Cocaine has a long and complex history in the United States.
For a long time, like virtually all drugs, it was legal and easily available. It was an early ingredient in Coca-Cola before the company dropped it largely due to public pressure.
Cocaine was outlawed in the US in 1914 and use declined but it remained popular among musicians.
In the 1970s, usage soared as the Colombian cartels began to export it in vast quantities and in 1986, when Maryland supernova Len Bias died of an overdose, the public turned firmly against it again. Many laws were passed against the drug and its stepchild from hell, crack cocaine.