The world's first cocaine bar | Hacker News Reader

The world's first cocaine bar

guardian.co.uk

26 pointschaostheory16 comments

Putting coca leaves in your mouth before you start your work day is typical in many parts of South America. It's like drinking your cup of coffee.

However... drying and powdering it, cutting it with a handful of chemicals, and illegally distributing it is what gives it a bad name. Same goes for those pushing for more and more potent strands of marijuana. Many people think that "faster", "stronger" and "more" is always an improvement.

Oh yeah. In fact, coca leaves used to be distributed by the Catholic church.

Now, I totally agree with the part about the chemicals. I mean, you can do the same thing with coffee: taking caffeine pills is dangerous and can lead to a fatal OD.

It's possible that the existance of "more potent strands of marijuana" is intentional scaremongering propaganda:

http://www.badscience.net/2007/03/reefer-badness/

"And in fact, what’s most amazing is that this scare isn’t new. In the US, in the mid 1980s, during Reagan’s “war on drugs”, it was claimed that cannabis was 14 times stronger than in 1970, which rather sets you thinking. If it was 14 times stronger in 1986 than in 1970, and it’s 25 times stronger today than the beginning of the 1990s, does that mean it is now, in fact, 350 times stronger than 1970?

That’s not even a crystal in a plant pot. That’s impossible. That would require more THC to be present in the plant than the total volume of space taken up by the plant itself"

If you've never seen how cocaine powder is made, watch this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_bZZt1zs60

I saw it a while back, and it provides a pretty unique insight into the source of all that cocaine. Did you know that gasoline is used as a solvent to precipitate the actual cocaine salts out of the leaves?

There used to be one down the street from my apartment, and there is a magazine article about it:

http://www.viceland.com/int/v15n1/htdocs/kokies.php?country=...

The first? Or is that just its name? Could work. I know a chinese place named The New Good One.

Ok that was an interesting article but why is it on hacker news?

because it's about a business trend =)

Having watched a dear friend lose all his social capital, put his entire savings up his nose and nearly burn us both to death in a house fire, I can safely say that I'm disgusted.

However, from a third world entrepreneurial standpoint, I can see how this is a great business opportunity(?) / disaster waiting to happen. Quick, someone make an iPhone app.

If your friend had pickled his liver and beat his girlfriend with vodka, would you feel as disgusted every time you saw a bar & grill?

Would it matter if it did? Would it change the addictive nature of either substance or the damage they do to people's lives? (and I speak as a legalization supporter)

Sounds like an ad hominem attack by impeaching the motives of the speaker. The implied message is that the speaker is biased against cocaine much more than other drugs so his judgment is not to be trusted.

Not such a good tactic.

EDIT: If this was an honest question and not sarcastic I apologize for misreading the tone. The internet is a tough medium for nuance.

I completely agree with you and would not want to make light of your comment at all.

But I'm also reminded of the old Richard Pryor joke: cocaine is God's way of saying you make too much damn money.

I hope your friend got some help.

"Quick, someone make an iPhone app"

They already did:

http://www.theisnort.com/isnort.html

I'd have been impressed if it were a real app.

I think there's a beta of the haptic inhale API somewhere.

If cocaine wasn't illegal and costs $2 a day, would any of that happened? Was it the cocaine or the society at large that caused those consequences.

That's what cocaine costs in Brazil and Argentina. $2 a line.

I've read that in Australia there are heroine addicts on whom everyone has given up hope of rehab who have normal, janitorial jobs to pay for their habits. They get the horse from government sanctioned farmacies at low cost.

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