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Vice Blog

SPAIN - PICOGRAMS FOR EVERYONE

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 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 in Barcelona's and Madrid's atmospheres traces of cannabis, cocaine and heroin

—the latter found only in Madrid, which must be remains of the 80s Movida punk scene. But before anyone hits the roof over these declamations of consumption, we should probably read the statements of the research and see what it says, exactly…

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First: The CSIC guys use the

picogram

as their measure unit. Such a fun word (in Spain "pico" means "fix": we swear to all that is sacred that this is not a joke) corresponds to one billionth of a gram. That is to say: if CSIC analyzes the air they will probably find even a picogram of kryptonite. In Spain, we've got picograms of whatever you want!

Second: Research has been conducted in areas next to drug supermarkets or directly inside abandoned buildings used by the most sordid junkies. Great. This is 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?

DANIEL LÓPEZ VALLE