- Image by Grisei via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0
Over the past few days, various news outlets have reported on how almost all of America’s (and increasingly the world’s) cocaine now contains levamisole—a veterinary drug that sometimes causes people’s ears, noses, and cheeks to turn purple and black and rot away. Not everyone who does cocaine experiences flesh-eating issues—the technical term is necrosis—but there’s really no way to predict who will develop them, and who won’t. So you have to either do some cocaine and wait and see what happens, or choose a more sensible and cheaper option, like avoiding cocaine altogether.
Last week’s news reports—inspired in part by a new Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology study detailing the conditions of six affected patients in L.A.—mainly focused on cases of LevamiCoke-related necrosis in New York City and Los Angeles. But what about Chicago cocaine? Is it also spiked with this stuff, or what? (Or what?)