Great News: Cocaine Can Rot Your Flesh

Need another reason to avoid cocaine other than it messing up your brain, your nose and your life? Well, now scientists say it can rot your flesh.

Besides making you edgy and skittish, with a propensity toward emotional highs and lows, cocaine can also rot your skin, according to a study reported Monday by Time.com.

Researchers found that the illegal drug can contain agents that contribute to low white cell count or dying skin tissue, giving people the appearance of wearing rotting flesh.

The findings were published in the Annals of Internal Medicine after a discovery by doctors at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York.

It was found that women who had a history of cocaine use also tended to have discolorations on various body parts like their cheeks, buttocks, thighs and earlobes.

Those symptoms are consistent with use of the medication levamisole, which is used by veterinarians for de-worming farm animals.

The medication is also used, however, in the illicit drug industry to "stretch" cocaine, possibly for more profit or a more potent high.

“Almost 80 percent of the cocaine coming into this country has levamisole mixed in,” said Dr. Ghinwa Dumyati, a University of Rochester medical professor.

He noted that the medication can cause an inflammation inside the small blood vessels. “The result can be the death of the epidermis or outer layer of skin,” he said.

Lingerie Model Turned Drug Smuggler

Imagine my shock to discover some models might have a thing for cocaine.

A lingerie model is believed to be the mastermind behind an all-women drug gang that smuggles cocaine into Britain.

An international arrest warrant has been issued for Angie Sanselmente Valencia, 30, who is said to only hire glamour models to transport the drugs from South America to Europe.

It's believed that Colombian-born Valencia had been seeing a Mexican drug lord known as 'The Monster' but split with him at the end of last year to form her own cocaine-smuggling gang.

She is said to describe the women working for her as 'unsuspicious, beautiful angels'. The women are told to be 'nice, but not flashy'.

Valencia, who was crowned Colombia's 'Queen Of Coffee' in 2000, left modelling and moved to Argentina late last year to establish her network.

Her 'angels' were paid £3,200 for each trip they made and one of her gang is believed to have boarded a flight every 24 hours with the packages of cocaine.
From Argentina they would fly up to the Mexican Caribbean resort of Cancun and from there they would smuggle them into Europe.

However her network began to unravel several weeks ago when one of her 'drug mules' was caught at Argentina's Ezeiza International Airport in Buenos Aires carrying 55kg of cocaine.

Fifty-five kilos? That's more weight than most models themselves. Either that's an incorrect figure or she had two large suitcases packed with cocaine.

It also seems her mules aren't the brightest bulbs.

The 21-year-old woman began to talk and within 12 hours police investigators had arrested a further three people.

The drug mule had made no attempt to hide the cocaine in her suitcase because she'd been told no one would stop her at the airport, according to Argentine newspaper La Nacion.

Police are now investigating the gang's links to people working at the airport.
Following the arrests Valencia promptly disappeared from a four-star hotel in Buenos Aires but is still believed to be in the South American country.

Despite Goverment Efforts, Cocaine As Cheap As Ever

My first reaction is maybe the government should stop snorting so much.

Cocaine is as cheap as ever, according to a new analysis of government data by a Washington, D.C. think tank.

The findings appear to contradict claims by U.S. law enforcement officials that the drug has become more expensive. "[Over] the last two years there's been a sustained increase on the price of cocaine," said Drug Enforcement Administration operations chief Tom Harrigan in a recent interview with ABC News. Harrigan credited efforts by the United States, Mexico and local U.S. governments.

But the retail price for cocaine in 2007, the most recent year studied, was less than half what it was in 1984, when Jay McInerney's novel of a coke-addled Manhattanite, "Bright Lights, Big City," was first published, according to the report by the policy group Washington Office on Latin America, which cited a newly-released analysis by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

The cocaine market portrayed by the report contrasts with boasts made by the Drug Enforcement Administration last year that cocaine prices were soaring in part due government counterdrug efforts, experts say.

"It's roughly in line with the trend we see with most other illegal drugs, and undermines the government's claim they're making it more difficult to purchase" such substances, said journalist Ryan Grim, whose book on American drug policy, "This is Your Country on Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America," publishes in June.

Hollywood Lifestyle Poses Serious Risk to Rainforest

If I wrote the headlines, that's what it would say, but instead the BBC decided to word it this way.

Cocaine use 'destroys rainforest'

Some 2.2 million hectares of rainforest had been lost to cocaine production over the last 20 years, he added.

So we can't drill in ANWR because of danger to the environment, polar bear populations are at an all-time high so let's put them on the endangered species list, and whatever Al Gore is blaming this week on global warming climate change is fine rhetoric to spout, but if we point a finger at all those crazy whacked-out folks in the entertainment business who shove more then their fair share of blow up the nose, why we are [insert your favorite label here].

By the way, notice once again that this is Colombia that is taking the initiative, Nancy.

Mr James, a former cocaine user who recently presented a BBC Panorama documentary on the effects of the drug, backed the environmental focus of the campaign.

He said: "I don't know why we care more about monkeys dying than people dying but we do. So this is a really intelligent way of going about it."

See how your thinking clears up when you're not doing drugs?

Hollywood on Edge

Bad news for the in-crowd. Who knows, this could even have an effect on attendance at YearlyKos.

Sure signs are erratic behavior, an over-inflated sense of self-importance, and Charlie Sheen knocking on doors in his neighborhood, pleading for a fix.

Drug Officials Note Cocaine Shortage

Wholesale prices of cocaine have risen in more than a dozen major U.S. cities as supplies of the powerful drug have shrunk, including in high-volume markets such as Los Angeles and New York, White House drug czar John Walters said.

But the same federal report that Walters said indicates the short supply also suggests that producers might be stockpiling cocaine in South America or Mexico, perhaps waiting until the time is right to export to the United States.

The scarcity was first noted in a May report by the National Drug Intelligence Center, said Walters, who heads the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

"We've had a number of programs and a number of efforts that have done things at a level that we haven't seen before," he told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The shortage is likely the result of combined enforcement and eradication efforts in the U.S., Mexico and Colombia, the world's largest producer of cocaine, said Walters, who met with intelligence officials in El Paso this week.

The shortage has been tracked largely by sharp price increases and has existed for about two to four months, according to a four-page unclassified summary of the NDIC's findings.

There is also the possibility that cocaine once bound for the U.S. has been redirected to Europe, the report shows.

Roger Clinton was unavailable for comment.