Cocaine, that’s cool isn’t it? You’re a big old Scarface, in your big mansion, hoovering up lines of gak like an absolute gangster - what a legend. But, erm, turns out it’s absolutely disgusting and you need to sneeze all that crap out of your nostrils immediately.
I know this because Gordon Ramsay told me. He told me on a television programme called Gordon Ramsay on Cocaine, a show that I watched solely because of the title, and was subsequently let-down by its actual execution. Didn’t do what it said on the tin, basically.
But no matter, because it was actually quite interesting in the end, particularly at one point where Ramsay went to visit a cocaine producer in the Columbian wilderness. He stood by and observed the step-by-step process to see how it’s actually made, and, well, it’s foul.
It even shocked Ramsay himself: “I’ve cooked some serious shit in my life and been to some extraordinary places, but nothing quite on this level.”
So how is it made? That’s why you’re here, ain’t it?
To start with, our cocaine bloke starts by chopping up and crushing coca leaves before bunging them in a huge pit for ‘the science bit’. Firstly, the chopped-up leaves are coated in cement (yeah, cement, that thing that should never go into the human body), and then - you won’t see this coming - sprayed with sulphuric acid, which is also not designed for entry into anyone’s nostrils, ever.
Then, he needs to extract the cocaine from the mulch, and he does this by *sigh* putting a load of battery acid in it. At this point, all he’s left with is ‘cocaine water’ - sounds fun - which is siphoned off, before bicarbonate of soda is added to help remove all the gross, scary and dangerous chemicals. Good Guy Bicarbonate Of Soda, saving the day, yet again.
Finally, it’s all left to dry (because have you ever accidentally got water up your nose? It’s the worst) before being cooked to further destroy the bad chemicals that saturate the batch. Then it’s all bagged up, sold all around the world, and cut with even more dodgy stuff, like detergent and talcum powder - and then you do a big mound of it, grab your machine gun and defend your drug den from Sosa’s cronies.
So what have we learned? Cocaine is bad for you - who’d have thought it? I’m sticking to Red Bull I reckon, there are definitely no dodgy chemicals in that.
(Image: ITV)
