Coca is one of the most oldest drugs in history. When first discovered by the Andes it was used for religious purposes. And the 1500s the Spanish invaded Peru and started to force Indian laborers to use it so they could be more productive in the mind. In 1859, cocaine was extracted from coca leaves by a German chemist and it started to gain popularity in the medical community by the late 1800s. Psycho analysts Sigmund Freud used the drug and would prescribe it as a cure for depression and other psychological ailments for his close inner circle. He started to note that his friends would get paranoid hallucinations, and some of his patients even died as a result of taking too much.

In 1886, john Pemberton started to include coca leaves in his soft drink called Coca Cola. boy did Coca Cola take off that year. It was then in touch The early 1900s that cocaine laced alcohol drinks, started to be broadly used by those in Hollywood, which resulted in the mass popularity of cocaine itself. By 1903. Due to the backlash and negative long term effects of drinking too much Coca Cola, Coca Cola removed coca leaves from their soft drink, and then started to become popular to snort cocaine, but it finally became illegal in 1922. In the 70s, cocaine became the drug of choice for the go getters, the high end business people and made its way into college campuses.

It was known as the rich man's drug until it started to hit hard on the streets and the 1980s when a cheaper version started to arise, crack cocaine. In the 1990s, cocaine was the most trafficked drug Coming from the drug cartels. But when those drug cartels started to dismantle smaller groups were formed and still to this day, cocaine is the second most trafficked illegal drug in the world. Let's talk in the next lecture about some current statistics of cocaine. And after that, we'll talk about how cocaine affects your health.