River flowing with cocaine indicates 'vast' drug use

[MetaTrope]

A “vastly larger” number of people than thought may abuse cocaine, suggest the results of a study measuring a breakdown product of the illegal drug in an Italian river.

Levels of a cocaine residue excreted in human urine were measured in the River Po, Italy’s largest river. The river has a catchment basin for about five-million people, with major cities like Turin and Milan situated in the valley.

The equivalent of about 4 kilograms of cocaine flowed in the river each day, say the researchers from Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milan, and the University of Insubria in Varese.

The analysis indicates that at least 40,000 packets of the drug are snorted each day – 80 times more than the official estimate of just 15,000 doses taken per month by people living in the area. If the study’s estimates are true, a staggering $150 million in street value of cocaine is dealt each year in the valley, say the researchers.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7798

Be interesting to test the groundwater around Crawford, Texas...

[SteppingRazor]

1. Hello? Travelocity? I'd like to book a Tuscan vacation...

:evilgrin:

[shadowknows69]

14. ROFLAMO

I have to admit that was my first impulse. old habits die hard and all that.

[meganmonkey]

2. 'Official Estimates' always crack me up

There was a huge bust in Michigan awhile back of some really high quality herb and the cops/newspaper gave their estimated 'street value' - a coworker and I did the math based on true street prices and it was worth about 5 times what they thought it was.

They have NO idea how many drugs people are using or what they're worth.

[tridim]

5. Same deal with indoor busts..

They don't measure the smokable part for their weight estimates, they measure everything.. The dirt, roots, stems, leaves, everything. Only about 10% of a plant's weight is smokable. That's how they throw small-time, personal use growers in prison, "10 pounds" sounds much worse than "2 plants".

[benburch]

9. How nice.

My friend who was an ex State's Atty. says that the street value measurements are similarly inflated;

They assume the weed they seize was all smokable, assume that it was broken down into the tiniest joints imaginable, and that each joint would be sold for the highest price they have ever found a joint being sold for!

He says this overestimates the value by about 1000%.

[Moochy]

34. Wholesale, you know if you bought it in bulk at costco

[wli]

3. if so many people want to use drugs, why stop them?

I'll tell you why: to beef up the black budget and to provide a pretext for selective enforcement.

[phusion]

12. Also:

"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against - then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens' What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."

- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 1957

[wli]

16. as little as I like Ayn Rand, that quote definitely applies

[Fridays Child]

4. Notice that they don't *use* cocaine--they abuse it.

The choice of words is very telling.

[tridim]

7. And you "enjoy a cocktail"

while you "abuse illegal marijuana"

[Psephos]

13. Almost all recreational use of cocaine is abusive

Until you lose a few friends to it, however, the distinction is less obvious.

Peace.

[Fridays Child]

22. So, do consumers of an occasional drink use alcohol or abuse it?

[Psephos]

25. Alcohol is a GABA activator, cocaine is a dopamine agonist

Please. The two drugs work by completely different mechanisms, produce long-term changes in brain receptors in different ways, have widely different timescales of pathology, are associated with different behavior stereotypes during long-term use, and have different legal standing. About the only similarity is they both are classified as mind-altering drugs...in other words, the similarity is semantic.

That much said, one in ten people who use alcohol recreationally will go on to alcoholism.

So you tell me.

Peace.

EDIT: changed headline word

[benburch]

35. Then again...

I know a person who used coke all the time and one day just decided that she didn't like it any more, quit, and was not tempted to use it ever again.

And there are people who literally do not get high from it. Likely they do not have the right receptor in their brains.

So, not every cocaine user becomes an addict, though many do.

[olddad56]

36. so they both disturb the delicate chemical balance of your brain. Nice

[olddad56]

37. It has been my experience that most coke users also drink while using...

so what is the alcohol content of the river? and how does using both effect your brain chemistry?

[benburch]

6. I'd like to see the reading taken of the Mississippi R.

I am betting that you would find a similar flood of the drug there as well!

[fudge stripe cookays]

8. Can they...

test for meth? Might find more of that in the Ole Muddy.

FSC

[benburch]

15. I'm not sure if the breakdown products are stable.

Likely you are correct. Meth is a plague here in the heartland.

You know, the bad shit they say about illegal drugs is usually just hype to scare the credulous. It is essentially all true about meth. People lose their hair, rot their teeth, destroy their bodies, and their minds on that shit.

Heroin is a MUCH safer drug than meth!

And Weed? Don't make me laugh. Credible scientists have been trying for ages to find something really wrong with weed use and they have only found;

- Sleep disturbances if you are in withdrawl

- A risk of cancer much smaller than the risk with cigarettes.

Yet you go to jail for the same amount of time for growing weed as for manufacturing meth!

[fudge stripe cookays]

17. Heroin safer than meth?

Holy crap! That's not much to recommend either!

FSC

[benburch]

28. Nope! And I don't recommend either...

I have friends who had a Heroin habit.

But you know... They all lived to be just as old and older than I am. As long as they used clean needles and avoided HIV thereby, the Heroin didn't kill them.

However, ALL of them had incomes that could cope with their habits without mugging people.

And were Heroin legalized, or decriminalized such that you could register as an addict and buy it and clean needles, there would be almost no Heroin-related crime at all.

Likewise if all drugs were legalized, yes, even Meth and PCP, the good would drive out the bad. People would use Dexedrine rather than Meth (like the Air Force does!) and Meth would become almost unknown. Dexedrine can be abused, and no drug that you use to stay awake for a week is good for you, but the damage caused is SO much less than meth that people would use it rather than meth!

[AngryAmish]

19. Illegal pot makes me mad

I have not smoked pot for ten years. I have not smoked pot more than twenty times in my life. It is not for lack of availability but I just don't like it.

I do drink a lot. That is my drug of choice.

Pot does not make you dangerous, it just makes you boring (in my opinion). If pot was legal a large part of funding for street gangs will go away.

I do think meth, heroin and cocaine should be illegal. They are just as addictive and harmful as alcohol if not more. No need to keep creating societal ills when a very small percentage of the population currently use meth, heroin and coke.

I think intelligent decisions can be made depending on the nature of the substances involved. Driving while high should be the same as a DUI. (Except you will be doing it very slowly.)

[benburch]

29. As Zappa said...

"I tried pot. It just made me sleepy."

[Dr Fate]

10. Da-da-da-da---na-na-naaaaaa. n/t

n/t

[Javaman]

11. "They" should check the sewer under the WH....

[me b zola]

26. Better yet....

The sewer/sewage in the Oval Office, sitting behind the desk ;)

[Alpharetta]

33. He'd just blame it on his good buddy Rafael Palmerio's supplier

who gave him the drugs but didn't tell him what they were.

"Here. Snort this. It'll make you smart."

[daleo]

18. Bush will want the next G8 meeting near the River Po

If the river was cocaine
And I was a Bush
I'd swim to the bottom
And there plant my tush.

[EST]

31. Ugh!

(heehee)

[sintax]

20. The world's most dangerous drug

Television is the drug I'm thinking of.

Land drowning in cathode tubes.

[DFWJock]

21. Wait

I thought Bush was vacationing (again) in Crawford.

[sintax]

24. Brain damaged Bush

seen clearin' brush in Crawford.

Silver spoons up the nose for GW has given us all a headache without the high.

[EST]

32. The world's most dangerous dope (semantics, semantics)

[the other one]

23. If we use that data to extrapolate drug use in this country

Then its not 5 million daily pot smokers, but 160 million daily pot smokers. And that sounds right to me.

[Pewlett Hackard]

27. i wonder

if it has anything to do with Italy's extremely low birthrate. too busy partying to raise a family?

[edbermac]

30. Take me to the river...drop me in the water...

I don’t know why I love her like I do
All the changes you put me through
Take my money, my cigarettes
I haven’t seen the worst of it yet
I wanna know that you’ll tell me
I love to stay
Take me to the river, drop me in the water
Take me to the river, dip me in the water
Washing me down, washing me down

I don’t know why you treat me so bad
Think of all the things we could have had
Love is an ocean that I can’t forget
My sweet sixteen I would never regret

I wanna know that you’ll tell me
I love to stay
Take me to the river, drop me in the water
Push me in the river, dip me in the water
Washing me down, washing me

Hug me, squeeze me, love me, tease me
Till I can’t, till I can’t, till I can’t take no more of it
Take me to the water, drop me in the river
Push me in the water, drop me in the river
Washing me down, washing me down

I don’t know why I love you like I do
All the troubles you put me through
Sixteen candles there on my wall
And here am I the biggest fool of them all

I wanna know that you’ll tell me
I love to stay
Take me to the river and drop me in the water
Dip me in the river, drop me in the water
Washing me down, washing me down.