Why we took cocaine out of soda

Once Coca-Cola was taken out of the soda parlors­ — which were strictly segregated — and bottled for mass consumption, a racist paranoia set in among the general public. Cocaine use was said to be causing “hypersexuality” among African Americans in the South and because a cocaine-laced beverage was now widely available to them, that active ingredient had to be taken out. The removal of cocaine from Coca-Cola was not done for health reasons but rather to placate an unreasonably suspicious populace set on protecting their women from “negro cocaine-fiends.”