THE HISTORY OF COCAINE | Everything You DIDN'T KNOW

pablo escobar who has been dubbed the king of cocaine is still considered the most successful criminal in the history of the world having amassed over 30 billion dollars worth of wealth in just two short decades how did he do it well you're gonna find out in this episode of lawyer up [Music] hey everybody welcome back to the channel my name is joshua roberts attorney at law and today we are going a little cocaine casual uh in honor of the topic of uh the history of cocaine we're going to talk about where it comes from the different forms of cocaine how it's used we're going to talk about how it's made and of course no discussion of cocaine would be complete without looking at the life and times of pablo escobar in his smuggling of drugs into the united states during the 70s and the 80s hey if you like my gta vice city look then hit that like button if you want to know more about the law subscribe if you got something to say comment below and as always i love it when you share me on social media so let's talk about cocaine or coke or blow or it goes by a lot of different names but essentially what it is is a strong central nervous system stimulant that is most frequently used as a recreational drug now cocaine is either the second or the third most popular recreational drug in the world marijuana is obviously number one and the meth people and the koch people they fight about uh who's number two but they don't really keep official statistics on that kind of thing now cocaine is commonly either snorted or smoked or injected it works by inhibiting the reuptake of neurotransmitters in the brain resulting in a greater concentration of serotonin and dopamine in your brain now the mental effect of that is an increase in awareness a dullness of pain and feelings of euphoria in the user the physical effects include an increase in body temperature an increase in heart rate pupil dilation and an increase in blood pressure and in an overdose scenario it can result in stroke or heart attack and because of its addictive qualities and the high potential for overdose it is listed as a hard drug it's illegal in almost every country in the world there are some medicinal uses of cocaine hydrochloride but these are limited to uh basically nasal surgeries where the cocaine hydrochloride acts as both a numbing agent and a as they call it a vasoconstrictive agent so that it numbs and acts as a local anesthetic while it's also reducing the bleeding so in some countries cocaine hydrochloride is used for medicinal purposes and that would include the united states but it's a very limited usage it's most popularly used recreationally and i can tell you that the sale distribution smuggling trafficking of cocaine is illegal it's illegal everywhere in the world and in the united states the distribution of cocaine is a class a felony that is the highest level of felony if you get caught distributing cocaine in the united states at the federal level your sentence is from 10 years in prison to life that's 10 being the minimum amount of time you would spend behind bars if you're caught distributing cocaine and so it's a very serious crime and nothing in this video should be construed that i'm trying to glamorize cocaine in any way cocaine is a hard drug and as all hard drugs they ruin lives they ruin families and they ruin communities we know in communities where they have higher instances of drug arrests and drug incarcerations that there's also more crime in general there's more violent crime more domestic abuse more hospitalizations and a higher instance of children being taken into protective custody and i've seen it firsthand over the last 20 years in practicing law on the criminal defense side of things so i can tell you do not use hard drugs it'll get you nowhere fast and most of the time well you'll wind up in prison but that's enough of me preaching to you let's talk about cocaine and its history because it is a fascinating infotainment topic now to understand the different types of cocaine and the different types of uses you really have to start with the coca plant from which its psychoactive ingredient is sourced now the coca plant is about three to four feet tall and it has small green leaves on it they almost look like green tea leaves they are indigenous to the mountains and jungle areas of peru bolivia and colombia in south america and the cocaine is actually extracted from the coca leaves themselves now the leaves of the coca plant have been picked and stuck in the mouths of people who live in south america for years they chew on it much like we chew on chewing tobacco and it provides a mild stimulant it dulls pain and gives a general feeling of wellness and happiness they also use it in peru in the andes mountains to treat altitude sickness and these forms while they're pleasant they are not the cocaine that you and i know to transform these coca leaves into cocaine is actually a fairly involved process so let's talk about how cocaine is made now there are three types of cocaine there is a cocaine base that we will talk about it's generally referred to as freebase cocaine and then there is something called cocaine hydrochloride and that's the powder cocaine that you know that you see in the movies that people snort there's also crack cocaine and we'll talk about how you make each one of these types of cocaine because each one is different basically in the method that it's created in its consumption and then also in its costs so let's talk about the steps that one goes through to make cocaine now these vary there's different methods and they can do this in different quantities and in different places but this is the general method that most of the cocaine that comes from south america this is how it's made and the first phase is called the extraction phase and this is done by the farmers in the mountains of colombia and bolivia and peru the first thing they do is they pick the leaves off of the coca plant they take these leaves and then they spread them out on a tarp and they let them dry for about a half a day the next step is to chop up or mulch the coca leaves and they can do this by hand or machine some use weed whackers to actually go through and chop up the leaves once the leaves are chopped up they're spread out again and they are sprinkled with a combination of powdered cement yeah that's powdered cement if you can believe that sulfuric acid and phosphorus these substances are sprinkled over the leaves and then the leaves are mixed together kind of like a salad so you get an even coat over all of the coca leaves from there you take these leaves and you put them in a 55 gallon drum and then you add gasoline they use diesel gasoline or they call it petrol you add the gasoline to the drum with the leaves and you let it sit overnight when you come back the next morning the cocaine has now been extracted from the leaves and we start the next stage which is called the base stage in the base phase the farmers drain the liquid out of the 55-gallon drums they're left with drums full of leaves and they're done with the leaves at this point that can be discarded what they want is this green fluid it's a mixture of cocaine and diesel gasoline however they don't want it in that form so they put it in another barrel and they add ammonia to it and when you dump in the ammonia it immediately causes a chemical reaction where it turns this green uh liquid it turns it milky white as the gasoline molecules are attaching to the ammonium molecules and they're releasing the cocaine what you're left with is this creamy milky white substance and from there the farmers take it and they pour it through a filter most often they use cloth the ammonia and the gasoline pours through the cloth and what is caught by the cloth is this kind of milky white gooey substance and that is the cocaine that's called cocaine base the farmers call it pasta based and it's a milky white substance that looks similar to the cocaine that you and i know and see in the movies and the farmers dry this base cocaine and that's usually as far as the farmers will take it they will sell it to cartels or sell it to intermediaries who take the pasta base or the cocaine base to most of the time to cocaine labs to be processed into the next phase which is called the hydrochloride phase once you get your base or your freebase cocaine into a lab or you can do this in a kitchen but on the large scale they do it in cocaine labs in south america you take the cocaine base and you give it a acetone and water bath then you bring the bath up to a boil and mix in hydrochloric acid this creates a crystallization of the cocaine base and transforms it into cocaine hydrochloride from there you drain off the solvents again and that cocaine is pressed it's either done by hydraulics or by hand to get rid of all of the excess liquids and solvents from there the gooey white mass that is left is poured into what they call bricks or molds and they hold about what will ultimately weigh about a kilo of cocaine once the mix is poured into these bricks they're allowed to dry and in the olden days they would dry outside in the sun but in modern cocaine labs they just stick them in a microwave oven to dry the cocaine the finished product is cocaine hydrochloride the powdery cocaine that most people are familiar with now at this point the cocaine is ready to go but we know that cocaine is very expensive we'll talk about statistics a little bit later and drug dealers are always thinking about ways where they can expand their profits or make their product go further and the main way that they do this is by either what they call stepping on or cutting the cocaine hydrochloride and when you step on the product what you're doing is adding some external substance to the mix that isn't cocaine they use all types of additives including baking soda caffeine ephedrine inactive sugars amphetamines almost anything white and remotely powdery can be moved or inserted into the cocaine because you know this substance isn't exactly regulated by the fda who you going to complain to if your cocaine has extra baking soda right however by far the most popular way that the dealers step on their product is to add baking soda and water to it which converts cocaine hydrochloride or powder cocaine into crack cocaine now crack cocaine is made by dissolving cocaine hydrochloride in a mixture of baking soda and water once you process it and after you squeeze out all of the excess solvents when it dries it becomes this brittle kind of a milky light brown substance in a kind of rock like form and it's called crack and it's usually yellowish to light brown and it's much less expensive than the pure powdered cocaine most people will smoke crack they put it in a glass tube and light the tube and the sound that the crack cocaine makes as the water and the baking soda is heated and the water escapes makes a crackling sound which is where the name crack cocaine comes from so let's talk about how this stuff is consumed now remember there's three different types of cocaine you've got your freebase cocaine you have your powder cocaine and you have your crack cocaine and there's three basic ways that people use it they either snort it they smoke it or they inject it now you can't use each type of cocaine in each way so let's talk about the specifics of how people generally use the drug now when you're talking about snorting usually we're talking about powder cocaine because it's the only form of cocaine that is water soluble meaning it dissolves in water you need this type of cocaine when you are snorting it because it needs to dissolve or soak into the membranes of the nose if you snort freebase cocaine or you snort crack cocaine it's not going to dissolve and you're not going to get the same effect so people generally only snort powder cocaine and in doing so they'll generally spread it out on a hard surface they call it a line three or four inches long and then they'll snort it and they use various devices to assist in the snorting they can use a hollowed-out pen a cut-up straw some people will just use the end of their fingernail or some people just put their face right down there in there and they snort it now the three or four inch lines of cocaine are called lines or they're called bumps when you get into a really long line that's a 9 or 10 inches long you usually see people rolling up 100 bills and snorting what they call a rail and that is an extremely long line of cocaine and as i mentioned it coached the membranes of the nose the inside of the nostril and is absorbed into the bloodstream in that way now people generally do not smoke powder cocaine the hydrochloride in it gives off a terrible taste and a terrible odor when it's burned so generally you'll be snorting or injecting we'll get to in a minute powder cocaine are the only two ways that that is used but let's talk about smoking when a user smokes cocaine they simply heat that cocaine and it gives off a vapor or a smoke and then they inhale it into the lungs by which it is uh basically incorporated into the bloodstream of the human body now most users just use a simple glass pipe that's hollowed out so that they put the freebase cocaine or the crack cocaine into the pipe heat the bottom of the pipe and then inhale the fumes as i mentioned you don't do this with powder cocaine because the hydrochloride is very accurate now the injection of cocaine is again the process where cocaine is dissolved uh into a liquid and then injected into the human body obviously this is the fastest way to get cocaine into the bloodstream you just put it right in there again it requires the cocaine to be water soluble so you won't be injecting crack cocaine you won't be injecting free freebase cocaine this is dissolved powder cocaine now while this is the fastest way to get high by cocaine it is also the most dangerous uh number one as because there could be an embolism or a blockage in the vein caused by whatever was added to the cocaine to cut it these foreign substances the user is also subject to all types of blood-borne infections if they don't use sterile equipment so it's a very dangerous thing to do injecting cocaine and a particularly deadly form of injection is mixing cocaine with heroin this is known as a speed ball and it is a killer this is exactly the combination that is responsible for the deaths of john belushi chris farley river phoenix lane staley of allison chains comedian mitch hedberg and philip seymour hoffman all died of an overdose from doing a speed ball so don't even think about doing one now last but not least there's something called plugging it's a little weird it's where you take the powder cocaine and you form it into a ball or a suppository and then you stick it in well any hole on the body and people do this yes including that hole apparently you can get high that way it's not a one of the most popular ways to use the drug but people do take cocaine and stick it in places where the sun don't shine a little weird yet so let's talk about some statistics and pricing when we're talking about cocaine now the price of cocaine interestingly varies drastically depending upon what part of the world that you are in and today 75 of the world's cocaine comes from the country of colombia so let's start with the farmers of bolivia peru and colombia now an acre of the coca plant will produce about 250 pounds of coca leaves and it takes about a thousand pounds of these coca leaves to give us one pound of cocaine if you convert that to kilos one kilo of cocaine is 2.2 pounds so what that means is you need 10 acres of coca leaves to produce one kilo of cocaine that's the bad news the good news is you can harvest these leaves uh up to six times a year so 10 acres of coca leaves will produce about six kilos of cocaine per year now this cocaine base that the farmers generate that i told you about earlier uh it goes for about a thousand uh dollars a kilo and they sell this to the cartel or intermediaries who turned it into hydrochloride cocaine or powdered cocaine now in colombia you can buy a kilo of powdered cocaine for about two thousand dollars a kilo however if you take that same cocaine and you transport it to the united states it goes for anywhere between twenty five thousand and thirty thousand dollars a kilo here in the states and if you're willing to bust it up and sell it by the gram it's going for about a hundred dollars a gram if you think about it there's a thousand grams in a kilogram so if you're getting a hundred dollars a gram that's a hundred thousand dollars a kilo if you're willing to break the cocaine up and sell it individually that is a lot of money and that's why people are willing to kill and be killed over the sale and the transfer of cocaine which is exactly why the most successful at it of all time pablo escobar is considered the wealthiest criminal in history because he was able to do it over the course of two decades and build a criminal enterprise that's really never been duplicated since but before we get to his story let's go way back in the history of cocaine and figure out where it started and as i told you before the coca leaf has been chewed by the people of peru and bolivia and colombia kind of as a tobacco for centuries i told you it gives them kind of a mild stimulant effect a pleasant feeling a feeling of euphoria and it's also infused with tea and used to treat uh altitude sickness uh in the andes mountains however that form of consumption is not the cocaine that we know of today the isolation of the actual cocaine alkaloid was first done in 1850 now alkaloid is just a fancy word for a compound from a plant that has a physiological effect on the human body cannabis opium and of course cocaine all alkaloids and the original use for the alkaloid of cocaine was for medicinal purposes in 1855 a german chemist by the name of albert niemann gave cocaine its name of course coca is named after the plant that the leaves come from and ain is actually a common suffix for a local anesthetic like novocaine so at that time it was used as a local anesthetic so it was named coca-cane or cocaine and while it was originally used for medicinal purposes it didn't take people long to start using it in a recreational basis in 1860s the cocaine was mixed with wine in what was called a coca wine the most popular of which was called then mariani and it was a favorite of pope leo the 13th in rome who was said to never have been found without a flask at his side not to be outdone over here in the united states a man by the name of john pemberton made his own cocoa wine however in 1855 alcohol was declared illegal in the state of georgia where he was making his cocoa wine so he had to quickly shift gears from his sweet wines into another sugary substance what he came up with he called it a cola and thus coca-cola was born and between 1886 and 1906 coca-cola had what they call coconized leaves in it so when people say i heard that coca-cola used to have cocaine in it that's actually true it did for about 20 years until the food and drug act of 1906 was passed after which time pemberton had to source decoconized coca leaves for his coca-cola product skip to 1910 and you could buy cocaine in drug stores in fact on beale street in memphis tennessee it was originally known for cocaine sales and not for music and the popularity of cocaine grew until about 1914 when it was declared illegal in the united states after that time cocaine was really dormant in the u.s until about the 1960s when we were hit with the hippies now the hippies weren't doing cocaine they were doing marijuana and lsd and they were doing their thing but what they did was they normalized drug use for recreational purposes in the united states so when the next generation came along they wanted their own drug and they adopted cocaine as the drug uh of the 70s and the 80s that fueled the mantra of sex drugs and rock and roll it was also during the 70s where pablo escobar was learning his craft down in colombia and while his story has been memorialized in countless movies and most recently in the netflix series narcos what he did is amazing he was able to build a essentially a 30 billion dollar empire in just two decades over basically the sale of cocaine after escobar learned the smuggling trade in the 70s by 1976 he was the head of the medellin cartel in colombia escobar established trade routes and smuggling routes all over the world and was basically a single-handedly or at least principally responsible for the explosion of cocaine use in the united states in the 70s and the 80s it is estimated that at his height he was moving between 70 and 80 tons of cocaine into the united states on a monthly basis and this was certainly not without its troubles escobar had to battle the authorities both home and abroad he had to fight with other drug cartels and it's estimated that he was responsible for or ordered up to over 50 000 deaths and this included anybody that stood against him including politicians uh judges witnesses anybody that stood against his cartel was targeted to be eliminated by the medellin cartel and in the middle of it all in 1982 escobar was elected to the chamber of representatives in colombia and he became wildly popular with the local people as he went from town to town building schools and community centers and houses and he became one of the almost like a robin hood character with the natives of colombia in fact at his funeral 25 000 people attended so escobar is one of the most polarizing people in the history of the world he is absolutely vilified by many and loved by many others in 1991 escobar surrendered to colombian authorities and entered into an agreement whereby he would avoid extradition to the united states where he was facing several life sentences if convicted the arrangement that he worked out with the president of colombia was that he would serve a five-year sentence in colombia in a jail that he himself built well that lasted about six months and then escobar escaped that's a shocker and he was on the lam for another oh year and a half before he was finally cornered uh and killed in a shootout with the colombian national police now whether he was killed by the police or he took his own life that is still the subject of debate and lore but regardless in 1993 he was killed at the age of 44. so how did he do it how did he smuggle all of those drugs into the united states well in the beginning he just did it by airplane he would load an airplane full of cocaine uh fly it from his property in the bahamas and land in miami he usually did it under the cover of night but as he made money he bought bigger planes and then brought in more and more cocaine now as the authorities caught on to what he was doing he started to get more creative uh there would be drops of cocaine out at sea and there would be charter boats that would go out during the day and they would get the cocaine and they would come back it wasn't out of place for these commercial fishing vessels to leave and then come back at the end of the day and so often these types of businesses were incorporated into drug drops of cocaine that were made out at sea escobar also started doing uh land drops through mexico where he would coordinate uh with the mexican cartels and drop drugs at various uh secluded locations in texas right across the border and maybe most interestingly right before his death they purchased two russian subs these were remote control subs but you could load basically a ton of cocaine and they were used to smuggle cocaine from colombia to mexico in submarines what is almost equally as fascinating as how they smuggled the money out of the united states but that's another topic for another time once escobar was killed the medallion cartel was quickly gobbled up by other cartels in the area and while the majority of cocaine still comes from colombia they now partner with mexican drug cartels to get the product into the united states the principal mexican cartel responsible for smuggling cocaine is the sinaloa cartel it its area butts right up against the southern united states and it was formerly headed by somebody you may have heard of before el chapo and the current drug cartels they still do air drops into deserted areas of arizona and new mexico california and texas but today most of the mexican drug cartels are moving product in a smaller manner they use mules they use human beings who hide the cocaine either on their body or in their bodies or vehicles and they break it down and bring it across the border in smaller quantities they do this for a couple of reasons one of which is if someone gets caught you lose a larger amount of product but also they can completely disavow any association with a person who happens to get caught by the authorities ultimately as we sit here in 2020 the popularity of cocaine has declined for in the united states from its height in the 70s and the 80s today the more popular drug in the united states is methamphetamine and while they still call cocaine the rich man's drug and crack cocaine has certainly made an inroad a lot of drug addicts have switched over to meth which is essentially uh half the price and three times as potent well that's the episode on the history of cocaine i hope you have liked it i hope you have enjoyed the more relaxed uh look that i have put on for this video it's been a ton of fun if you like the video hit that like button if you want to know more about the law and these types of interesting topics then subscribe to the channel if you got something to say to me about something comment below and as always share me on social media i appreciate you watching i'm joshua roberts and you've been watching 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Channel: Joshua Roberts

Views: 100,352

Keywords: josh roberts, joshua roberts, the history of, cocaine, drugs, colombia, crack, coke, on cocaine, cocaine powder, cocaine video, cocaine history, cocaine facts, top 5 cocaine, top 10 cocaine, cocaine documentary, cocaine documentaries, how to cocaine, cocaine coca cola, psilocybin, addiction, heroin, crack cocaine, pablo escobar, pablo, escobar

Id: MCSxDmMTfLM

Length: 31min 16sec (1876 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 14 2022