Coca-Cola Still Uses Coca Leaves

But they have the cocaine removed.  Dan Lewis fills us in (h/t the Dish):

While the original Coke formula had a significant amount of cocaine in it, it was quickly limited and, by 1903 or thereabouts, eliminated from the recipe. This was done in part because the desired flavor can be extracted from the coca leaves, removing the cocaine and leaving the drug aside as a byproduct. To this day, Coca-Cola needs coca leaves to make its drinks; as a Coke exec told the New York Times, “[i]ngredients from the coca leaf are used, but there is no cocaine in it and it is all tightly overseen by regulatory authorities.”
In fact, the United States (and most other nations) expressly prohibits the sale and trade of coca leaves. In order for Coca-Cola to continue to exist in its current form, the company has a special arrangement with the Drug Enforcement Administration, allowing it to import dried coca leaves from Peru (and to a lesser degree, from Bolivia) in huge quantities. The dried coca leaves make their way to a processing plant in Maywood, New Jersey, operated by the Stepan Corporation, a publicly traded chemicals company.  The Stepan factory imports roughly 100 metric tons of the leaves each year, stripping the active ingredient—the cocaine—from them.  The cocaine-free leaves are then shipped off to Coke to turn into syrup, and, ultimately, soda.
What does Stepan do with the cocaine? It goes to the Mallinckrodt Corporation, which creates a legal, topical anesthesia called cocaine hydrochloride.  Cocaine hydrochloride is used to numb the lining of the mouth, nose, or throat, and requires a DEA order form to obtain.

The Stepan family gave a lot of money to Notre Dame over the years, including money for the geodesic dome in which one of my boxing matches and a number of my final exams were held (including a physics exam where two or three pre-med students infiltrated, waited about 5 minutes, then screamed, jumped up, overturned their desks and ran out):

Stepan Center is Notre Dame's multi-purpose facility. With 21,000 square feet (2,000 m²) of selectively dry floor space, this work of architecture, located on the northeast corner of campus is the main anti-symbol of the Fighting Irish community. The facility was one of the first geodesic domed facilities in the nation and is fitted with antique, duct tape enhanced insulation.

That wikipedia entry will make any former domer laugh.

Occasionally Stepan Chemical would be criticized in the student newspaper for running some horribly polluting plant in Mexico that caused a bunch of neighboring kids to die from cancer or something, but other than that, I never really heard the company mentioned other than this.  So not only do they possibly kill kids in Mexico, but they decocainize coca leaves for Coke.  I learn something new every day.