Up To 90 Percent of US Money Has Traces of Cocaine

mmmscience writes "Scientists have found that up to 90% of US paper money has some cocaine contamination, up from the 67% mark measured two years ago. Looking at bills from 17 cities, it's no surprise that the city with the highest level was Washington DC, where up to 95% of bills gathered there tested positive. From a global standpoint, both Canada and Brazil tested rather high (85% and 80%, respectively), but China and Japan were well behind the curve at 20% and 12%. The researchers hope that studies such as these will be of help to law enforcement agencies that are attempting to understand the growth and flow of drug use in communities."

Comments

Cocaine on bill != haddirect contact with coke

[JoshuaZ]

Bill's can get cocaine on them without ever having been directly in contact with cocaine. The most common way this occurs is if a bill has cocaine on it and then it goes in or out of some sort of feeder machine (such as that on an ATM), it can leave small amounts of coke residue that then rub off on other bills. Given that, part of the disparity may be due to different types of ATMs and similar technology. Similarly, it isn't implausible that the increase in the percentage of bills with cocaine on them (as reported in TFA) might be due to some set of subtle technological changes that make it easier for cocaine to spread from bill to bill.

Snopes says...

[sidb]

Snopes says... true. Wow, that almost never happens--I had always assumed this was a myth. The Snopes article, BTW, is much more informative and detailed than the one linked in the Slashdot post.

Re:Snopes says...

[Just Some Guy]

Snopes = exhaustively researched articles done by people who take the time to get it right as much as they possibly can, with no need to be "first to post" to get credit.

BS. Snopes = getting ad money to sound authoritative, no more, no less.

I've sent two corrections to Snopes. The first was in a myth about taking caffeine and aspirin. They had reported that there was nothing about the combination that would be stronger than both taken individually. I sent links to published studies demonstrating the synergistic effect of the combo, and links to common products (eg Excedrin) that pair them. Snopes updated the article to reflect the new information.

The second was regarding Marilyn Monroe having six toes. Now, I see no reason to believe that she did. However, some of their supporting "evidence" was that Monroe would've had a long recovery and a lasting limp. My wife, a podiatric surgeon, told them that this was completely untrue, and that she's amputated many toes over the years without long-term adverse affects to the patients. Snopes replied that she was wrong and that I was crazy for thinking Marilyn had 6 toes.

So I personally know of one article that presents completely, 100% wrong evidence as proof, and another that had completely ignored evidence that would have weakened their claim. How many other corrections have been ignored or rejected?

Snopes is not exhaustively researched, not by a long shot. Read the site for entertainment or as a starting point for further research, but don't take their word for anything.

Re:Cross Contamination anyone?

[the_humeister]

No, the suggestion is that most of the paper money in America has been in contact with cocaine users.

Re:In all fairness

[natehoy]

Ummm... the article isn't introducing this as a new issue. Even the article summary makes that clear. The article is about the increases in contamination.

The point of the article is that the rate of contamination is increasing. The Snopes article makes mention of 1985 being 33 to 50% contamination rates. The article summary refers to a 2-year-old study that puts contamination closer to 67%, and now the most recent study puts it at around 90%. So the point is that the contamination has increased.

Re:Cross Contamination anyone?

[SydShamino]

Which is also very likely false. Money just doesn't flow in that way. On the other hand, it seems likely that most automated money processing machines have been in contact with contaminated bills. And I expect that those machines aren't regularly thoroughly cleaned and contaminate all subsequent bills, which in turn contaminate subsequent machines.

"Traces" has no definition above one molecule (or could be even less if you're into holistic medicine /grin). One bill handled with coke-covered hands or used to snort could contaminate tens of thousands of other bills with "traces" of coke.

Re:In all fairness

[Wansu]

Ones, Fives and Tens have average circulation life of less than 2 years. Twenties have average circulation life of approximately 2 years. Fifties have average circulation life of a little more than 4 and 1/2 years and one hundred dollar bills have average circulation life of about 7 and 1/2 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Note

So it's unlikely that any 24 year old bills would be contaminating new bills. But there still may be some old-new contamination going on nonetheless.

Re:I understand that in London

[FauxReal]

If anyone is wondering about the WD40 & Vaseline, it's cause some nightclubs will put a thin layer on the toilet tank to discourage cocaine use. (It's hard to tell it's there at a glance and if you're gonna do coke, you've probably been drinking too.) If you try to scrape out lines on a coat of Vaseline, you'll end up with a greasy paste.