Cocaine Biosensor

Aaron Rowe writes "The MIT Technology review reports that a lab at UC Santa Barbara has created a biosensor by attaching a special type of DNA called an aptamer to a gold electrode. When cocaine is present, the aptamer tightly hugs a cocaine molecule and leans over so that a metal tag can touch the gold surface. This causes a spike in a plot of current versus voltage when the electrode is attached to a machine called a cyclic voltmeter."

Comments

Gold?

[dada21]

I'm a known gold bug and I've been very interested in the industrial applications of gold (partially to gauge demand issues for future supply). In recent months I've found gold being useful for medicine (possibly as a cancer detector most recently). Now it seems it is useful in finding drugs (although I'm sure this would be only for a police purpose, in a free market the same device might be useful in finding the best drugs).

What are the reasons for gold being used in these situations? I'm very familiar with gold's uniqueness, but it surprises me that it is becoming such a popular metal again -- even beyond the computer and audio industry. Is it really unique for these applications, or is it just a great way for the manufacturers to pad their bottom lines?

Re:Gold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now it seems it is useful in finding drugs (although I'm sure this would be only for a police purpose, in a free market the same device might be useful in finding the best drugs).

Or, scarily, employers may be able to institute policy's that say employees may not take cocaine, even when they're not on the premises. If employers can institute a simple test that "seems" noninvasive, then it essentially becomes all the more "invasive" when you lose your job for things you've done while not at work.

Slippery slope, and all that

Re:Gold?

[dada21]

I agree with you completely. While I, as a strict property rights supporter, strongly believe it is the employer's right to set whatever standards they want (even including outright prejudice of any kind), I also believe in the right of a customer to not give money to those who frown on casual drug use.

I'm not a drug user by any means (other than tobacco on rare occasions and good quality liquor infrequently), but I also don't shop at stores with an open no-drug policy. Home Depot doesn't get my business anymore, and I openly let them know that I think their policy is ridiculous.

That being said, I have penalized employees for coming to work still drunk or high. I haven't fired anyone, but I have openly reprimanded them as business IS affected if you're a mess. On the other hand, I had an employee once come to work high on Xanax or some other anti-depressent, and I was stuck as to what to do about it. Lucky for me we found her a better job elsewhere and that was off my back completely.

Re:Gold?

[rubycodez]

Gold being soft means less force is required to make a good low-resistance electrical contact. So gold is the king of conductors for contact applications. Add to that the fact that it doesn't corrode or oxidize under normal conditions, it beats the two better conductors (at room temperature), silver and copper.

Re: Gold?

[Black Parrot]

> I'm a known gold bug and I've been very interested in the industrial applications of gold

I'm interested in economic applications, but unfortunately I don't have as much as I need for some of the experiments I'd like to try.

Re:Gold?

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually came across this paper in JACS a few days ago and a tiny amount of gold is used in the electrode, primarily because it makes the chemistry of attaching the aptamer to the electrode easy. Basically, aside from being easy to tether stuff to, gold doesn't play an integral role in the analysis.

Re:Gold?

[dada21]

I'm aware of those aspects, and I've always assumed that's the reason for use in medicine, but I was wondering if there were other reasons for it beyond the electrical and anti-corrosive properties.

One thing though -- I was often told that gold is not as good of a conductor as copper, but the reason it is considered better is strictly because copper corrodes so quickly, and can then reduce the effectiveness of copper over gold.

Re:Gold?

[dada21]

Thanks, that's the answer I was looking for. The common answer -- conductivity -- is knowledgeable to all and I appreciate those comments, but I was wondering why gold over others and you pointed me in the direction I needed to head in with my research. Much appreciated.

Re:Gold?

[rubycodez]

hurray, you give me a chance to dig out my thousands of pages long CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics (63rd Edition). The resistivity (microhm-cm) of silver, copper, gold, aluminum at 20 degrees C are (drum roll): 1.586, 1.678, 2.24, 2.6548. So that's not true about copper.

Re:Gold?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want more info, look up info on gold-thiol self assembled monolayers (SAMs). Basically, if you have a gold surface, thiols spontanteously sit down on it in an organized way. If you can attach a thol group to your molecule of interest it is easy to stick it on a gold-coated surface.

Re:Gold?

[Tyler Eaves]

Uh, you mean it IS true.

Over a given run of wire, you'll get less of a voltage drop with copper.

Re:Gold?

[afaik_ianal]

I'm not a drug user by any means (other than tobacco on rare occasions and good quality liquor infrequently), but I also don't shop at stores with an open no-drug policy. Home Depot doesn't get my business anymore, and I openly let them know that I think their policy is ridiculous.

Just a thought: isn't boycotting these stores going to hurt the employees too? Losing a few thousand dollars will put more pressure on jobs than it will on the no-drug policy.

(Disclaimer: I'm not condoning either drug testing or drug use.)

Re:Gold?

[dada21]

I've always told my employees about my political beliefs and my attitudes about what was my property. I also told them that if they didn't agree with me, they were free to get work elsewhere. The same is true at Home Depot, and is one of the wonders of free market capitalism: employees who work at and customers who shop at, Home Depot either (A) Agree with the drug policy or (B) Don't care either way. I always figured the best way to "fight drugs" is to allow businesses, employees, and customers to make these decisions instead of big bad government.

Sure, some employees likely get hurt by the loss of one customer, but how many MORE customers choose Home Depot over other stores BECAUSE of the drug policy? Probably more than choose not to shop.

I actually once passed on a decent contract because of the drug policy of the company I'd have to send my employees into. I told the business owner that he was making a really bad decision as I have never had any problems with any employee who drinks, does drugs, gambles, cheats on his wife or speeds -- in fact I've found that some of my best workers have their party device of choice. We're all sinners, I like to say.

Re:Gold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a thought: isn't boycotting these stores going to hurt the employees too?

And supporting stores without no-drug policies benefits their employees. Also, if boycotted stores close and non-boycotted stores succeed, the employees always have somewhere to go, or the ability to set up their own store without a no-drug policy.

Re:Gold?

[ArsonSmith]

I'm too lazy to do the research but it has something to do with the number of electrons in the outer circle of the atom.

If I remeber right Silver only has 1 in the outer circle thus can pass the most electrons from atom to atom.

I state this completely out of my arse and relying on 15 year old high school education so someone please come by and correct me. I think I'm pretty close though from what I remeber.

Re:Gold?

[rubycodez]

right, somehow I read parent that gold alleged better conductor than copper, which it isn't. Noticed sodium was 4.7 but measured at 0 degrees C, the guy that tried it at room temp they call "stumpy", hehehe

Re:Gold?

[Mr. Underbridge]

It's just an element. The scientists in question aren't particularly concerned with its attractiveness, seemingly mystical attraction, or monetary worth. Like any other chemical, it has a range of uses. Here, it's fairly inert from an oxidative standpoint, yet is relatively easy to attach thiol groups to. In addition, it's conductive. Nothing to see here...

Re:Gold?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees how disruptive antidepressants can be to normal functioning. Too many Prozac cyborgs openly walk the streets nowadays. It's sick.

Re:Gold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Gold leaf. Gold is capable of being made a lot thinner and smoother-faced than most other metals and its high conductivity generally makes an excellent substrate for these sorts of uses. SEE ALSO: scanning tunneling microscope and others.

Re:Gold?

[Cadallin]

Xanax isn't an antidepressant. It's a member of the benzodiazapine class of drugs (the most common one actually). Benzodiazapines are the "drug of the day" for Anti-anxiety and also for anaesthesia in high doses. It does the same thing as barbiturates (Qualudes) and Codeine/Morphine/Heroine did in their times respectively. Your employee was probably placed on Xanax temporarily as her medical provider put her on a regime of anti-depressants (Prozac, Paxil, or something else). The Xanax is there to serve essentially as a sedative. This is common practice, especially with patients considered a suicide risk by their Doctors (As sedated people generally don't kill themselves) alhough at the same time is something of risk itself, as it is possible to commit suicide through Benzodiazapine overdose, just as it is possible with Barbiturates, or Opiates. But the medical community has weighed this risk, and generally sedates mild suicide risk patients, while those considered at high risk are generally hospitalized.

Re: Gold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello, friend. I have contacted you because I have a business proposition I believe you would like to take, which could help you with your gold deficiency.

I am a prince from the recently deposed and hunted royal family of...

Re:Gold?

[rjmars97]

I feel the same way about employer's rights... I'm sick hearing about "affirmative action" and such to "balance" a workplace. Race/gender/etc should not be a factor in getting a job, only job related functions should have any kind of impact.

However, I have had the misfortune of being a co-worker of more than one drug user, and that experience has influenced me so that I will not work at a company that does not have a zero-tolerance drug policy. While you may choose what companies to support, I find a strictly drug-free workplace a necessity. If that said drug use does not impact the workplace in any way I could understand a company neglecting the issue, but in my experience a person's use of such drugs has a very negative impact on working conditions. If a person shows up to work stoned/drunk or otherwise impared, they should be reprimanded, and should it happen again, they should be fired. Having to deal with people in such a state is counterproductive, and in my case, very dangerious to everyone on the job site. Perhaps where you work the situation might not be directly dangerious to others, but when working with dangerious equipment such as is frequently done at my workplace, it becomes a severe danger to everyone.

Re:Gold?

[Cyno01]

Drug free workplace is fine, thats the employers time, you come in intoxicated (on anything), they should fire your ass. But drug testing doesnt differentiate. Im in university now, i get my work done durring the week, and party a bit on the weekends, usually booze, sometimes weed. This does not impact my day to day life. When im working again this summer, i would never dream of coming into work drunk or stoned, but if i want to do those things on the weekend, why is it my employers business?

Re:Gold?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the person show up stoned/drunk of course they should be reprimanded. Exactly, only job related functions should have any kind of impact. If an employee does drugs on their own time and it doesn't effect their job performance then it's none of the companies business. Or do you advocate that people not be allowed to have alcohol on their off time too?

Having to deal with people in such a state is counterproductive, and in my case, very dangerious to everyone on the job site.

Sounds like a straw-man to me. No one's saying people should be allowed to be stoned/drunk while they're working. That's not exactly something you need a equipment to test. Of course you shouldn't be high when operating heavy equipment. You shouldn't be sleep-deprived, on cough medicine, or taking allergy medication either. But we don't test if someone's taken cough medicine in the last month.

Re:Gold?

[Mr2001]

I'm not a drug user by any means (other than tobacco on rare occasions and good quality liquor infrequently), but I also don't shop at stores with an open no-drug policy. Home Depot doesn't get my business anymore, and I openly let them know that I think their policy is ridiculous.

I like this idea. Any clue where I might be able to find a list of stores that drug test their employees (or a list of stores that don't)?

Re:Gold?

[njh]

I thought very small things like that were done with photo resists and electrodeposition?

Re:Gold?

[Vintermann]

"That being said, I have penalized employees for coming to work still drunk or high."

But then you use just your eyes to judge their soberness. They can probably be quite intoxicated and escape your attention, if they are clever. In most work, this isn't much of a problem, but in driving it is. If this invention allows an easier way to detect cocaine in the system of drivers it would be great.

Re: Gold?

[golgotha007]

With as much yay being distributed around the UCSB campus, it's not surprise the abundance of it caused some students to include it into their next lab project!

Re:Gold?

[pimpimpim]

I'm currently doing a research project on biomaterial-surface interactions (which is a huge field, so I might miss out on some points).

There are several properties that make gold suitable for these medicinal applications. I'll give a few that I took from chem rev 2005, 105, 1103(*).:

• It can readily form a thiol-bond with sulfur-containing molecules, this allows for sticking lots of stuff to it, synthetic carbon chains, but also DNA and proteins, all by relatively simple techniques
• It is very easy to create gold layers of a known structure, there are several deposition techniques available.
• It is biocompatible: less noble metals like Nickel have Nickel atoms migrating into the system, which can kill cells. Furthermore there will be a lot of oxidation going on at those less noble metal surfaces.
• Gold can be combined with a lot of electrochemical analysis techniques, and others like SPR, MS, etc.

There are alternatives available, e.g. Palladium, Platinum, but gold is so versatile that it will be the mostly used metal for quite some time I would say.

(*) the article is mostly about self-assembled monolayers, so not very general and most of it will not be useful to you, but it contains a very good explanation of the reason why people choose gold in any of these applications.

Re:Gold?

[senatorpjt]

I would suppose it has something to do with the ductility of gold, making it the easiest metal to draw out into the extremely thin wires that this would require.

Re:Gold?

[vorpal22]

Just FYI, benzodiazepines, and in particular, Xanax, are virtually impossible to overdose on. As someone who is prescribed Xanax for Generalized Anxiety Disorder, once, just for fun, I researched the LD-50 and discovered that even if I consumed 13.75 grams of Xanax, while I would probably be unconscious, I could be resuscitated with medical intervention. To give you an idea of how much that is, if we assume the standard Xanax prescription is for 0.5 mg pills, it would be in the ballpark of 27500 pills.

Re:Gold?

[OnlineAlias]

Xanax is an anti-anxiety drug, not an anti-depressent. Anti-depressants do not make you "high". Also, used appropriatly, I would much rather have someone driving my bus on Xanax than on cocain or even pot.

Re:Gold?

[AnomaliesAndrew]

Gold, like silver, is considered a "Free Element" because of its resistance to oxidize and bond with other elements easily (oxidizing meaning to react or bond with oxygen). This is why they are found in rather pure form in the earth and were/are used to fill dental cavities. If they used another metal, such a reaction could occur for arbitrary reasons, and the chemical reaction could give off a false positive electrical impulse.

-@

Re:Gold?

[cayenne8]

"When cocaine is present, the aptamer tightly hugs a cocaine molecule and leans over so that a metal tag can touch the gold surface. This causes a spike in a plot of current versus voltage when the electrode is attached to a machine called a cyclic voltmeter."

Hmm....experiments like this seem like a HUGE waste of cocaine...

:-)

Da da da da......Da DAAAAHHHH

Re:Gold?

[runderwo]

...zero-tolerance drug policy... While you may choose what companies to support, I find a strictly drug-free workplace a necessity.

Unfortunately, "zero-tolerance drug policy" goes far beyond "drug-free workplace" and attempts to regulate areas of employees' lives that employers should have no influence over. Coming to work wasted is one thing, being a productive employee and tagged/fired/blacklisted due to failing a metabolite test is quite another.

Re:Gold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Copper is actually a nutrient that we need a bit of to live, so in internal applications it is likely to be (slowly) absorbed.

Silver, OTOH, I believe is toxic if taken (or placed) internally.

Gold, I believe, is medically inert for the human body.

This device seems to be external only, but for other applications these things are probably a factor.

Re:Gold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. I'd never go to work stoned, mildly high, or even after a single puff of weed. The guy down the line from me is high on (prescribed) xanax and percocets to the point of barely staying awake, yet I have to worry that if I injure myself I'll have to take a drug test that will show I smoked sometime in the last 30 days and risk loosing medical coverage for the accident or my employment.

Re:Gold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now add in a couple of beers and see how it affects the LD-50. Most pill-poppers I've met like a drink or six with their dose.

Re:Gold?

[Anonymous Coward]

When Xanax is being used "appropriatly", the person injesting it is NOT operating a motor vehicle with the lives of multiple passangers at risk. It is irresponsible to suggest that such an act is ok. Xanax is a central nervous system depressant, it acts in much the same was that alcohol does on the brain. You wouldn't want a bus driver drunk would you? Why is this somehow socially acceptable?

Re:Gold?

[AK Marc]

I'm a known gold bug and I've been very interested in the industrial applications of gold (partially to gauge demand issues for future supply).

I don't understand you. If the world (or just the US) were to go on the gold standard, then the gold supply would be artificially scarce, since governments would have to hoard it. That would make industrial use of gold impractical, and gold would cease being useful for many things. Perhaps in the light of medical uses, it would result in the deaths of people to go on the gold standard. Just because you like gold doesn't mean it is a good thing to be on the gold standard. If you really like gold, requiring governments to hoard it is counterproductive.

Re:Gold?

[Cadallin]

The anonymous coward who responded to this post is correct, however, in that most "downers" interact synergistically with alcohol, enormously reducing the lethal dosage. Additionally lethal dosages can also vary wildly depending on various other particulars.

Although honestly, the greater concern is really addiction. Although it is claimed that Xanax in particular has a low addiction potential, I find this dubious at best. Any drug which actually does have Anxiolytic properties is an addiction risk. Also the fact that the argument (that this NEW drug won't be addictive) has been made repeatedly by drug companies throughout history: first with heroin (as a cough suppressant, this new morphine formulation won't be addictive at all!), then with Barbiturates (Quaaludes? why no addiction risk at all! no siree!), and now with Benzodiazepines, although at least some physicians weigh this in their consideration of medications. Many of them have become jaded by the pharmaceutical industry to some extent and now weigh the options in a more systematic way, "In treating this patient, am I more concerned about the potential for physical drug dependence, or in treating extremely debilitating anxiety symptoms and a possible suicide risk?" Although the level of conscientiousness varies widely from Doctor to Doctor.

god DAMNIT

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, there goes my job.

Re:god DAMNIT

[Anonymous Coward]

are you a guy that dresses up in a dog suit and does cocaine at the airport too?

Re:god DAMNIT

[gaspar ilom]

I, as a strict property rights supporter, strongly believe it is the employer's right to set whatever standards they want (even including outright prejudice of any kind)

Is it because of this bozo?

(I'm surprised the Slashdot community let that comment slide. From what I've seen recently, this is becoming an increasingly reactionary place.)

Where can I get one?

[h8god]

Will these be for sale to the public, I could use one!!

What about Aspartame?

[Burz]

Or does the medical research community not care that my life is made hazardous having to work with sweets-scarfing aspartame junkies??

Posession of a controlled substance

[Anonymous Coward]

How they get the coke for testing?

um... officer, it's for "medical research"

Re:Posession of a controlled substance

[HermanAB]

Cocaine isn't necessarily illegal. You can buy cocaine in a drug store. It is part of many common cold and head-ache medicines. It is widely prescribed by dentists and doctors. So testing people indiscriminately for cocaine use is always bound to be controvercial.

Re:Posession of a controlled substance

[Anonymous Coward]

You cannot buy cocaine in a drug store. It is not in many cold remedies.

Is slashdot getting supider, or is it just you.

Re:Posession of a controlled substance

[MyNymWasTaken]

You are thinking of codeine which is a morphine, i.e. opium, derivative.

Currently, the medicinal use of cocaine is limited to topical anesthesia of the upper respiratory tract and eye because the vasoconstrictive properties of cocaine are desirable during procedures.
Ref

Re:Posession of a controlled substance

[fafalone]

Cocaine is a Schedule II controlled substance, it's illegal in ANY quantity with a license. Its uses are confined to a very limited number of surgeries since it's both a local anaesthetic and vasoconstrictor; that's it. It's not prescribed to patients for any reason. Your post would be true about 100 years ago, however.

Re:Posession of a controlled substance

[orangesquid]

Are you sure you don't mean codeine?

I know Coca-Cola had cocaine when it was first invented, and many sodas at the time were considered medically beneficial, but aside from that...

Re:Posession of a controlled substance

[fafalone]

Researchers can obtain a license from the DEA to acquire (from a company possessing a DEA license to manufacture/distribute, which every major chemical company like Mallinkrodt or Sigma Aldrich has) and possess controlled substances. It's not easy to get, they obsessively track what you purchase and you have to file paperwork accouting for every last bit of it, but many such licenses exist. For more information on obtaining such licenses, see: http://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/drugreg/index.ht ml

Re:Posession of a controlled substance

[bersl2]

IIRC cocaine is also in the solution that optometrists use to dilate your pupils.

Re:Posession of a controlled substance

[vux984]

Your post would be true about 100 years ago, however.

Yep. 100 (or so) years ago you could get Cocaine in a bottle mixed with Liquor and Caffeine advertised with such catchy slogans as:

"an intellectual brain tonic"
"a most wonderful invigorator of the sexual organs"
"sustains and refreshes both the body and brain"

The most famous products were Vin Mariani and French Wine Coca (a copy of Vin Mariani by John Pemberton, the pharmacist who brought us Coca-Cola, which came about about when Pemberton had to take the alcohol out of his liquor product in response to the American prohibition.)

Re:Posession of a controlled substance

[Saven Marek]

There was also enough cocaine in a can of coca-cola to get you high if mixed with tylenol. They changed the recipe in the mid 1990s to lower the concentration, but there are still trace amounts in there with it.

Re:Posession of a controlled substance

[eclectro]

How they get the coke for testing?

It's simple. Somebody whips out a twenty dollar bill out of their pocket, because ten out of eleven bills have cocaine on them.

Re:Posession of a controlled substance

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it's not prescribed to patients for any reason. Hell, you just need to go down to your local corner, corner store. No prescription necessary.

Re:Posession of a controlled substance

[MyNymWasTaken]

Not quite.

Coca-Cola became completely cocaine-free in 1929. Even at that point there was barely 0.06 oz of cocaine in the entire year's supply of ~25 million gallons.
Ref

Re:Posession of a controlled substance

[ShakaUVM]

A friend of mine worked in a compounding lab where they handled large blocks of pure cocaine on a daily basis. Security on the place was pretty tight, so maybe a sensor like this would help prevent "slippage".

Hmm, looking back at what I just wrote, I guess it's not clear which side of the law he was working for. =)

(Yeah, it was a legit pharmaceutical compounding lab. Apparently there's a wide variety of drugs you can make out of cocaine.)

Re:Posession of a controlled substance

[modecx]

Huh, never heard the cocaine one before, but you may be right.

I always thought they used a dilute solution of atropine, or maybe some artificial equivalent... I'm pretty sure that atropine has been used almost exclusively in the past, but maybe they've come up with something better.

In the olden days, ladies would use a drop of solution prepared from the Belladonna bush (which incidentally means "beautiful lady" in Italian), so called because this would dilate the pupils, and larger pupils were supposed to make the eyes deeper and more beautiful. Belladonna or Deadly Nightshade, as it's also known, produces a bunch of different alkalis, one of them being atropine. Forgive me; I'm a bit of a botany geek.

It's also supposed to make quite the hallucinogen when made into an ointment that's applied to the skin. I've never had the privilege, but it might be entertaining to use on someone you hate.

Re:Posession of a controlled substance

[Anonymous Coward]

Morphine and opium are not synonymous. Opium is dried latex from the plant papaver somniferum. Morphine is one of many active ingredients in opium. Codeine is another. Morphine can be chemically processed to form diacetyl morphine, which is also known as heroin. Opium can also be processed to produce hydrocodone, oxycontin, methadone, and other, stronger drugs.

Fun fact: The drug "DXM", found in many cough syrups, is a stereoisomer to levomethorphan, an opioid.

Re:Posession of a controlled substance

[yosemite]

This is very interesting, now I'll think about this every time I'm talking to a cop..

Re:Posession of a controlled substance

[Anonymous Coward]

cocaine is not available OTC or otherwise. Several analogs are used by doctors and such though. Benzocaine is used in some throat lozenges same with Lidocaine. Xylocaine I think is used as a local anasthetic during dental and other types of surgery.

Re:Posession of a controlled substance

[scotch]

God I love snopes / AFU.

Re:Posession of a controlled substance

[xaoslaad]

The main story page will survive, because everyone will be at this site trying to figure out how they can get a license.

Re:Posession of a controlled substance

[birge]

Please. Read your own links! Ten out of Eleven $20 bills in Miami turned out to have trace amounts of cocaine on them. Hell 10 out of 11 of anything in Miami will probably test positive for dozens of illegal substances. You can probably get Robert Downey Jr.'s DNA off of half the inanimate objects in that city.

Re:Posession of a controlled substance

[Ihlosi]

Actually, that's atropine, not cocaine.

Re:Posession of a controlled substance

[Peter Mork]

Or, for more information: Snopes chooses 80% as a reasonable upper bound.

Re:Posession of a controlled substance

[fafalone]

Methadone is a fully synthetic opioid synthesized starting from diphenylacetonitrile, which is not an alkaloid present in opium. And if by "stronger" opioids you mean the phenylpiperidines, all of those are fully synthetic as well.

Re:Posession of a controlled substance

[hellraizr]

grrrr..... I hate it when people say this nonsense. Coca-Cola *NEVER* *EVER* had refined cocaine in it. This is analogous to claiming some foods are made with gasoline because they have some petrolium based product in them. It is just flat out wrong! Coca-Cola got it's name from the Coca plant/leaf. Thats what it was initially flavoured with. It had the sap extract from the Coca leaf which in it self does not contain the checmical cocaine. It still needs to go through about 9 steps of refinement before it can be considered a drug. You are not going to get tweek'd making coca-tea, you'd have a better chance with current coca-cola. My Father-in-law owns a couple of farms is the hills of Colombia, producing mostly rice. His workers chew coca leaves for extra energy. They all claim it's like drinking coffee, not getting blasted out of your mind from snorting a huge rail.

In related news

[Rooked_One]

crackheads around the USA mourne.

Re:In related news

[TaGirl_Keri]

G.W.Bush unavailable for comment.

Re:In related news

[Ohreally_factor]

At least now I know why my Aibo has been wearing dark glasses indoors.

Other uses?

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

There are already plenty of "instant" drug detection kits, but I wonder what OTHER uses this technology will have?

Re:Other uses?

[Jordan Catalano]

I'll tell you what! I set up a business that sees a lot of cash go through it: a fast-food restaurant or a network of vending machines. I process all cash I take in through some sort of molecular scrubber based on these molecules. I pick up all the miniscule clumps of cocaine that are on the bills. http://www.snopes.com/business/money/cocaine.asp I then invest those monies back into more cash-accumulating businesses and extract more and more cocaine.

Re:Other uses?

[modecx]

Hey now, some people like to know with a reasonable certianty that their cocaine hasn't been riding around in the ass area of some fat, sweaty fast food resturant patrons. It's just not classy to snort up stray fecal matter and/or dead hepatitis particles.

UCSB

[s0rbix]

and seconds after they turned it on, the sensor was activated by a passing UCSB undergrad...

Re:UCSB

[Anonymous Coward]

University of Casual Sex and Beer

Re:UCSB

[Mark_in_Brazil]

and seconds after they turned it on, the sensor was activated by a passing UCSB undergrad...

I got my Ph.D. at UCSB, and I had to laugh when I read this.
Adam Sandler played some live shows at UCSB during my years there. The live recordings of at least the first couple of versions of the Chanukah/Hanukkah Song were recorded there, and inside the album What The Hell Happened To Me?, you can see pictures of Sandler at one of those shows, wearing a UCSB cap.
So I tell people: "Y'know that part of the Hanukkah Song when Sandler sings 'so drink your gin-and-tonica and smoke your marijuanica,' and the crowd goes nuts? Yep, that's where I got my Ph.D."

Re:UCSB

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes, good old UCSB, or as it was better known when I was an undergrad there:

U
Can
Study
Buzzed

:)

Re:UCSB

[Anonymous Coward]

My favorite was:
University of Casual Sex and Beer

Re:UCSB

[Anonymous Coward]

Sign.

UCSB was a party school when I went. (late 80s) I was a Comp Sci/Engr major and didn't have time or inclination to party much.

Now, I've grown up a bit and probably could enjoy the party aspects more. But I'm not in school. People laugh when I tell them where I went, and always say something about how I probably can't remember it.

I remember all of it.

kinky

[nEoN nOoDlE]

When cocaine is present, the aptamer tightly hugs a cocaine molecule and leans over so that a metal tag can touch the gold surface.

Sounds kinky. Makes me regret not listening during chemistry class.

Mod down parent - Answer to his question is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Conductivity

Re:Mod down parent - Answer to his question is...

[dada21]

Actually, the answer to my question was not conductivity -- as the other repliers to my initial question show. Copper seems to be a better conductor in terms of actual conductivity.

The answer I was looking for was why gold specifically for this application and medical applications in general, above and beyond the typical electronic applications.

Re:Mod down parent - Answer to his question is...

[Anonymous Coward]

If i had to hazard a guess, i'd say oxidation number was the key for medical applications. Copper being fairly reactive if given a chance, is pretty toxic to a number of organisms. I would wager that gold is significantly less so.

Competetive technology

[SnowZero]

There are a lot of "Cocaine biosensors" you could hire off the street for a few dollars ah hour. They will react quite strongly when they find the compound in question (i.e. the "good stuff").

Re:Competetive technology

[gstoddart]

There are a lot of "Cocaine biosensors" you could hire off the street for a few dollars ah hour. They will react quite strongly when they find the compound in question (i.e. the "good stuff").

Yeah, but it's like using pigs to hunt truffles -- you have to ensure the pig doesn't get a chance to eat the truffles, or it's just a waste of time. =)

Re:Pryor art?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cocaine's a hell of a drug!

Big deal

[Ancil]

When cocaine is present, the aptamer tightly hugs a cocaine molecule and leans over so that a metal tag can touch the gold surface.

You can get the same effect with any garden-variety stripper.

Re:Big deal

[Jace of Fuse!]

You can get the same effect with any garden-variety stripper.

That's an interesting garden you have. How might I go about planting my own?

cocaine?

[Simon Garlick]

They might as well have named it the $20 bill biodetector.

Dogs out of work?

[ewg]

Does this mean all those drug-sniffing dogs are out of work?

Re:Dogs out of work?

[icepick72]

Maybe out of work but would have a hay-day being owned by a Slashdotter on crack!

Re:Dogs out of work?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see a new anti-drug public information campaign for dogs: "Just say Arf!"
Former drug enforcement dogs will make television adverts to tell the story:
"Sometimes, I just could help it. I had to bark when I smelt it. Luckily I've been on the up and up for a few months."
Unfortunately it will come through as:
"BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK!"

Re:Dogs out of work?

[SoCalDissident]

no, it means you there is one more reason to search/inspect your car when you get pulled over. They'll just touch your license, which lives in your wallet with all that tainted money, and next thing you know, you'll be in jail. Sounds far-fetched? they can already search your car just for having stickers and a big exhaust.

Re:Dogs out of work?

[SoCalDissident]

Maybe they should be out of work... Apparently hot dogs are all it takes to make them indicate something.

Much more than cocaine

[Michael Woodhams]

It has the potential to measure concentrations of thereputic/analgesic drugs too. Imagine an needle with appropriate probes inside which constantly monitor the blood concentration of drugs. Wires lead to an IV control which then administers the drugs at precisely the rate required.

This is, of course, a very hypothetical future - it might not work out this well.

Re:Much more than cocaine

[ArsonSmith]

I remeber a role playing game called Rifts that had a class known as the Jucier that had this very technology. They were typlically amped to the maximium body potential, but this cut their average life expectancy to around 5-10 years after getting "jucied"

See more here Palladium Books

Re:Much more than cocaine

[ajs]

Yes, but the point is that if you are a college student working on a "cocaine detector" you can get permission to legally purchase cocaine from the DEA ;)

Seriously, I have to wonder where they get it. They could get it from a drug company, as they have substantial amounts of it, most of which is used to create the various "-ain" drugs, but they might also have simply gone to the source, depending on how much they needed. For those not aware, "the source" in the U.S. is generally Coca Cola. According to the Wall Street Journal, Coca Cola's flagship product used to (circa the 19th century) be made with cocaine, but they began removing the cocain due to rising health and addiction concerns. They did not, however, stop using coca leaves. They simply denature them (they used to use kerosene, but now use an unknown solvent), extracting the active cocaine and selling it to the drug companies who happily pay for the drug which they don't have to extract, and which can be used to make dizzying arrays of important drugs.

I did read the WSJ journal article myself, but can't recall the date. There are many references to it out there, though.

Re:Much more than cocaine

[coke_scp]

That sounds like the perfect thing for overdose protection. The sensors could detect the percentage in your blood, and not allow you to inject any more than neccesary. All coke-fiends could then max out their shots without fear of death. Suddenly, it's safe again. Aside from the required burglaries and such.

Re:Much more than cocaine

[GungaDan]

it's not THAT hard to get. Any hospital or clinic where sinus surgeries are performed will have a considerable quantity on hand.

Re:Much more than cocaine

[ajs]

That's true, and if MIT needed only trace amounts (likely), then that works. But it gets expensive fast, and they'd likely want to go to the source.

Sweet!!!

[LandownEyes]

No more crawling on the floor at 4am!!!

Go nuts around money-counters

[fuzzybunny]

Maybe they could install these in banks and have them thrown out after about 5 minutes because the staff were going nuts about the constant beeping every time they counted $100 bills...

Re:Go nuts around money-counters

[Firehed]

Surely if you've just blown all your money on cocaine, you're only going to have singles left to make use of it...

Re:Go nuts around money-counters

[G-funk]

The kind of people who blow _all_ their money on coke tend to get the cheap and nasty kinf that smokes :) Or in australia they get heroin instead.

Re:Go nuts around money-counters

[edb]

Your right to walk the streets unmolested by the police outweighs my right not to get blown up.

Are you sure about that signature? The sense of the test might be reversed...

If not, then if you don't mind I'll make sure I'm always down the street from you.

Re:Go nuts around money-counters

[G-funk]

Dammit that's twice... The short of it is, my safety isn't worth your freedom. And vice versa.

testing

[evoltap]

One would hope that this would lead to methods that would be available to employers who currently only test for marijuana. Supposedly cannibus will show up even it it was consumed a month prior, cocaine on the other hand does not show up.

Of course if you look at the history of the CIA in the 80's, one might hypothesize that the government has no interest in stopping cocaine consumption.

At least we all know marijuana is very bad.....there's this new movie out, Reefer Madness......really informative.

Re:testing

[ArsonSmith]

I wonder if the over crimilization of Marajuana and the more relaxed stance (still crimilaized but not as evident) on cocaine because cocaine is more of a productivity generator while marajuana is more of a demotevator?

Re:testing

[evoltap]

Could be....i've always assumed that the govt saw the mind opening nature of marijuana as a threat. Although maybe a demotivator for some, many artists and people in all walks of life find marijuana usefull for inspiration/perspective change.

Re:testing

[ArsonSmith]

Yes, but many is a good word to use as most end up sitting on the couch with no job. I was one of the few that found a bit of insperation got off of it and went on with my life. Most people I use to hang out with are in their 30's still getting high and working at crap jobs like McDonalds or Walmart.

Re:testing

[runderwo]

Of course, you wouldn't be one to judge them if they were living a happy and fulfilling life while working at such a job, would you? What if someone didn't smoke pot and worked at such a job, would you find something else to blame it on? Surely nobody rational would want to work at a job with minimal responsibility and minimal commitment... or would they?

Re:testing

[ArsonSmith]

No, actually most (again meaning not all) of them hate it. They just don't have the motivation to move on.

Re:testing

[runderwo]

I know plenty of people who hate their jobs and settle for less than they are capable of. Drug abuse is not a prerequisite.

Re:testing

[ArsonSmith]

pointing out the exceptions doesn't invalidate the fact that it most often does. Sure there are productive, happy drug users. Sure their are dead sober unhappy poor people. Pointing at the stitisticly irrelivant doesn't in any way invalidate the data.

Re:testing

[runderwo]

What data? You can't draw any kind of a general conclusion while there is enough stigma to motivate "straight" illegal drug users to misreport or deny their use altogether. Any data you have collected is immediately biased towards those drug users who aren't concerned about society's expectations, for example. A collection of anecdotes is NOT data, data requires analysis for bias and sample size significance among other things, but drug warrior research isn't really concerned with details like that.

If This Thing Short Circuits

[highwaytohell]

Do users get a different type of buzz?? Bet Robert Downey Jr will try to quash this technology ASAP.

big surprise

[schematix]

As a recent grad of UCSB, i'd have to say they picked the perfect place to develop a cocaine sensor. The students and faculty will have no problem finding suitable substances to test it on.

All the right, strapping sensual buzzwords...

[davidsyes]

"attaching a special"... "an aptamer to a gold electrode."... "...the aptamer tightly hugs..." "...and leans over so that a metal tag can touch the gold surface. This causes a spike in a plot of current versus voltage when the electrode is attached to a machine called a cyclic voltmeter."

heheh Funny... slash imageword: "straps"

Cocaine is everywhere....

[Moe_Fugger]

http://cocaine.org/cokemoney/index.html I hope they can fine tune them since theres trace amounts everywhere...

Dogs revolt

[noidentity]

Have you hugged a cocaine molecule today?

In other news, dogs are arguing that this will eliminate hundreds of jobs, putting many on the street to fend for themselves.

Obligatory

[metamatic]

[...] created a biosensor by attaching a special type of DNA called an aptamer to a gold electrode.

The difficult bit was persuading George W Bush to swap the silver spoon for a gold one.

Re:Obligatory

[megify]

when the gold spoon wraps itself around his face, all goverment testing of this thing will stop...

Convience

[Joebert]

Theese things are going to end up for sale on the counters at convience stores, right next to the roses in the little glass tubes & the brillo pads...

typical

[etzel]

As soon as the sensor was activated, swat helicopters started circling the place; hidden cameras in the ceiling monitored every move; FDA agents, in cooperation with neighbors, were listening behind the walls.
That's when it hit me: It is time for more Brandy...

The real trick is....

[canning]

At-home pregnancy tests are the model of diagnostic simplicity: a tester just pees on a stick and within minutes knows if she has to buy a crib. Imagine if one could just as easily detect HIV infection or a drug overdose.

The real challenge is getting the corse to pee on the stick. I suggest the 'old hand in the warm water' trick.

sounds fragile

[r00t]

contamination... physical scraping... oxidation...

I think there is enough dust and grime to mess up this sort of tech in real-world usage.

This is it!

[typical]

Now the War on Drugs will *surely* be won in short order!

How sensitive is it?

[AlphaLop]

Since its pretty common knowledge that roughly 80% of US paper money is contaminated with cocaine, the more cash you carry the more likely the government will bust you as a drug dealer :)

Extensive research, measured in kilos

[smoon]

It ended up taking about 68 kilos of cocaine to finally nail down the winning formula, reported biochemist George Placky. "We put in a lot of long nights, in fact we frequently would stay in the lab for 72 hours straight." "The team worked so hard we tried to accomodate them wherever possible." Indeed the lab is awash with stereo equipment, couches, and large screen TVs.

Univeristy officials confirmed the long nights. Security guard Paul Costas remakred "Yeah, those guys were going at it for days on end. I helped them smuggle chicks into their parti..ahh *research*."

"We feel that with another couple of years we will have similar sensors for crystal meth, heroin, and extasy." said Dr. Placky, who is currently applying for federal grants to fund the research, as well as provide sufficient quantities of the substances for thorough research.

Re:Extensive research, measured in kilos

[Joebert]

lol
Buddy, you deserve an award for that one !
I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.

Addendum

[c0dedude]

When asked if the device could register false positives, the researchers responded, "She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie; cocaine."

I Volunteer

[Cranky Weasel]

Are they sure that they've established true causality? Are they sure it's the cocaine?

I volunteer to snort some cocaine (I'll need more than a molecule) and touch a gold surface they've provided if the urge strike me. And I volunteer to keep doing it at 30 minute intervals until all of the cocaine is gone.

All in the interests of science, of course.

Beta Testers?

[mrtroy]

I am interested in your 0-day, and would like to offer my services as a Beta Tester.

Torn & Amused

[absinthminded64]

I can understand the reasons for a business such as home depot needing to test their employees for drug use but I think it's more of an insurance/legality thing for them. It's one of the only stores that I know of that often has a few hundred lbs of moving merchandise on a moving forklift several feet above customers heads. So, I don't want someone who's just done a line at the wheel.

But do I feel safer knowing that Home Depot does drug testing?! HELL NO! It's just piss in a bottle and quite often it's origins are not of the piss'er.

Comply with laws, legal requirements and fuck the customer. If they really wanted to ensure that customers didn't get CinderBlockHeadItus then they could subject each employee to a simple peer evaluated sobriety /motor skills test at the beginning of each shift.

What a crock. I think i'll shop at Lowes now.

Re:Torn & Amused

[Mr2001]

It's one of the only stores that I know of that often has a few hundred lbs of moving merchandise on a moving forklift several feet above customers heads. So, I don't want someone who's just done a line at the wheel.

Problem is, the kind of drug testing employers do--analysis of urine to find the metabolites of illegal drugs--won't catch this at all. They can only detect past use, and for some drugs (e.g. marijuana) "past use" can go back several weeks.

There are other methods that can test whether someone is actually under the influence of a drug right now, but they're more expensive and obviously must be done at least every day when an employee arrives, so employers don't really use them.

Re:Torn & Amused

[bosabilene]

What a crock. I think i'll shop at Lowes now.

What the hell difference does it make? They're just a different group of corporate assholes. Maybe you can what you need at Walmart if Lowes pisses you off. I say screw them all and shop and local merchants. It's popular to bitch about the big companies but most of us never really stop using them. If we all shop the local businessmen they might expand and hire people without having all the retarded HR policies.

Re:Torn & Amused

[absinthminded64]

Well, you see . . I live closest to Lowes :)

Re:Torn & Amused

[Suidae]

Perhaps someone should design a simple and easy to use coordination, reaction time and cognition test that could be used to profile a persons typical abilities. Test people once a week for a month when they are new hires and don't appear to be drunk/stoned/whatever, then again once a year (to calibrate for changes over time).

Any time the appear drunk/stoned or whatever at work, do a quick check with the kit and see if they are impared relative to their previous test results.

For most employers what is important is imparement during work times, so it should be reasonable to market tests that target that.

Re:Torn & Amused

[Mr2001]

Performance testing already exists. The obstacle is in getting employers to use performance tests instead of UA and other past-use tests.

U Can Study Buzzed

[HalWasRight]

Go figured they'd detect Cocaine at UCSB. I went there in the 80's, and I detected plenty of coke. Also the same school where a Psych grad got busted for stealing cocaine from lab rats.

The Relentless March of Science

[Anonymous Coward]

Could ARCHIMEDES have said : "I'm too lazy to do the research but it has something to do with the number of electrons in the outer circle of the atom" ?

Could COPERNICUS have said "I'm too lazy to do the research but it has something to do with the number of electrons in the outer circle of the atom"

Could GALILEO have said "I'm too lazy to do the research but it has something to do with the number of electrons in the outer circle of the atom"

Could NEWTON have said "I'm too lazy to do the research but it has something to do with the number of electrons in the outer circle of the atom"

NO! NOT IF THEY HAD A YEAR TO GOOGLE IT!

I'm so fucking glad to be alive and living in the AGE OF THE INTERNET it hurts!

Re:The Relentless March of Science

[ArsonSmith]

Maybe "I'm too lazy" wasn't the phrase to use. How about "I don't care enough to look it up."

Newton, Galileo et al cared enough. Lucky for us. I have other things I care about. This wasn't one of them.

I give it 6 months....

[bunbuntheminilop]

until someone realises that Ritalin sets off the sensor, due the the similarities of their structure.

Oligonucleotide, please

[Anonymous Coward]

"Aptamer" is too general a term, and it is not limited to DNA. Please call it an oligonucleotide.

Re:Other uses? - a people tracer

[vik]

You sprinke a suspect with substance X, which your sensor can detect in minute quantities. You can then follow the trail of X using your handy-dandy biosensor, finding everywhere they went, everyone they met, all the money they handled, and their current location.

Vik :v)

Incredible!

[pseudomind]

With this new sensor I will know when its time to go back to the bathroom and reapply before the shit wears off.

Only at UCSB

[Serveert]

anyone residing around the area will know what I'm talking about.

I'm sure they had all the coke they needed for testing.

+4 Informative wha?

[Cadallin]

Who modded my post up? It was intended as a personal reply to correct some of the Parent poster's misconceptions. It has nothing to do with the Article and is completely off-topic! Mod me down!

Re:+4 Informative wha?

[NcF]

All the same, is it not informative? Thanks. Now excuse me while I use up a mod point on the informant.

Who cares?

[TallMatthew]

Returning instant results doesn't mean anything if the drug's not in your system.

Cocaine has a plasma half-life of 90 minutes. Current cocaine drug tests detect metabolites, not the drug itself, and even those only work within 24-48 hours after using.

So how do you explain Nuremburg and Barcelona?

[commodoresloat]

Check it out. These are Euros. They haven't even been in circulation very long.

It detects only cocaine

[dapyx]

I know it was a joke, but the dogs can usually detect more than one drug. :-)

It can be set for other substances

[Pzychotix]

I'm a current UCSB student and I read about this in the school newspaper a couple weeks ago. The biosensor can actually be set to be used for other things than cocaine, but the article stated that cocaine was just a material that they used to test it on. *cough cough* A convient material. *cough cough* So it has many other uses than just cocaine testing. But in other things..... GO GAUCHOS! TAKE THAT UCBerkeley! You don't see UCB on Slashdot now do you!

You'd best not flush

[mrmeval]

That government installed biosensor on your sewer outlet won't need a warrent.

High school students helped on the research

[dougiegyro]

According to this article on the Science Blog two local high school students helped on the research: http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/might_gauchos_devel op_portable_cocaine_sensor_10107.html

The high school students made their own sensors and collected data shown in a graph in the scientific article they co-authored describing the work. ...

Elaine Doctor, a senior at Channel Island High School in Oxnard, Calif., and McCall Wood, a senior at Santa Barbara High School in Santa Barbara, Calif., participated in the summertime Research Mentorship Program at UCSB on this work. Elaine Doctor said, "At first I felt kind of intimidated by all the graduate students who are used to all the equipment, but we caught on really fast and everyone was really helpful. I felt honored to help America's war on drugs." Elaine plans to continue her studies in the sciences, either in biochemistry or biology.

McCall Wood said, "I'm really excited about this work. It let me know what research is like and I definitely want to pursue this. Everyday we would go into the lab and test a different hypothesis. I found it really exciting and extremely challenging. I found my limits, like patience. Being in the lab every day taught me so much about myself and about science in general. It's not really the results that were so important but the journey and the process."

you could dig around

[way2trivial]

the 'american management association' for a copy of a past study
http://www.hightimes.com/ht/news/content.php?bid=4 65&aid=5
And there's a pretty good chance you're eventually going to have to take a drug test. According to a 2004 American Management Association (AMA) study, 61.8 percent of companies surveyed said they test employees for illegal substances.

Oh dear God...

[meringuoid]

I felt honored to help America's war on drugs

This from a high school senior? What is wrong with teenagers today? I'm appalled by this clear decline in standards. A high school senior is... happy... to be helping... the Man... crack down on drugs? FOR FUCK'S SAKE! Someone get this kid to a fucking party already!

I weep for the future if this is typical of kids today. It's horrifying.

We've had this for ages....

[notbob]

Cocaine home drug tests are for sale everywhere:

http://www.detoxforless.com/drug-tests/cocaine.htm l/

Nothing new here folks, just another simple test.

It's a good idea though and I'm sure some other crazy research will come from it in 10 years or so.

But frankly we got stuff to pass every kind of drug test there is and every home drug test out there:

http://www.detoxforless.com/

Lowe's makes their employees pee in a bottle, too

[Ellis D. Tripp]

At least the store near me. Just like Home Despot, they have a sign stating their drug testing policy right on the entrance door....

Here's a list of some who DON'T...

[Ellis D. Tripp]

http://www.nontesterslist.com/

The only urine sample an employer would ever get out of me would be for a taste test! :)

Re:Here's a list of some who DON'T...

[cluckshot]

I don't do drugs and I hate the effects of even recreational use of drugs on people. I don't even like most prescription drugs.

I have suffered because of the idiots trying to stop drug use by this detection and repression regime. So has everyone else. I cannot get Pseudopedrine for my allergies without going through the hoops and hurdles of their system. I am limited to 20 pills a month. It gets worse when you consider the high cost of getting needed medicines going through the Rx system with the MD's. I take synthroid and am on total replacement therapy. My dosage is never going to change. I have been on the same dose for 8 years now. Why can't I just buy it at the pharmacy and forget the $150 a year going to the MD and the $75 lab fees to validate my dose? The drug for a year only costs about $50 and that price is 10 times higher because of this system.

We are headed into a police state where every micro droplet from our body could cause loss of job, family and freedom forever. Worse yet this could be a form of sabotage where someone could sneek a few micrograms of dust onto us and destroy our lives.

None of this addresses drug abuse. The Pseudoephedrine issue was over Meth-labs. There are less meth labs but now the Mexican imports of the drug have more than made up for the supply that was being produced locally. The problem is not gone, it is just moved. Drug abuse is not the result of access to drugs. It is only the result of the desires of people and these are related to other factors we do nothing about using such invasive technology.

Having worked on work sites where people did drugs, I hate the effects. But the problem is that we will not deal with our DRUNKS. I mean drunk on anything that makes them drunk. The US Problem with drugs is not in Mexico and it isn't in Columbia. It is entirely in our own population.

I am painfully aware of the causes of our drug abuse problem. It is mostly a problem of our society raising a bunch of "useless people." We raise our children prohibiting them access to useful occupations and valuable jobs at a young age and making sure they stay away from work which makes them valuable to others for such a long period of time that they never become useful and they destroy their lives because they know they are worthless and useless. This is particularly a disease of our "modern" society where we trash occupations and trash people in the name of progress. This is only going to get worse with the march of technology as we reneder almost all work obsolete. As we permit industrialists to trash entire communities of people saying their skills are "obsolete" etc while not providing for their adjustment and usefulness this problem is going to become universal. I am not against progress and technology but unless it is required (I MEAN WITH LAW) to accomidate people the temptation to dump people is going to be impossible to resist. With the globalism and "free trade" we now see going on, the avoidance of these costs will be simply to shift trade from one nation to another. As it happens all nations will be trashed this way. This is a threat to all hunanity.

Re:Here's a list of some who DON'T...

[cayenne8]

"The Pseudoephedrine issue was over Meth-labs. There are less meth labs but now the Mexican imports of the drug have more than made up for the supply that was being produced locally."

Geez...so, now we're outsourcing our illegal drug manufacturing????

Good Lord, we just can't keep any good jobs in the US anymore....

:-)

Watch Out, Coca Cola

[EmagGeek]

I've often wondered if Coke still laces Coca Cola with Cocaine to "relieve pain." I guess maybe now we can find out.

Re:Watch Out, Coca Cola

[runderwo]

wikipedia

Contrary to popular belief, the coca leaf extract cocaine was never added to Coca-Cola, per se. Because cocaine is naturally present in untreated coca leaves, small amounts of cocaine were also present in the beverage. Today's Coca-Cola uses "spent" coca leaves, those that have been through a cocaine extraction process, to flavor the beverage. Since this process cannot extract the cocaine alkaloids at a molecular level, the drink still contains trace amounts of the stimulant[5]. The United States DEA oversees the importation of coca for Coca-Cola, and later sale of the extracted cocaine to the drug industry where it is used in the creation of many of the common drugs whose names end in "-aine" (such as Novacaine).[6]

Re:Watch Out, Coca Cola

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahhh yes... another at-best semi-accurate article in Wikipedia...

I have an immediate family member who worked for CocaCola in Atlanta in the earlier parts of the century, and according to their first-hand accounts, CocaCola did indeed intentionally add cocaine to CocaCola in the earlier formulas to create addiction, even after it was outlawed in 1914.

Remember, corporations can do whatever they want regardless of the law, so do you really think that if they could get away with spiking the drink with cocaine, they would let some silly law get in the way?

yay or nay

[Anonymous Coward]

So when your spaztic buddy spills the coke all over the table it's now a little bit easier to filter out the yay from the common dirt.

In other news

[blake3737]

Several reseachers were bludgeoned to death near frat row, and several more will never be invited to a kegger again.

I think you mean ~. (smokedot)

[Anonymous Coward]

http://smokedot.org/

Won't some please ...

[Mathness]

Won't someone please think of the computers?
With this tech they can get high on electronics impulses and get hooked for life.
And before you know it, we will have criminal computers offering to spam for a quick fix, and prostitute computers offering open ports.

posted 14 days ago

[bkwrm790]

This same story was posted 14 days ago on News.com and I even posted it on my own blog, and then it takes 14 days to get Slashdotted! No wonder people are using Digg more and more.

Depends on Schedule

[conJunk]

Cocaine (like Heroine) is a Sechdule II controlled substance, meaning it has (i paraphrase) "limmited medical or scientific applications", and as such one obtain a license like you describe

Sechedule I substances (such as pot and lsd) have (paraphrase) "extreme danger of addiction with no medical or scientific uses", and as such licenses may *not* be obtained for these substances (please correct me if i'm wrong, but i'm pretty sure i'm not)

obviously, some states are trying to use local legislation to get around this classification where the medical uses of pot are concerned, but the federal govermant claims that federal law trumps