#16: Coca-Cola
Did you know the US Civil War created a whole generation of morphine addicts? Doctors had not yet realized the full extent of the horribly addictive properties and dangerous side effects of opiates, so they were prescribing loads of morphine to wounded soldiers and then sending them home with crippling addictions.
One veteran, John Pemberton, created a tonic that was meant to help him fight his morphine addiction, one that was full of cocaine and caffeine. And astonishingly, we still drink the descendant of that original tonic: we call it Coca-Cola. I’m assuming they’ve removed the cocaine since those early days, though.
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