From what I have read, the original delivery mechanism for cocaine was chewing on the leaves of the coca plant. In that form, it's quite mild.

Extract from the coca plant has medicinal uses. From that perspective, it absolutely is a good drug. (Coca Cola contains extracts from the coca plant, minus the hallucinogen called cocaine.)

Pure cocaine is almost certainly the mild, inoffensive drug described above. It only becomes an aggressive and problematic thing with much modern processing.

OP is clearly not talking about chewing coca leaves. He is talking about pure vs. impure powdered cocaine.

Maybe chewing coca leaves is healthy, maybe it's not; I don't know. But it's not really relevant to a discussion about cocaine, the powdered street drug. One barely exists outside of a handful of Andean countries, the other is a worldwide health catastrophe.

The person I am replying to is arguing based on supposed firsthand experience. Their supposed expertise based on firsthand experience sounds dubious on the face of it and is also being called into question by others:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18210799

Everything I have read indicates it can be a mild drug. That isn't straight up crazy talk.

It shouldn't be outright dismissed based on "I was in Colombia once and tried something I imagine is pure, never mind that I don't even speak the language."

That isn't a fair characterization. Most of this is going to be subjective because there's no quantifiable metric for a drug's "pleasantness," but crystalized cocaine is the 1:1 comparison being made.

Perhaps worded a little sharper than I really intended. Other than that, it's not terribly different from what you are saying.

There is a very relevant difference between active and inactive cuts. The cocaine I tried likely had inactive cuts, which calls my assessment of field prices into question, but not active cuts as it makes no economic sense, and thus wouldn't affect my anecdotal assessment of the mental effects of cocaine.

I have also had coca tea, and quite enjoyed it. It was a more euphoric coffee alternative. For me I assume it's a dosage issue: tea is nice but doing a line of extracted cocaine is very excessive for my brain and body. But honestly this is very much an anecdote as I dont do well with any stimulants.

Funny, coca tea is an expression I sometimes use for diet coke.