Most sugar today comes from beets and is extracted through an industrial process. Drug cartels rely on things like gasoline because they are commonly available, but if there were not criminal sanctions on the process, then it’s possible some higher-quality means of extraction would be employed.

It’s almost all from sugarcane in Canada, crude juice is extracted in places like Brazil and refined in Canada.

You can chew out the sugar or cocaine if you like.

(I think coca needs an acid base extraction to get a crystalline form, but that’s straightforward chemistry at scale)

Most sugar in my own backyard originates from beets, but I see I was wrong about it being most sugar worldwide. Wikipedia[0] gives a figure of 30% of world sugar for 2013.

If crude juice is extracted in Brazil and refined in Canada, I’m surprised that it is viewed as cost-effective to transport so much unneeded liquid by sea.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_beet

I could be mistaken on the form of sea transit. I just know it gets refined in Canada (which also seems like a waste: why not refine at source?).

Sea transit is cheap, sugarcane grows better in the tropics than beets in cooler places. Harder to harvest below-ground stuff.

Canada used to subsidize/protect sugar beet producers (to keep them competitive), but largely got out of it.

Maybe that’s why we still refine it: because the plants still exist.

> it’s possible

Nope it's not possible and it's more than obvious way.

The cocaine content in coca leaves is 0.23% to 0.96%. Sugarcane has a magnitude or so higher sugar content.

It is. Then you’re an acid-base crystallization away to powder product.

Cocaine is not a synthetic drug. Been around long before any human was walking around.

But it's the refining that is modern. Chewing on coca leaves is not the same thing as a little key bump. Let's not try to confuse what's happening

Solvent-extraction and crystallization isn't very modern.