What you are about to read you won’t find on any official Coca-Cola history site because the corporation would rather keep these facts buried and forgotten about.
The soda giant Coca-Cola has been a favorite drink for millions of people all over the world for the last 100+ years. Throughout the years the company has tried everything under the sun to sell their products to whomever they could, which has brought a lot of controversy to Coca-Cola.
In the past 100 years, the company has been in trouble for racism, child labor, water depletion and much more. I was truly speechless after some of the facts I heard about and you might be too. So if you got an interest in Coca-Cola, then this might be for you!
1. Inventor of Coca-Cola
As many people know, Coca-Cola was established in May 1886 by doctor/pharmacist John Pemerton as a nerve tonic. What you probably didn’t know was that Dr. Pemerton was considered a junkie who was addicted to morphine, big time. John died only two and half years after establishing the soft drink and trademark.
2. Cocaine in Coca-Cola
Now it’s no big surprise to most people that Coca-Cola’s main addictive ingredient was cocaine. About 60mg of the drug was used in each serving of Coke until 1903 when the company claimed to have removed the ingredient. Funny thing about it is Coca-Cola still uses and imports coca leaves, which are pretty much the main ingredient in the production of cocaine. Also, some officials for Coke claimed that the use of cocaine in the soft drink was always a rumor.
3. Slogans
Up till the early to late fifties, Coca-Cola was believed to have healing properties, and with that some unique slogans started to appear on the products. Some you might have heard, others might be totally new to you.
* 1886: “Coca-Cola Delicious, Refreshing, Exhilarating”
No doubt it was exhilarating when they were using cocaine as an additive.
* 1900: “For Headache & Exhaustion, Drink Coca-Cola”
Again I don’t know what cocaine would do for a headache but there’s no doubt the drug takes away exhaustion.
* 1905: “Coca-Cola Revives and Sustains”
4. Coca-Cola and the Nazis
Now as we all know, Coca-Cola is an American-made soda drink, so when I was researching Nazi history, I was totally surprised in what I found. In 1936, Coca-Cola sponsored the Berlin Olympics, also known as the “Nazi Olympics”. While Britain was at war with Germany, the company continued to do business behind enemy lines and advertised under the Nazi Regime. As America enter the Second World War, German Coca-Cola bottling plants could no longer get the sugar/syrup to make the drink, so they invented another drink for the Nazi public and called it Fanta.
5. Coca-Cola and the Civil Rights Movement
Now again, when I came across this fact it blew me away. A day before Martin Luther King was assassinated, he held a speech asking people to boycott Coca-Cola and stop buying their products because of the way the company was treating black workers. Supposedly, white workers were getting paid a much higher wage for little work whereas the African-Americans were expected to put in long hours of back-breaking work for little pay and no chance of advancement within the ranks of the company.
6. Human Rights Violations and Murder in Colombia
In the early 2000s, unionized Colombia Coca-Cola bottle workers that were with the union started receiving death threats to leave the union. Shortly after the threats, workers started turning up dead.
In 2004, a New York City councilor took a fact-finding delegation to Colombia. Once there, the councilor found that the Coca-Cola workers were the victims of at least 179 major human rights violations and nine murders.
Then, in January 2007, a group known as the “Black Eagles” went on TV to warn the Colombian public that if union workers and others didn’t stop complaining about Coca-Cola’s work ethics, they would be killed.
Coca-Cola was being blamed for not providing a safe workplace and for not taking responsibility for their actions, which caused or allowed murders on their properties. Some Colombia officials went on to say or imply that Coca-Cola is in someway responsible for these murders of union workers, which they totally deny.
7. Biggest Racial Discrimination Payout
It only seems fair after all the stories about racial discrimination that finally in 2000, after investigations into the allegations, the federal government found Coca-Cola guilty of the charges and ordered them to pay the biggest racial discrimination payout in history. Coca-Cola had to pay various victims restitution, which added up to nearly $200 million. If you ask me, that’s nothing compared to what they should pay for the decades of abuse against their workers.
8. Coca-Cola and Coca Leaves
Although Coca-Cola is supposed to contain no trace of cocaine like officials say, one of the main ingredients is the coca leaf, which is the main ingredient in cocaine. It’s a known fact that eight tons of coca leaves are imported from South America each year by Coca-Cola and if any other regular citizen brought any of this into the states then chances are they would be arrested for drug trafficking.
9. Coca-Cola’s War on Water
I have read some wild stuff about this company but this one I just couldn’t believe.
Years back Coca-Cola launched what some people call a “war” against water. In this campaign, “Just say no to H2O”, the Coca-Cola Company offered its various suppliers, like restaurants, incentives to push their products on customers when they ordered the free tap water. People eventually found a link on the internet and started sharing it which soon caused the “War” to end.
10. Coca-Cola and Water Depletion in India
Finally, this one had to be the biggest surprise to me. It takes two liters of water to make just one liter of Coke. In 2004, farmers in India held protests because Coca-Cola bottling plants where basically bleeding the water wells dry. It got so bad that Coke had to start shipping in water to many off its plants in third world countries.
Over 290 billion liters of water are used every year by Coca-Cola around the globe and shows no signs of slowing down. As people in 3 rd world countries continue to die because of a lack of clean water, Coca-Cola’s pockets just keep getting bigger and bigger at the expensive of innocent people.
Also see the Unofficial Coca-Cola History and you will be surprised at what you see and read.
[purpleslinky]
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