Cocaine a cola....

[pbmus]

Link to tweet

[ProfessorGAC]

1. Well, Sort Of!

Coca cola developed a process to extract the cocaine from the coca, the use the post-extract leaves in the syrup formula. That happened in 1903.
So, during the last pandemic there were trace amounts of cocaine. Though they didn't have measurement precision to provide numbers, mass balance shows the eliminated 90+% of the cocaine in the leaves.
Was there cocaine in Coke in 1918? Yes, but just barely. Not even close to the same amount as in 1902, or earlier.
In 1929, an improved first & new second extraction process was developed.
They improved the original so that it removes 99+% of the alkaloid from the leaves. The second extraction removed the flavor components from the leaf.
The pH was then lowered, and only the flavor compounds were water soluble.
Now, they had liquid coca flavoring and the fully extracted cocaine.
Not long after, the cocaine fraction was purified and sold to pharmaceuticals as a precursor to various topical anaesthetics.
That's still the practice today.
So, while there was cocaine in the cola during the last time we had a pandemic, it's not how he means.
There was barely any.
The caffeine was what gave anybody a jolt, just like now. Same since 1903.

[Native]

2. Way to kill a good sentiment. This was way TMI for me today.

[ProfessorGAC]

3. That's The Problem With Facts

They often get in the way of a good idea.

[mr_lebowski]

4. I just wish I had a ton of Rx quality cocaine right now ...

And hookers ... lots of hookers.

[pbmus]

5. LMAO 🤣

[ProfessorGAC]

6. Somebody At DU...

...has been in the facility where that process is done.
Somebody at DU, was there on a day when the armored cars & DEA folks show up to ship the 99.9% pure cocaine out.
But, I'm not at liberty to say who it was.

[Native]

7. Seriously re the coke. Used to get Rx quality when I was hanging out with surgeons.

The good old days.

[mr_lebowski]

8. Normal street grade cocaine is friggin sh*te ... but I had the occasion to try some Peruvian

Flake pretty much straight off the plane one time in the early 90's and HOLY CRAP . That is a whole different thing.

I can only imagine what the Rx stuff would be like.

[panader0]

9. A friend had a testing microscope for coke.

You would pack coke into a very thin glass capillary tube and fit it into the microscope,
which was plugged in and heated. As you looked through the eyepiece, you could see the temperature
when the coke began to melt, and the length of time until it finished melting.
By this process he was able to determine the purity in minutes. It was Columbian and usually in the 90s%.
I know I wasted a few bucks on the shit before I grew up.

[ProfessorGAC]

11. The Stuff Going To Pharma...

...is 99.4% minimum. That's the lower specification!
The test is done 2 ways.
One is the melt point you described, except it's an automated test now. A laser shoots at the capillary and when it melts (and highly pure materials tend to all melt at once instead of what's called Krafting). When it goes liquid, the laser shines through it and hits the detector.
Measures melt point to 0.01 degrees C.
The other method is spectrochemical.
The average of these shipments was a little over 99.8% pure.

[pbmus]

12. So my question is where does all that cocaine end up...?

[Native]

10. It's the only thing I've ever had, so I can't expound on any difference

But it was pretty scary. I have a semblance of a photographic memory, and coke basically heightened it to the point of ridiculousness. Imagine playing chess or debating the merits of of something when you're quoting page and paragraph numbers of books to support your case. Normally I'd have to consciously make a point of remembering that stuff, but it just appeared in my head like magic. Imagine being completely obnoxious like that and everyone in the room being totally cool with it.

[Blue_true]

14. How would you go about separating the fatty acids of Lecithin?

I am working on a personal project where I want to fraction out Phosphatidylinositol, Phosphatidycholine and Phosphatidylethanolamine and get a mostly pure fraction of each. I tried low temperature crystallization, but either the temperature that I tried was not low enough, or the idea of using that method was a miss.

[ProfessorGAC]

15. Can't Help You

I'm legally obligated to not discuss the processes on which I worked for 7 years after retirement.
It applies to about 16 processes.
I honestly wish I could help.
In more general terms, I'd look at process or perp chromatography. I would think you could find a mobile phase that could give 10,000-12,000 theoretical plates per inch.
I don't have a feel, however, of an appropriate solvent system.

[Blue_true]

16. Thanks, I was hoping that you would not have legal constraints, but I understand the position that

you are in. You have given me some reasonable directional information for future work. I now believe that I wrong-footed on my first attempts. I should be able to come up with a solvent, I have fairly extensive experience in that area. Thanks Prof.

[Ohio Joe]

13. I'm in Colorado so...

I have really good sativa