Cocaine first found its uses as a topical anisthetic. Surgeons in the late to early 19th and 20th centuries began experimenting with cocaine by sprinkling it into their eyes and poking at them with syringes and scalpels.
Cocaine quickly spread into medicine as a cure-all, and even found its way into cola. The widespread public usage of cocaine led to many children to be born disformed, and because of the era's primitave medicine, many died.
The babies who did survive often had excelerated IQs, although this trend would not be discovered until the 1990s.
After the effects of cocaine as a drug became more prevailent, it was made illegal and products that proudly featured cocaine were removed from shelves.