In my local Caribbean takeaway, where unemployed youths hang about in the day drinking Coke and sauntering outside for the occasional smoke, there's a curious shrine.

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Tweenage girls drinking coke, listening to some digitally obscured tune.

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Some are willing to pay a high premium for Coca Cola on the perception that, in good times and bad people the world over are going to keep drinking Coke.

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Alice settled in a refugee camp in Kenya, a greying barfly drinking gin and Coke.

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On leaving Wormwood Scrubs, the former Libertines star told reporters he was glad to be out, and said he was looking forward to drinking a rum and coke and spending time with his cats.

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Communities around the world are affected by the manufacturing of these products, not only because they are growing ever fatter as a result of so much sugar in their lives, but also because the use of water for sugar drinks means communities often go without clean drinking water (which Coke and other companies then sells to them as bottled water).

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As Reason's Jacob Sullum points out, that means that while New Yorkers will no longer be able to ingest 240 calories drinking a 20-ounce Coke, they will still have no trouble buying a 24-ounce, 520-calorie double-chocolatey frappucino at Starbucks, or a 20-ounce, 800-calorie milkshake.

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The coroner calculated that drinking 10 litres (17.5 pints) of Coke amounted to more than 1kg (2.2lb) of sugar and 970mg of caffeine, Television New Zealand (TVNZ) reports.

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In the 1970s and early 1980s, it had a reputation for worker absenteeism, drinking and drug use, and overall shoddy quality (workers were alleged to have put empty Coke bottles in door panels, so the bottles would rattle and annoy customers).

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