Was surfing through the net, and a few old gaming forums (in off topic area). I found this interesting article.

http://www.gulfnews.com/.../Hong_Kong/10319108.html

Then found this article as well.

http://www.abs-cbnnews.c...found-energy-drinks-pdea

I think its a big corp cover-up if you ask me... I remember how my dad or, SOMEONE sead a really long time ago Coka-Cola put cocaine or something like that in there drink, to get people hooked on it. I could be wrong though, correct me if you want. Interesting non the less, news is a few days old though.

Coca-cola started off life a century or so ago as a 'miracle' medicinal tonic. It was meant to cure all. One of its ingredients was coca leaves, so yes, it did contain cocaine, and I expect this is one of the reasons it got so popular. Probably didn't cure much at all, just made you feel nice and forget about your aches and pains. Eventually they were forced to take out the cocaine. Did you know that when the US government cracked down on coca, they gave the Coca Cola company an exemption? Coca cola wa still allowed to buy in all the coca it wanted. They have to then decocainise the leaves though- ie the cocaine is extracted and the leftovers added to the drink, along with a bunch of other plant extracts. What happens to all the cocaine they extract? That I don't know.

As for the Red Bull story... I can't comment on how trace the trace amounts quoted are because I'm no chemist, but I have heard that if you take a sample of water from certain major city's rivers you'll find traces of cocaine in that too.

That doesn't really describe it fairly. Back in those days (before 1914, when cocaine was made illegal), cocaine was seen as something WONDERFUL--it made people feel GOOD! Well...so good that they, umm, "craved it" in products. So, it was added to MANY products. There was even a wine in those days with cocaine added--a big seller; the king of Austria (I think) wouldn't go ANYWHERE unless some of that wine was brought along...

So, makers of products in those days didn't really add it to get people "addicted," they added it because that's what people wanted. Cocaine, btw, was made illegal in 1914 because racist southerners (as a result of post civil war tensions) insisted that cocaine made black men dangerous. That was the first time EVER any drug was made illegal--and it wasn't even made "illegal," to possess it you needed the proper "cocaine tax stamp"--and the government simply wouldn't give those tax stamps out.

It has been estimated that at the turn of the century (1900) about 5% of Americans were unknowingly addicted to opiates or cocaine (actually, not bad, when you consider that both were WIDELY sold as medicines and other products).

I know all this stuff because I recently happened to watch this History Channel producion, now on youtube.

I believe it's sold to pharmaceutical companies for the synthesis of various local anesthetics or to be purified for its own medicinal use (local anesthetic for eye surgery).



Rebull cola contains coca, but it's decocanized as far as I know.



That episode in particular was quite well done.

As soon as I read the thread title, I thought of Redbull Cola. There are two sides to this. Marketing wise, every junior high kid will want to drink it because they think it has coke, which it surely won't. But even if, it's still a risky business move for a large company like Redbull.

I picked up one of those Red Bull simply Cola drinks yesterday, and it lists coca leaves as an ingredient for flavoring, but I believe coca-cola performs a similar process which removes the cocaine from the leaves to use them for flavoring (according to wikipedia) as well. Anyhow, in terms of taste, it was a really good soda, and contains better ingredients than most sodas do.

Red Bull Cola was banned in several german states because of cocaine traces a couple of weeks ago.

I think that it's a marketing stunt.

Strange.... As far as I know, they're the first true competitor for coca cola, in terms of releasing a coca-cola alternative in which they utilize the same sort of process and (presumably) adhere to the same regulations as coca-cola. Maybe there's still some kinks in their process, or maybe it is a marketing stunt. I like that it doesn't use phosphoric acid and that the company (probably) doesn't assassinate union leaders in S. America the way coca-cola has been known to.

And it tastes better. Sad, that it's so expensive.

Word to that. I used to think that the Thai Red Bull (which incidentally seems to work better!) was a ripoff of the European one. Actually it seems it was the other way round http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull . A little more about the cocaine scandals there too.

Whatever, it's nasty stuff and very bad for you. The sugar can give you diabetes and make you fat, and the phosphoric acid eats away at your bones from the inside out. A cup of guayusa is much nicer, natural and I expect a lot healthier.

If you have to have cola, there are healthy organic colas on the market, I think this is the one I used to drink:
http://www.wholeearthfoo.../organic-sparkling-cola/

Yeah, I love Thai and Korean red bull. I always found it funny how they sell it like medicine: uncarbonated and in tinted bottles.



If I'm not mistaken, you body actually mistakes phosphoric acid for calcium and tries to build your bones with it.

I get no effect from drinking red bull. I also drink coffie thats most likely why. I am in the US anyone else care to coment on efffects or lack there of?

Oh my! Forget the recession for news scare tactics, when we all have blind monkeys building our internal scaffolding!