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Arts and Culture

Another Reason to Lay Off the Cocaine

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Posted on Jun 1, 2010
cocaine
Flickr / Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS

Classic coke: This woman, skin apparently still intact, goes for the blow in a photo from the 1920s.

Although it has enjoyed a seemingly unrelenting resurgence since, say, the late ’90s, cocaine could fall from druggie glory if more people were hip to one particularly distressing potential side effect of using the drug when a widespread contaminant is present. In short, it’ll rot your flesh, people.  —KA

HealthDay via Yahoo News (via Gawker):

“If you are a user of cocaine, you should be aware that some of the cocaine is not clean and can have other agents that can cause you to have a low white-cell count or skin tissue death,” said Dr. Ghinwa Dumyati, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Rochester and an epidemiologist for the Monroe County Health Department in New York.

In a report in the June 1 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine, Dumyati and doctors from the University of Rochester Medical Center discuss two cases involving women with a history of cocaine use who came to the hospital for help when they noticed purplish plaques on their cheeks, earlobes, legs, thighs and buttocks.

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By Matt Spencer, June 11, 2010 at 12:51 am Link to this comment

The office we work in is so close to this serious. I am laughing as I write. My boss is hilarious, even when he is seriously having a panic attack or carrying on bout particular staff. He is just so amusing I cannot take him seriously. Thanks for the article and reminder of how fortunate I am to work in such a funny office.

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By ofersince72, June 6, 2010 at 11:51 pm Link to this comment

Did you know,
The U.S. invaded Panama because they said Manuel Noriega,
the president, was helping the Columbian drug cartels
use Panama as a springboard to bring cocaine into
the U.S….

But wait, only six months after the U.S. invasion, our
own DEA reported to congress that the cocaine trafficing
through Panama doubled, then within a year quadruppled.
Who was dealing drugs?
Same in Afghanistan, the Taliban government had successfully eradicated most of the poppy fields, replacing those crops with sustaining food crops, guess
what?  You know what happened, and guess what else
remember Viet Nam…..????
So ,  so many high up individuals profit from drug
trafficing, there will never be any reform or an end to
their also profitable War On Drugs. !!!!!

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By Glagla-Klungly, June 3, 2010 at 6:53 am Link to this comment

what you peoples crazy cocain no good for nothink coca cola same thing drinked the beer.maybe make belly big bot still better than fastes food garbiges.now i tell you coke is big amerika beazeness becuz
the peoples used real money not that monopoly money the bank printeded and with the realed money make more monopoly so who cuntrol the beazeness the govnernment for sure.

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Ohnooo's avatar

By Ohnooo, June 2, 2010 at 10:06 pm Link to this comment

Just stay away from this drug, stay healthy with wine smile

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RenZo's avatar

By RenZo, June 2, 2010 at 9:45 am Link to this comment

If this were the only thing between me and cocaine, there wouldn’t be anything between me and cocaine. Two out of how many millions (tens or hundred of millions)of people who snorted, or like Fat Freddy, smoked coke, is not very many at all. I might think it was April First, poisson d’avril, you know, a joke…..

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Ed Harges's avatar

By Ed Harges, June 2, 2010 at 9:23 am Link to this comment

The problem described is due to a contaminant. Legalizing cocaine and regulating
its manufacture and use might be a better solution to this problem than
continuing the so-called war on drugs, while urging everyone to please stop
using drugs.

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By diman, June 2, 2010 at 9:07 am Link to this comment

Why the fuck the story about cocaine is posted under Arts and Culture?

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anaman51's avatar

By anaman51, June 2, 2010 at 8:31 am Link to this comment

Once upon a time, cocaine was processed in South and Central American countries using decent, USP-grade chemicals and inherently cleaner procedures. Then the United States started interdicting those higher-quality chemicals in an attempt to stop the production. It didn’t work, of course—-the makers went forward using questionable substitute chemicals in place of the ones they could no longer get. Then the new chemicals they had switched to were interdicted, and they went to using chemicals that were more dangerous still. Finally, the stuff was being made using Benzine, Gasoline, Acetone, and an assortment of other cancer-causing substances, simply because America had successfully cut off the supply of the less damaging chemicals in a wasted effort to halt cocaine production. So, in the end game, who have we hurt with our “War on Drugs?” Who wound up ultimately damaged because of our government’s efforts? People who want to use these drugs will use them, regardless of how they’re created, and that’s been made abundantly clear above all else.

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Fat Freddy's avatar

By Fat Freddy, June 2, 2010 at 4:37 am Link to this comment

Damn, what happened to the days when they would only cut Cocaine with mannitol and/or B-12?

So, is this levamisole water soluble? Will it “come back” when cooked? C’mon, I need to know these things! Snorting is for pussies.

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LostHills's avatar

By LostHills, June 1, 2010 at 9:17 pm Link to this comment

“The judge he smiled as he picked up his pin
99 years in the Folsom pen
99 years underneath that ground
I can’t forget the day I shot that bad bitch down
Come on you’ve gotta listen unto me
Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be…”

Johnny Cash

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