[Firestarter]

Dutch Cocaine Factory

The Nederlandsche Cocaïnefabriek (NCF), Dutch Cocaine Factory, was established In Amsterdam by the Koloniale Bank (Colonial Bank) on 12 March 1900. The NCF legally produced drugs until the early 1960s – cocaine, morphine, heroin and novocaine. The coca plants came from the Dutch East Indies.
In 1902 the factory on the Schinkelkade was expanded. Around 1909 a new cocaine factory was built at the Duivendrechtsekade, which was gradually expanded.


The NCF initially benefited from the First World War because major competitor Merck from Germany no longer had access to some markets and had diffulty getting the raw material.
Even though the “neutral” Netherlands claimed an export ban for medicines during the First World War, the NCF received an exemption for this and made a huge profit. Later in the war, the NCF had problems keeping their profits at the same high level because of the war.

The NCF sold cocaine to Burroughs Wellcome that sold it to British soldiers to turn them into addicted “fighting machines”.
Burroughs Wellcome sold cocaine in pills with the name Forced March since 1890.


The Dutch Opium Act of 1919 prohibitted the production of cocaine, except by licensed companies. This was even more restricted by the Opium Act in 1928.
This gave the NCF an advantage, because it simply got the permission to produce cocaine, and other drugs, legally (for medical purposes).

During WW II, the NCF also sold amphetamines for German soldiers.

In 1963, the NCF was taken over by Koninklijke Zwanenberg Organon (KZO) from Apeldoorn. This meant the end of the NCF as an independent company: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xdvnd...nufacturer
(archived here: http://archive.is/EZD5e)


The story of the NCF finally got some publicity after Conny Braam researched this not widely known history and published a novel on it, also translated into English – The cocaine salesman (2009). After that she gave interviews to boost the sale of her book.
According to Braam, between 1914 and 1918 the NCF exported an average of 30,000 kilos of cocaine annually.

See the following interview in Dutch, with English subtitles.
In my opinion, the most interesting part of the video is that Braam tells about the involvement of the Dutch Royal family and Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij (NHM), controlled by Queen Wilhelminan, and also tells that the Dutch Royal family had been in the opium trade...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHJlc6pfVoQ

After this interview, Conny Braam was discredited in the wonderful Dutch media, over supposedly making false claims.


I’ve tried to find better information on the Nederlandsche Cocainefabriek (NCF), Dutch Cocaine Factory, than Conny Braam, who wrote a novel on it, but didn’t find any.
Hans Bosman was given a PhD in 2012 for the report to discredit Braam’s research.

Bosman presents tables and figures, with estimated numbers, to “prove” once and for all that the NCF was never the largest cocaine producer in the world. According to Bosman the NCF, with 2 locations where factories were built (in 1900 in Amsterdam and in 1909 in Ouder-Amstel), from 1910 to 1917 could produce a maximum of 750 and after that 1,500 kg of cocaine per year.
In 1931, the drugs factory at the Duivendrechtsekade was expanded to produce a a maximum of 5 kg morphine and codeine per day (more than 1800 kg/ year).

It´s amazing how Bosman could present information on this interesting topic, in such a boring way!
Bosman is really, really independent, as he was a manager reponsible for the production of hard drugs at both the NCF and Verenigde Pharmaceutische Fabrieken N.V. (VPF, the company that was previously named Bonnema) from 1960 to 1973.

From the late 1880s onwards, the coca plant was cultivated on a commercial scale on Java.
By 1908, Java had taken over from Peru as the larges coca producer in the world (respectively 4,500 and 4,400 kg in 1908).
By 1913, Java produced 14,500 kg per year (compared to 4,100 kg in Peru).
See the origins for the cocaine manufactured worldwide, 1892-1930.


Most of the Java coca was exported to and sold in Amsterdam.


Then Bosman argues with estimated numbers that the biggest cocaine producing countries in the world were Germany (60% of the world cocaine) and the USA (ca 25%).


According to Bosman, the German Merck, Darmstadt, produced an average of almost 7,000 kg annually in 1912-1914 and 1,700 kg in 1918. In 1915 and 1916 Merck produced less than 750 kg, which Bosman “ignores” in his text.


Interesting to note is that the recipe for the world famous Coca Cola, from it inception in 1886 to 1903 included coca leaves (the raw material to produce cocaine).

In November 1909, the Koloniale Bank acquired 84% of the shares of the Soekamadjoe plantation on Java, where the coca for the NCF was cultivated.
Hans Bosman does present information on the shareholders and board of directors of the NCF, but sadly missing is this type of information of its parent company - the Koloniale Bank. Bosman doesn´t even mention that the Queen Wilhelmina controlled Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij owned a stake in the Koloniale Bank. In 1949, the Koloniale Bank N.V. changed its name to Cultuur- Handel- en Industrie-Bank (Cultuurbank) N.V.
The Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij is only mentioned once, on the Board of the Coca Producers Association (Coca Producenten Vereniging, CPV) that was established on 7 October 1925 (that also included the Koloniale Bank).

In 1931, the Dutch government tried and failed to get a cocaine monopoly for the NCF through a quota plan under supervision of the League of Nations.

The profit achieved by NCF was excellent as a percentage of the NLG 12,000 shareholders capital.
In 1902-1908, its profit margin was a whopping 41%
In 1910-1914, its profit margin was a respectable 20%
In 1915-1920, World War I and its aftermath, its profit margin was close to 100%!
In 1928, its profit margin was at an all time high.
In 1939, NCF profit jumped because of World War II. In 1943, the Nazi government made a policy to boost the profits of the NCF.


As the paper by Bosman is filled with estimates I found it interesting to look at how he did this (to conclude that the NCF was worldwide a relatively small cocaine producer).
He estimates the quantities of cocaine sold by NCF for the period 1902-1930, by taking the profits made and by including sales volume and prices, manufacturing costs and overheads, determined the amount.
This would only be reliable if there was no creative bookkeeping or some intermediary company that made even more profit than the NCF.
This becomes even more doubtful, as Bosman admits that no data are available for the quantity of coca leaves shipped to NCF in the period 1902-1908.

One of the strange thing in the numbers presented, is that Bosman assumes that tonnes of coca leaves were stocked in Amsterdam (instead of made into cocaine).


In the early 1960s both NCF and VPF became part of the multinational Koninklijke Zwanenberg Organon (KZO), later Akzo (now Akzo Nobel), that produced opiates under the name Diosynth.
From 1960 on, Turkey became the main source of poppy straw, the raw material for VPF’s opiate business. When Turkey, in 1972 abandoned poppy cultivation, until 1976 Diosynth couldn´t buy sufficient raw material.

It takes until the Appendix before Bosman explicitely attacks Conny Braam´s book. It´s dubious at best in a report to become PhD to attack a “novel” for no other reason than the adverse publicity. As Braam founded what she said on sources, in my opinion Bosman should have attacked the sources instead of Braam.
One of the claims by Braam is that in WW II the NCF sold amphetamine to the German army. Bosman states with authority that the NCF never manufactured amphetamine. Bosman does admit that starting in 1937, the NCF produced racemic ephedrine (that is similar to amphetamine).
He doesn´t explicitelt mention whether the NCF sold racemic ephedrine to the German army...

Hans Bosman – The History of the Nederlandsche Cocaïne Fabriek and its Successors as Manufacturers of Narcotic Drugs, analysed from an International Perspective (2012): https://chg.kncv.nl/history