KILLER COKE EXPLAINED

When I was in Boston a few days ago there were guys handing out fliers at the bus station that said “BAD COCAINE ALERT!” warning people to seek medical attention if their coke/crack was making them sick. By now you have probably heard that almost 1/3rd of the cocaine circulating the US, Canada and maybe the world is contaminated with a (potentially) poisonous veterinary deworming agent called levamisole. It has already killed several people and made many more people sick. Levamisole causes a condition called agranulocytosis which means that it kills white blood cells which are a necessary part of your body’s immune system and prevent small things like a sore in the mouth from escalating into deadly infection. In addition to temporarily AIDS-ifying your immune system, levamisole may also make cocaine more cardiotoxic and increase risk of seizures, meaning that it has three potential way of killing you.

Cutting coke for profit is one thing, but killing customers is the very definition of bad business (or at least killing them quickly) so why would this seemingly random and toxic drug be appearing as a cut, when they could use, say, inositol or procaine? For the most part people don’t know, but I have been doing some research and here are a few possible explanations:

Read the rest at viceland.

Learn how coke gets from the Columbian wilderness to your nasal cavity here.