In modern society, cocaine use and distribution so of, for the general public, are illegal in the United States, and those who are involved in the cocaine business, whether they are users or sellers, are subject to laws that could incarcerate them for many years, depending upon the circumstances. In other words, the usage of cocaine in America is illegal and has been that way for over one hundred years, except for some specific usage of the cocaine derivative in the medical profession, typically as an anesthetic.
The strange thing is that cocaine was once utilized in patent medicines, as well as an anesthetic, in addition to being an ingredient in soft drinks such as Coca-Cola. Cocaine was seen as a vital stimulant, and thus as an energy boost for those that drank Coca-Cola, while also being available for public health usage as in nasal sprays and lozenges. In other words, cocaine was part and parcel of products that could be bought at pharmacies, in addition to it being available to the consumer as a beverage. This then was the way that it was, and it needs to be acknowledged that it is coca leaves that cocaine is derived from, of which the chewing of coca leaves is still a common practice in those societies that grow such, because those leaves are a stimulant, thus warding off fatigue, as well as being an appetite suppressor.
While today's America makes it seem that cocaine is a scourge on humankind, it is the abuse of cocaine along with the fact that it can become addictive that creates potential problems, for the cocoa leaf has been part of specific societies for millenniums, and those that ingest that leaf, do not suffer from the same sorts of ill effects that cocaine produces, mainly because as a derivative, cocaine as produced will have a significantly much higher potency than the coca leaf, which therein invites dangers, which is the proximate reason why it eventually got banned from all substances and products that the consumer could purchase off the shelf.
So then, back in the day, before chemists made cocaine ever more powerfully concentrated, there was, to a very large extent, no real issues with cocaine and its products, but in America it needs to be recognized that competition and the desire to dominate a market will make for the type of decisions in which a product prudently utilized can be transformed and thus transfixed into something far more potent, which is great for profits in the sense that a person who is addicted or becomes habitually attached to a product so being sold, is going to be very good for business.
All of this would seem to imply two basic things, the first being that properly regulated, off-the-shelf products in patent medicines could use a derivative of cocaine again, and in an era in which high-energy drinks are consumed by millions of Americans, it would seem that there would be a place for a derivative of the coca leaf in energy drinks, also having its place. That said the bottom line is that nothing will change, mainly because those who could have and should have been more responsible with cocaine were not, and thus have damaged its image, seemingly forever.