15 Events in the Shady History of Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola’s marketers famously threatened to buy the world a Coke, and boy, did they make good on their promise.
15 Events in the Shady History of Coca-Cola

This book contains a list of things that are true. That's all you need to know about it. If you enjoy this list of interesting facts, or even if you don't, I hope you will have the good grace to move on without wasting any more of your time on the next two pages. I'm a big fan of lists. I love reading lists, and I love writing them. In fact, I have written dozens of lists over the last twenty-five years, and I'm just getting around to putting them together in a mammoth compendium of all the things that I have ever found amusing. The list you are reading now is the first one to be published. I am so excited about it, I am almost shaking with excitement. I enjoy this list of interesting facts so much that I am tempted to share it with you even though I'm not quite done with it yet. I do hope you will be patient. This is going to take me a while.

Sinaltrainal v. Coca-Cola

Sinaltrainal v. Coca-Cola ORIGINAL TASTE ОРИГІНАЛЬНИЙ CMAK Coca-Cola 250 It's generally a bad look to have a section on your Wikipedia page labeled Colombian death-squad allegations, which refers in Coke's case to a 1996 incident at a Colombian bottling plant where an armed militia killed a union lead- er, destroyed the union hall, and forced employ- ees to quit at gunpoint so they could be replaced with much cheaper workers. The workers sued the company for indirect responsibility, but Co- ca-Cola was never found to be connected to the militia, although it worked out pretty well for them and they

BBC

They Pay Scientists to Say Coke is Healthy

They Pay Scientists to Say Coke is Healthy In 2015, it was found that Coca-Cola had provided millions of dollars in funding to scientists with the Global Energy Balance Network. That's nice, right? Well, it wasn't entirely altruistic: The organization's chief contribution to the discourse has been insisting that exercise is the key to health, not diet, which suits Coca-Cola quite nicely. So nicely, in fact, that they ve paid for the only studies they cite to prove that. Coke has even been caught paying nu- tritionists to promote their products as healthy snacks. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW

NYTimes

Their Animal Testing Was Exceptionally Horrific

Their Animal Testing Was Exceptionally Horrific It's a sad fact of modern capitalism that many corporations have a history of - or even continue to perform --animal test- ing, but Coca-Cola's was like something about of a dystopian novel. One study in- volved cutting open the faces of chim- panzees to study nerve impulses used in the perception of sweet tastes. Having apparently realized there are other ways to test that (or it's just not worth it to go Face/Off on some monkeys just to find out people like sweet things), the compa- ny pledged to cease unnecessary animal testing in 2007.

NYTimes

They Got Mixed Up in Apartheid

They Got Mixed Up in Apartheid THEREDF HAVE BEEN RESERVED FOR THE EXCLUSIVE USE OF WHITE PERSONS. By Order Provincial Secretary VIR GEBRUIK DEUR BLANKES At the height of apartheid in South Africa, Coca-Cola was one of the country's largest employers, leading to boycotts in the '80s. In 1986, they made noises about closing down their South African bottling and can- ning operations, but they never truly left the country, and experts at the time predicted the move would make no financial difference at all to the company. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW

AP

They Only Took The Cocaine Out Because of Racism

They Only Took The Cocaine Out Because of Racism As for the cocaine, it had already been removed in 1903, but not for any DEA-у reasons. Rumors started to spread that Georgia was beset by black men as- saulting white women in Coke-intoxi- cated frenzies, and Candler wasn't about that bad press, so he removed the cocaine and also cut all ties to black consumers for good measure. Note that Coca-Cola still contains coca leaf ex- tract, it's just had the good stuff re- moved first. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW

NewYorker

Its First Controversy Was About Caffeine

Its First Controversy Was About Caffeine x N N 27% N O N In 1911, the U.S. government sued Co- ca-Cola to remove a dangerous stimu- lant from its product - not cocaine but caffeine. The trial was a real roller coaster, featuring expert witnesses whose testimony backfired when they said that caffeine was actually fine, a successful argument by Coke that it wasn't a naturally occurring ingredient rather than an additive, and then the swift reversal of that decision. In the end, Coke had to cut its caffeine con- tent in half. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW

Time

Its Next Owner Bought It At a Funeral

Its Next Owner Bought It At a Funeral By 1887, Pemberton had brought several inves- tors into the Coca-Cola Company as partners, including Asa Candler, a move he would have certainly regretted if he'd lived long enough to see its consequences. After he died the next year, the rights to the name passed on to his widow and the formula to his son, Charley, who was also something of a wayward drug addict. According to legend, Candler bought the name at Pemberton's funeral by offering his dis- traught widow $300 for it, and Charley Pem- berton soon conveniently died of

RoadSpoke

Then It Was Sold As An Alternative to Alcohol

Then It Was Sold As An Alternative to Alcohol Coca-Cola Pemberton was ever adaptable: Soon after he started selling his coca wine, the Georgia county where he lived out- lawed alcohol consumption, so he sim- ply replaced the wine with a sugar syr- up, changed the name, and created the slogan Coca-Cola: The temperance drink. Keep in mind that it was still to- tally cocaineful, and even now, Co- ca-Cola contains tiny traces of alcohol as a natural byproduct of its manufac- turing processes. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW

HuffPost

It Was Intended to Wean People Off Morphine

It Was Intended to Wean People Off Morphine Pemberton was a Civil War vet who ended up addicted to morphine as a re- sult of his injuries, as did a whole lot of dudes his age, so his initial experiments with drinkable cocaine, which was con- sidered much less harmful, were mostly focused on finding a less gnarly substi- tute for morphine. Considering Coke's enduring popularity at NA meetings and rehab centers, you can't say he was on the wrong path. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW

Smithsonian

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