Two years ago we woke up with news stating that Spain was the world leader in cocaine and whiskey consumption (take that, Scotland), so a piece of research the Centro Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) recently published shouldn’t surprise anyone. The folks at the CSIC’s lab stated that they have detected traces of cannabis, cocaine and heroin in Barcelona’s and Madrid’s atmospheres —the latter found only in Madrid, which must be remains of the 80s Movida punk scene. But before anyone hits the roof over these declarations, we should probably read the statements of the research and see exactly what it says…

First: The CSIC guys use the picogram as their measure unit. This fun word corresponds to one billionth of a gram. One billionth. Frankly if CSIC analyses the air they could probably find a picogram of kryptonite.
Second: Research has been conducted in areas next to drug supermarkets or directly inside abandoned buildings used by the most sordid junkies. Great. So it’s like going to Burger King and declaring that there are some picograms of Whopper in the air.
Last and certainly not least: Research reveals that drug consumption is at its highest on weekends. Bravo! Did we need an investigation and our tax money to discover that?