Coca-Cola Fiends

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jul 7, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 26.

It is not generally known that the common soda-fountain drink known as “Coca-Cola” is a drug; but such is the fact. This drink is a compound of caffein and cocain sweetened to the taste. The sales manager of the Coca-Cola Company says that the caffein in their product is made from tea. Caffein can be extracted from tea or coffee or from the kola nut. It is the active, stimulating principle in tea and coffee. Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, chief of the Government Bureau of Chemistry, says: “When caffein is separated from tea and coffee, and used as a separate drug, it exerts a much more specific action upon the system than when in natural combination. Its general effect is to induce that unhappy state described as nervousness, with deranged digestion and impaired health.” The other active element is cocain, which is the most enslaving and degrading drug known to mankind. The cocain fiend is an abject slave, ruined in body, mind, and soul before he has ended his mortal career. This one drink is doing so much harm that the report of the government chemist says: “The prevalence of the coca-cola fiend is becoming a matter of great importance and concern.” We should think so. The drink is effective in allaying the sense of fatigue by deadening the nerves that carry the message to the brain. The tired condition is there still, but the brain no longer is told of the fact. Parents refuse to allow their children to have even weak tea and coffee, yet allow them to drink this drug at the soda-fountains through ignorance. The pure-food law should prohibit the sale of such drinks.