of the pharmacokinetics how drugs are assimilated into the human body, aka slow versus fast all at once release. Its an issue known by science yet disregarded by that Basilica on the New Tiber- the U.S. Congress with its blatant cigarette-pharma mercantilism dating back at least to 1906.

Our founder was in the U.S. Congress when the 1906 US Food and Drug Act was being crafted into the 1914 Harrison Narcotic Act which he than upheld as a federal judge regarding giving the power over health choice to the U.S. Department of Treasury!

As for the advice I have given the DPF and any other such drug policy related organizations, that can wait for my upcoming public presentations, including those that the Drug Policy Alliance needs adding to its conferences, complete with a minimum of 20 minutes of question and answer time with the audience.

Give me the opportunity to answer any such questions about such advice, along with what I and Covington & Burling shall be doing to assist in the re-legalization of Coca Leaf and other plant preparation products, including possible class action suits on behalf of the global public against a scheme denying us the benefits of Coca, instead perverting its use for the sake of protecting the most intrinsically dangerous drug its class- Tobacco.

I will answer questions about that by being available for questions as a participant in the various drug policy reform organization conferences, including DPA, Harm Reduction Coalition, and Marijuana Policy Project and to provide an overview of what I and Covington must do with a full scale legal effort, both internationally and within the U.S. Just think about the arguments used against Obama Care, particularly those regarding the Commerce Clause. We can use momentum from this to scrap the Cigarette-Pharma-Market-Protection "Controlled Substances Act" drug-war-scam.

We have a moral obligation to reverse the madness.

And to think of the juxtaposition. After, accordingly Washington, D.C. is the city of the beautiful virgin, though now, given the political dynamics, particularly Ledochowski’s Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, remains a city of the great whore.

From the very beginning, the city was intended to celebrate the mystery of Virgo – of the Egyptian Isis, the Grecian Ceres and the Christian Virgin. This truth – and this truth alone – explains the structure of the city, and the enormous power of its stellar symbolism. Washington, D.C., is far more then a city of zodiacs – it’s a city which was built to celebrate a massive cosmic symbolism, expressed in stars. Its the main buildings – Capitol, White House and Washington Monument – mark on the Earth the annual renewal of that magical pyrotechnic display in the skys, which occurs on the days around August 10. (page 344)

From whatever direction one approaches the history of Washington, D.C., the processional avenue of L’Enfant seems always to find its way into the story, and the tale is usually linked with Masons. If we glance at the history of the capital from the viewpoint of, say, sculpture, we find a seamless fabric which joins together generations of artists through almost two centuries. And, this is a fabric woven in the vicinity of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Today, the Old Post Office is set back from Pennsylvania Avenue, oriented to the squares drawn on the original map along D Street, as though some planner had forgotten about what L’Enfant had indicated on his map. Across the road is the beaux arts building that once housed the most influential newspapers in the city, the Washington Evening Star, its façade still looking down onto the statute of Benjamin Franklin, who occupies the triangular-shaped declivity in Pennsylvania Avenue. It is entirely fitting that this building, so intimately linked with a setting star, should look onto one of the most influential of early American Masons, one who had knowledge of the stars and was a keen astronomer. The sculpture, commissioned of Jacques Jouvenal as a gift to the city by the newspaper proprietor Stilson Hutchins, was designed to look onto Pennsylvania Avenue from 10th Street [note. It sits on the south-eastern corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 12th Street, being re-located there in 1982], because in those days the avenue was flanked by printers and newspapers: within a stones throw was the largest litho printer in the United States. Now the printers and newspaper have fled in the wake of threatened and actual development, leaving Franklin, displaced from his original symbolism, raising his right hand as though astonished in their disappearance. Nonetheless, there seems to be a destiny even in accidents, and this placing of a Mason on one side, and a building named after an evening star, is propitious.

The Evening Star departed its famous building in 1955, leaving only its stellar name in metallic and lapidary inscriptions overlooking the Pennsylvania frontage. The reception hall of the newspaper has been revamped in modern times, but it is possible that a meaningful symbolism has survived from earlier days. In its marble floor is a huge sunburst, or starburst pattern. The five splendid radiants throw their beams out toward this magical avenue, as though he were part of the profound secret of Washington, D.C. [emphasis added] (pp 311-312)

Does the state of Franklin, on its pedestal below the campanile, hold up its hand in amazement of this solar wonder? (page 344)

This account’s fixation upon the Eastern Star upon the Evening Star building may be misleading as it is to his 4 o’clock; curiously the book fails to mention the address of where Ben Franklin’s statute actually stares in astonished amazement diagonally across the intersection of Pennsylvania and 12th Street. 1201 Pennsylvania Avenue- the Covington & Burling building.

http://savethecapitalcity.blogspot.com/2007/06/benjamin-franklins-mysterious-sunfire.html

Consider, the continuing to this very day ancient regime, and its many wars not limited to its insane pervert cocaine to protect cigarettes drug war, but including Ledochowski’s vicious counter reformation revenge for the Kulturkampf, with Maximillian Kolbe’s “our war” deification of the Mary figure, suggestive of this woman, born on the Winter solstice as the Mother of War (some variant of Mary Lou given Louise=warrior?), at that spot of Washington, D.C. described by a Masonic book as the center of the universe where Ben Franklin’s statute stares in wondrous astonishment. Is not that suggestive that Covington is at the center of the universe? And that we have a job we must do!

FMD- Absolutely! Ben Franklin and everyone else are awaiting the Covington & Burling - Marialuisa Gallozzi move to end the travesty of anti Opium-Coca pro cigarette criminal mercantilism.

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/08/1904-2004-usda.html

"The Farmer and the Cowman"

I'd like to say a word for the farmer,
He come out west and made a lot of changes
He come out west and built a lot of fences,
And built 'em right acrost our cattle ranges.
The farmer and the cowman should be friends,
Oh, the farmer and the cowman should be friends

Rogers, Richard and Hammerstain, Oscar. Oklahoma: Broadway Cast Album. Laurence Guittard, Christine Andrea, Mary Wickes et al. Mus. Dir. Jay Blackton. Red Seal, 1980; cited by Marialuisa S. Gallozzi in her USDA conference paper: "The Food Industry's View About the Development of Plant-made Pharmaceuticals and Industrials" presented at the USDA Agricultural Outlook Forum, Arlington, Virginia February 19-20, 2004

The Evil 'Drug' Prohibition to Promote Tobacco Cigarettes
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-evil-prohibition-to-promote.html

MisManaged Drug Policy Reform Organizations - DPF/DPA
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2010/07/peter-lewis-ira-glasser-is-waste-of.html

2012 - April 1 - South Mall Blogger
http://southmallblogger.blogspot.com/2012/04/2012-april-1.html

South Mall Blogger
http://southmallblogger.blogspot.com/

Born 173 Years Ago- Angelo Francois Mariani- Creator of Vin Mariani

Born December 17, 1838; Died April 1, 1914

Coca Come Back
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2009/02/coca-come-back.html

FMD- Vin Mariani
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/drug-warriors-ignore-history-of-coca.html

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/drug-warriors-ignore-pharmacokinetics.html

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/drug-warriors-ignore-history-of-medical.html

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/coca-to-combat-opiate-alcohol-and.html

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/search/label/Vin%20Mariani

The dangers of alcoholism would be avoided if no other stimulant was taken...than...Vin Mariani

Cocaine, taken orally and dilutely in Coca beverages, as caffeine is taken by drinkers of Coffee and Tea, is not only absorbed slowly, avoiding the addictive spike of concentrated dosing, numbs the stomach, inhibiting the appetite for more.

There Is a Difference.

That there is a distinction in use and abuse, as well as a recognizable difference between a mild wine adapted for the sick, and the promiscuous use of strong drink, cannot be- better shown than through the following extract of a recent letter referring to Vin Mariani:

"The dangers of alcoholism would be avoided if no other stimulant were taken for mental or physical trials than that offered by the generous Vin Mariani.

"mesureur."

The full importance of this will be better appreciated when it is recalled that [Gustave] Mesureur is the Director of Hygiene and Public Health in Paris, France, and it was he who approved anl signed the radical governmental posters against alcoholism. That his favoring sentiment is accepted by those who have personally familiarized themselves with the merits of Vin Mariani is further shown by liberal commendations from many members of the most conservative of all medical societies—The Academy of Medicine o£ Paris. France—an opinion which is supplemented by a majority of professors of the Faculty of Medicine of France.—Coca Leaf, March, 1904.

 Gustave Mesureur

April 2, 1847 - August 19, 1925

The Post 1906 Demise of U.S. Coca

The last bottle of Vin Mariani in the United States?
Yes, Coca was technically legal under the 1906 U.S. Pure Foods and Drugs Act.

That act did not even mention Coca, and only mentioned cocaine (but neither caffeine or nicotine)in its list of substances that had to be labeled.

Theoretically then, sale of products as Vin Mariani should have continued, whether as a food or drug, though with proportion of cocaine alkaloid clearly labeled.

But it gave the U.S.D.A. the power to ban the sale of what it termed dangerous to the public health substances in foods.

This power required NO justification upon scientific objectivity. The U.S.D.A. was free to simply declare a substance dangerous and or deleterious to human health, with the accompanying charge that a substance had to be restricted because it was 'habit-forming' - a set of concerns belying this Act's MERCANTILIST nature as an extension of the U.S.D.A.'s mission to promote U.S. domestic agriculture, along with the 1906 Act's cute exemption of such, namely Tobacco, from the jurisdiction of this new powers of the USDA- now banned from even regulating Tobacco, yet empowered to declare it potential competitors 'dangerous' and thereby illegal.

Harvey Wiley went after Coca products sold as foods -- primarily beverages -- with prosecutions of manufacturers for 'adulteration' for containing cocaine, under the 'reasoning' that the cocaine alkaloid was dangerous to human health- never mind the lack of any showing for the dilute amounts contained within Coca. This was whether or not the product was so labeled, even for things obviously containing it, as Coffee contains caffeine, clearly labeled as Coca products; because Wiley simply declared cocaine to be so dangerous as to automatically render the product "adulterated.".

Wiley's USDA-AMA-APhA clique went after the use of Coca products as OTC drugs by campaigning with 'model legislation' campaigns to the various State legislatures to get them to make products as Vin Mariani prescription only, that rested upon a negative spin upon bulky herbal based preparations as Vin Mariani as "nostrums" -- after all concentrated pharmaceuticals, pills where more profitable per truckload. And they bragged about it, even as cocaine use shifted towards more concentrated modes available on the black market..

The Coca manufacturers responded by retreating- betraying their righteous stance that Coca was not concentrated cocaine as any sort of substance of abuse, by acting as if they had something to be embarrassed about by cocaine's mere presence- creating a false look that they had something they had to hide.

Vin Mariani followed what Coca Cola did a few years earlier- removing the cocaine alkaloid. This would keep it legal, though neutered, provided it was not sold as a medicine- (Connecticut after 1907 charge of misbranding)

The prescription requirement -- non refillable -- was of course a suicide requirement, like insisting upon a doctor's visit for a cup of coffee.

Wiley would push for laws banning the other major Coca alkaloids, and write the term 'coca leaves' into the new legislation, pushed through 1912 and by 1914 becoming the Harrison Narcotics Act.

Wiley's Great American Fraud of Confusing the Public

between the concentrated dosing of the catarrh powders with the dilute of beverages such as Vin Mariani


Blur Concentrated Dosing of Catarrh Powders with 'Nostrums' as Vin Mariani

Published as "The 'Nostrum' Evil" in Collier's Weekly, October 7, 1905

There is but one safeguard in the use of these remedies; to regard them as one would regard opium, and to employ them only with the consent of a physician who understands their true nature. Acetanilid has its uses, but not as a generic painkiller. Pain is a symptom; you can drug it away temporarily, but it will return, clamoring for more payment, until the finnl price is hopeless enslavement. Were the skull and bones on every box of this class of poison the danger would be greatly minimized.

With opium and cocain the case is different. The very words are danger signals. Legal restrictions safeguard the public, to a greater or less degree, from their indiscriminate use. Normal people do not knowingly take opium or its derivatives except with the sanction of a physician, and there is even spreading abroad a belief (surely an expression of the primal law of selfpreservation) that the licensed practitioner leans too readily toward the convenient narcotics.

But this perilous stuff is the ideal basis for a patent medicine because its results are immediate (though never permanent), and it is its own best advertisement in that one dose imperatively calls for another. Therefore it behooves the manufacturer of opiates to disguise the use of the drug. This he does in varying forms, and he has found his greatest success in the "cough and consumption cures" and the soothing syrup class. The former of these will be considered in another article. As to the "soothing syrups," designed for the drugging of helpless infants, even the trade does not know how many have risen, made their base profit, and subsided. A few survive, probably less harmful than the abandoned ones, on the average, so that by taking the conspicuous survivors as a type I am at least doing no injustice to the class.

Some years ago I heard a prominent New York lawyer, asked by his office scrub woman to buy a ticket for some "association" ball, say to her: "How can you go to these affairs, Nora, when you have two young children at home?"

"Sure, they're all right," she returned blithely; "just wan teaspoonful of Winslow's an' they lay like the dead till mornin'."

What eventually became of the scrub woman's children I don't know. The typical result of this practice is described by a Detroit physician who has been making a special study of Michigan's high mortality rate:

"Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup is extensively used among the poorer classes as a means of pacifying their babies. These children eventually come into the hands of physicians with a greater or less addiction to the opium habit. The sight of a parent drugging a helpless infant into a semicomatose condition is not an elevating one for this civilized age, and it is a very common practice. I can give you one illustration from my own

[A DANGEROUS SAMPLE BOX WHiCH GOES THROUGH THE MAiLS. Enough tablets were contained in this package, marked "Xo Heart Effect," to stop the heart entirely if taken all at once. The' chief ingredient of antikamnia is acetanilid.]

hospital experience, which was told me by the father of the girl. A middleaged railroad man of Kansas City had a small daughter with summer diarrhea. For this she was given a patent diarrhea medicine. It controlled the trouble, but as soon as the remedy was withdrawn the diarrhea returned. At every withdrawal the trouble began anew, and the final result was that they never succeeded in curing the daughter of the opium habit which had taken its hold on her. It was some years afterward that the parents became aware that she had contracted the habit, when the physician took away the patent medicine and gave the girl morphin, with exactly the same result which she had experienced with the patent remedy. At the time the father told me this story his daughter was 19 years of age, an only child of wealthy parents, and one who could have had every advantage in life, but who was a complete wreck in every way as a result of the opium habit. The father told me, with tears in his eyes, that he would rather she had died with the original illness than to have lived to become the creature which she then was."

The proprietor of a drug store in San Jose, Cal., writes to Collier's as follows:

"I have a good customer, a married woman with five children, all under 10 years of age. When her last baby was born, about a year ago, the first thing she did was to order a bottle of Winslow's Soothing Syrup, and every

Were this drugstore display in illinois instead of New York City, the druggist would be arrested and his stock confiscated. This is one of the favorite cocain powders used by victims of the cocain habit. The law now requires that it be labeled "Poison."

week another hoitle was bought at first, until now a bottle is bought every third day. Why? Because the baby has become habituated to the drug. I am not well enough acquainted with the family to be able to say that the weaned children show any present abnormality of health due to the opium contained in the drug, but the after-effects of opium have been thus described. . . . Another instance, quite as startling, was that of a mother who gave large quantities of soothing syrup to two of her children in infancy; then, becoming convinced of its danger, abandoned its use. These children in middle life became neurotics, spirit and drug-takers. Three children born later and not given any drugs in early life grew up strong and healthy.

"I fear the children of the woman in question will all suffer for their mother's ignorance, or worse, in later life, and have tried to do my duty by sending word to the mother of the harmful nature of the stuff, but without effect.

"P. S.—How many neurotics, fiends and criminals may not 'Mrs Winslow' be sponsor for?"

This query is respectfully referred to the Anglo-American Drug Company, of New York, which makes its handsome profit from this slave trade.

Recent legislation on the part of the New York State Board of Pharmacy will tend to decrease the profit, as it requires that a poison label be put on each bottle of the product, as has long been the law in England.

An Omaha physician reports a case of poisoning from a compound bearing the touching name of "Kopp's Baby Friend," which has a considerable sale in the middle west and in central New York. It is made of sweetened water and morphin, about one-third grain of morphin to the ounce.

"The child (after taking four drops) went into a stupor at once, the pupils were pin-pointed, skin cool and clammy, heart and respiration slow. I treated the case as one of opium poisoning, but it took twelve hours before my little patient was out of danger."

As if to put a point cf satirical grimncss on the matter, the responsible proprietor of this particular business of drugging helpless babies is a woman, Mrs. J. A. Kopp, of York, Pa.

Making cocain fiends is another profitable enterprise. Catarrh, powders are the medium. A decent druggist will not sell cocain as such, steadily, to any customer, except on prescription, but most druggists find salve for their consciences in the fact that the subtle and terrible drug is in the form of somebody's sure cure. There is need to say nothing of the effects of cocain other than that it is destructive to mind and body alike, and appalling in its breaking down of all moral restraint. Yet in New York City it is distributed in "samples" at ferries and railway stations. You may see the empty boxes and the instructive labels littering the gutters of Broadway any Saturday night, when the drug trade is briskest.

Birney's Catarrhal Powder, Dr. Cole's Catarrh Cure, Dr. Gray's Catarrh Powder, and Crown Catarrh Powder are the ones most in demand. All of them are cocain; the other ingredients are unimportant—perhaps even superfluous.

Whether or not the bottles are labeled with the amount of cocain makes little difference. The habitues know. In one resp?ot, however, the labels help them by giving information as to which nostrum is the most heavily drugged.

"People come in here," a New York City druggist tells me, "ask what catarrh powders we've got, read the labe'.s, and pick out the one that's got the most cocain. When I see a customer comparing labels I know she's a fiend."

Naturally these owners and exploiters of these mixtures claim that the small amount of coeain contained is harmless. For instance, the "Crown Cure," admitting 2% per cent., says:

"Of course, this is a very small and harmless amount. Coeain is now considered to be the most valuable addition to modern medicine ... it is the most perfect relief known."

Birney's Catarrh Cure runs as high as 4 per cent, and can produce testimonials vouching for its harmlessneas. Here is a Birney "testimonial" to the opposite effect, obtained "without solicitation or payment" (I have ventured to put it in the approved form), which no sufferer from catarrh can afford to miss:

READ WHAT

William Thompson, Of Chicago,

says of

BIRNEY'S CATARRH CURE.

"Three years ago Thompson was a strong man. Now he is without money, health, home, or friends." (Chicago Tribune.) "I began taking Birney's Catarrh Cure (says Thompson) three years ago. and the longing for the drug has grown so potent that I suffer without it. "I followed the directions at first, then I increased the quantity until I bought the stuff hy the dozen bottles."

A famous drink and drug cure in Illinois had, as a patient, not long ago, a 14-year-old boy. who was a slave to the Birney brand of coeain. He had run his father $300 in debt, so heavy were his purchases of the poison.

Chicago long ago settled this coeain matter in the only logical way. The proprietor of a large downtown drug store noticed several years ago that at noon numbers of the shop girls from a great department store purchased certain catarrh powders over his counter. He had his clerk warn them that the powders contained deleterious drugs. The girls continued to purchase in increasing numbers and quantity. He sent word to the superintendent of the store. "That accounts for the number of our girls that have gons wrong of late," was the superintendent's comment. The druggist, Mr. McConnell, had an analysis made by the Board of Health, which showed that the powder most called for was nearly 4 per cent, coeain, whereon he threw it and similar powders out of stock. The girls went elsewhere. Mr. McConnell traced them and started a general movement against this class of remedies, which resulted in an ordinance forbidding their sale. Birney's Catarrhal Powders, as I am informed, to meet the new conditions, brought out a powder without coeain, which had the briefest kind of a sale. For weeks thereafter the downtown stores were haunted by haggard ycung men and women, who begged for "the old powders; these new ones don't do any good." As high as $1.00 premium was paid for the 4 per cent, coeain species. To-day the Illinois druggist who sells coeain in this form is liable to arrest. Yet in New York, at the corner of Forty-second street and Broadway, I saw recently a show-window display of the Birney cure, and similar displays arc not uncommon in other cities.

Regarding other forms of drugs there may be honest differences of opinion as to the limits of legitimacy in the trade. If mendacious advertising were stopped, and the actual ingredients of every nostrum plainly published and frankly explained, the patent medicine trade might reasonably claim to be a legitimate enterprise in many of its phases. But no label of opium or cocain, though the warning skull and cross-bones cover the bottle, will excuse the sale of products that are never safely used except by expert advice. I believe that the Chicago method of dealing with the catarrh powders is the right method in cocain- and opium-bearing nostrums. Restrict the drug by the same safeguards when sold under a lying pretence as when it flies its true colors. Then, and then only, will our laws prevent the shameful trade that stupefies helpless babies and makes criminals of our young men and harlots of our young women.


From Collier's Weekly, June 8, 1907.

PATENT MEDlCINES UNDER THE PURE FOOD LAW.

WITH the passage of the Food and ABSOLUTELY HARMLESS Drugs Act by Congress, the patent medicine frauds, which had fought its passage by fair means and foul—principally the latter—found three paths open to th«m. First, they could go out of business, rather than expose the real nature of the concoctions with which they have been so long "doping" the public; second, they could change their formulas, leaving out those dangerous ingredients which, under the law, must now be specified on the label before the Anodyne brought out by the Pure article can enter into interstate commeerce; third, they could remove from their labels the lying clauses which form the basis of their business, and print the percentages or proportions of such ingredients as are required to be labeled. There is a fourth alternative: they could ignore the law. A few are doing this in a small way; but mostly the Great American Fraud, for the first time on the defensive, has foregone its attitude of defiance. It is conforming to regulations; but, still true to its fundamental nature, it is by every possible subterfuge, while obeying the letter of the law, which says, "Let the label tell," evading and violating its spirit.

In brief, the national Food and Drugs Act requires that, to enter into interstate commerce, proprietary medicines containing cocain or its derivatives, opium or its derivatives," alcohol, chloroform, cannabis indica (hashish), chloral hydrate, or acetanilid or its derivatives must bear on the label in type not smaller than eight-point capital letters the percentage or proportion of such drugs; also that the label shall embody no "statement which shall be false or misleading in any particular." This last is vitally important in that it puts a quietus on the blanket claims of "cure" upon the labels, although, of course, the manufacturers will continue to swindle the public in the newspaper advertisements. The new law went into operation January 1, but labels now on hand may be used with supplemental labels, in the form of stamps or pasters, up to October 1.

The Cocain Purveyors Are Down and Out.

One definite, widespread, and immediate good has followed the new law. The purveyors of cocain snuffs have been, for the most part, driven out of business. These concoctions, ostensibly intended for the cure of catarrh, but in reality merely a supply for the cocain fiends which they themselves make, have been the first to succumb. Dr. Birney's snuff, Dr. Agnew-s snuff, the Cole. Gray and Crown cures have reached the end of their rope. Credit for this is due not only to the pure food law and many stringent local regulations, but also to the jobbers and retail druggists, who, despite the large profit in this line of business, have turned from it in disgust. In store after store of the better class, even where the law does not forbid the sale of cocain concoctions (as it does in New York City under Dr. Darlington's vigorous rfigime, in Chicago, and in a number of other large cities), my inquiries for the catarrh snuffs have been met with the curt rejoinder: "No; you can't buy that rotten stuff here." Out of twenty pharmacies which I visited in several cities of New York State, I was able to buy cocain in the form of snuffs, at only one. That was Robinson's drug store in Mount Vernon, N. Y., where a leering youth not only sold me a bottle of Dr. Cole's Catarrh Cure, but also bragged of the victims of the habit whom he "served regular," giving what he regarded as the highly amusing example of an unfortunate from Tuckahoe who came there every other day to "get his coke."

The Cole Medicine Company, by the way, has issued a circular to the drug trade announcing the issuance of a new nostrum for catarrh, that "can not give rise to any so-called 'habit' in child or adult." But it "does not propose to give up the manufacture of its original preparation . . . and its manufacture and sale will be continued as heretofore." This would seem to be a notification to druggists not troubled with a conscience that cocain will be obtainable "on the quiet" from the Cole concern. Perhaps they've thought better of it since the circular was issued. At any rate I know of several orders for the old powder that have received no answer. And, if they will take a layman's mild hint, they are pretty certain to get into serious trouble if they fake the Pure Food law for a toy whirligig, whereas it is really a buzz-saw. Their circular continues:

"It would seem that some of the jobbers have agreed not to push the sale of the old, reliable Dr. Cole's Catarrh Cure, and in one or two instances, have refused to supply it, on high moral grounds. The company knows that consumers do not become 'dopes' or wrecks: on the contrary, thousands of instances are known where the cure has done perfect workalong the lines intended."

The infamous Catarrh and Consumption "Cures."

Painful as it is to differ with as expert a set of liars as the Cole Company employs, the plain facts are deserving at least of mention. And these are the facts: Dr. Cole's Catarrh Cure is not a catarrh cure in any sense. It is a preparation for the instigation of the cocain habit. From the wretched habitues which itself has bred it draws its main profit. Its manufacturers, the Cole Medicine Company, are deliberate slayers of men's bodies and women's souls. And this crew has the effrontery to appeal to honorable men in the retail drug trade—the very men who best know the deep damnation of cocainism—to support and uphold their business in the teeth of the law. I do not anticipate that they will receive a very hearty encouragement from a trade which has learned thoroughly to despise them and their kind.

Wiser is that firm which deals in Dr. Birney's Catarrh Powder. Letters from them announce their retirement since laws are being generally passed forbidding the sale of cocain. and they have always conducted "a law-abiding business." Edifying, indeed! "There is none so mean but he clings still to one poor virtue." That of the Birney concern is, it appears, meekness. Birney has always conducted a "law-abiding business," and yet there is in the whole United States no city whose God's acre does not hold the bones of his victims; whose jail records are not black with their crimes.

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.

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. Piso's Consumption Cure is an illustrative case. No longer is it a "consumption cure" on its label. The old label reads: "Piso's Cure for Consumption." The new label, in the same type, and presenting much the same appearance, reads: "Piso's Cure;" then, in almost undistinguishable letters: "A Medicine for"—and then, larger again: "Coughs, Colds," etc. Across the bottom of the carton, in letters sufficiently clear to acquit the makers of any attempt to conceal the most important feature of the label, runs this legend: "Each fluid ounce contains % grain cannabis indica, 5 minims chloroform, and other valuable [sic!] ingredients."