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‘Pink Cocaine’ Cocktail Is Newest Club Scene Drug

Crime and Justice News

A powder called “pink cocaine,” made up of a revolving group of drugs, has become a dangerous and increasingly popular part of the club scene in U.S. cities, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration and epidemiologists who study recreational drug use. Most samples of the concoction contain at least one stimulant drug and one depressant. Often, pink cocaine includes ketamine, a dissociative anesthetic with hallucinogenic effects, and other drugs like Ecstasy, methamphetamine, opioids and psychoactive substances such as bath salts. “This concoction is usually very cheap, which attracts people to use it,” said Dr. Linda Cottler, an epidemiologist who studies substance abuse at the University of Florida, the New York Times reports. Toxicology test results are providing some insight into Liam Payne's death last week. A partial autopsy found that the former One Direction singer, who died at 31, had multiple substances in his system when he fell to his death from the third-floor balcony of his hotel room in Buenos Aires, Argentina on Oct. 16, sources tell ABC News.


Those substances included 'pink cocaine" as well as cocaine, benzodiazepine and crack. An improvised aluminum pipe to ingest drugs was also found in his hotel room. The term “pink cocaine” is a misnomer, as the cocktail rarely contains cocaine, said Joseph Palamar of New York University Langone Health, who researches party drugs. Rather, the name likely comes from the fact that pink cocaine is sold in powder form and dyed pink with food coloring. Also known as tusi, pink cocaine originated in Colombia and was named after the synthetic compound “2C-B,” a quasi psychedelic that was first synthesized by the drug pioneer Alexander Shulgin, but it rarely contains that substance either. “These underground chemists — they try to come up with something they think people will like,” said Dr. David E. Nichols, a pharmacologist at Purdue University who studies hallucinogens. “God know what the effects will be.” The drug has had a growing presence in the U.S. In September, DEA said that the distribution of pink cocaine was increasing, and that it was mostly sold online and through social media. In a national assessment of drug threats this year, the agency said that the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico was increasingly manufacturing and trafficking the drug cocktail.

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