case in point: some youtuber recently reverse engineered the coca-cola formula

hmm but can they actually get the coca?

coca-cola's coca is the coca as in cocaine (literally)

so I heard DEA has some really strict controls on that coca producing facility (so it doesn't produce cocaine)

	▲	bonzini 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		He used fenchol (a basil-like aroma), tea tree oil and tannins to replace coca leaf extract. Without tea tree oil, it did taste substantially different from coca-cola and more like Pepsi, and without tannins it was more like diet coke.
	▲	ssl-3 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Coca isn't blanket-illegal. It's just very-heavily restricted in the States. (But not that restricted: My regular dentist is licensed to prescribe cocaine. At a federal level, it's less-restricted than the devil's lettuce is.) Coca-Cola buys spent coca remains, after they've had the party powder components extracted from them. This product is not particularly restricted.