Coca-Cola Produces $3 Billion Worth of Pure Cocaine Per Year



The flavor behind the iconic Coca-Cola drink relies on coca leaves, the processing of which results in pure cocaine. The soft drink giant produces as much as $3 billion in pure cocaine every year and sells it to Mallinckrodt, one of the world’s largest opioid manufacturers in the world, in a secretive deal with the U.S. government that has recently been renewed. It remains unclear exactly how much coca the company imports, but in the 1980s the amount was said to be more than 500 metric tons of leaves every year. The quantity is estimated to produce about 2 million grams of cocaine, which is worth about $2 billion. In the late 1800s, Coca-Cola was marketed as a cocaine-laced cough syrup, but decades later came a crackdown on drug use in the U.S., including a ban on importation of the coca plant. Though the Coca-Cola Company stopped using cocaine in its iconic drink in 1929, the company managed to escape the importation crackdown. Article 27 of the United Nation’s 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, made one interesting exemption: “The parties may permit the use of coca leaves for the preparation of a flavoring agent, which shall not contain any alkaloids, and, to the extent necessary for such use, may permit the production, import, export, trade in and possession of such leaves.”