[dhosek]

Often they aren’t. The obvious one is sugar vs HFCS in Mexican vs American Coke.

Then, of course, there’s the big change from the original Coke recipe vs what we have today with cocaine being replaced by caffeine.¹

⸻

1. I’m pretty sure that in no country does Coke still use cocaine.

[jkaplowitz]

Regarding Coca-Cola and cocaine: you’re probably right about the psychoactive chemical cocaine, but Coca-Cola does actually still use a trace amount of coca leaf extract in Coca-Cola in (at least) the US.

How does this work legally? There is a (single) company that is licensed by the DEA to import coca, and they sell the non-psychoactive part to Coca-Cola. I think the psychoactive part goes toward DEA-approved research purposes, but I’m less sure about that.

Coca-Cola’s competitors do not receive or use coca through this process, only Coca-Cola.

[Scoundreller]

The psychoactive part still has (decreasing) medical uses and it goes to pharma: https://nationalpost.com/news/coca-colas-cocaine-connection-...

I suspect the flavouring component is so diluted nowadays that its kept because it's a valuable sideline having that import license, and adds to the mystique a bit.

[jkaplowitz]

Thanks for confirming those details and being more concise than me. I had originally written “research and/or pharmaceutical uses”, but I wasn’t sure enough to warrant the extra paragraph I was going to include to explain the pharmaceutical uses. :)

[thorin]

I heard about this years ago, but it seems very strange what you can get away with as a massive megacorp! When I was in Peru everyone chewed Coca leaves on the backpacker scene, and many of the locals, but no one ever offered me cocaine.

[JohnFen]

Being a huge, wealthy corporation certainly helps, but I think there's a touch of tradition there, too. That the soda was already a strong cultural presence before cocaine was made illegal probably helped them get "grandfathered" in.