While I see sense in articulating that cocaine use was different in 17th c. compared to now, I don't believe that you'd argue the same against someone saying that a person drinking beer is drinking alcohol, because beer has less alcohol than vodka.

To make this analogous, the words for "alcohol" and "vodka" would have to be the same. The OP is arguing that when people say "doing cocaine" they are generally referring to the high-strength powdered form, not the underlying chemical in general.

And that if we interpret the sentence like that (which we should if that's how it's generally understood) then it is not true that people were doing cocaine in the 17th century.

Random tangent: now I’m curious if there are any languages where the word for alcohol and vodka (or whatever is locally the most common spirit) is the same. Seems plausible that there would be.

Scottish?

The word vodka is apparently derived from the Slavic word for water https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vodka#Etymology

The word "whisky" is derived from the Scottish Gaelic word for "water", too. (Maybe that's what your sibling comment is referring to?)

Cocaine hydrochloride (i.e. powder) isn’t even the only purified form of cocaine. There’s also crack. Would you argue that people who smoke crack aren’t doing cocaine?

Furthermore, the most purified form of drinking ethanol actually is called “grain alcohol”; Everclear is a popular brand.

> Would you argue that people who smoke crack aren’t doing cocaine?

Yes. This is true colloquially and legally.

The only unserious argument here is your absurd analogy to banks. A homonym is when two words have totally unrelated meanings. Cocaine is the psychoactive drug found in coca leaves; we refer to cocaine hydrochloride (i.e. powder cocaine) as “cocaine” for the same reason we refer to Everclear as “grain alcohol”.