A drug known as “pink cocaine” originating from Colombia has been reportedly spreading through Europe.
The drug, locally known as tusi, generally consists of ketamine, MDMA and pink food colouring, but not cocaine itself, and smells of strawberries. Its name derives from the fact it contains the psychedelic drug 2CB.
According to Vice, the drug was first discovered in Colombia in 2010 and has become synonymous with young drug dealers in major cities who make and sell it for use in the country’s late night club scenes and tourist sex trade. Dealers market it on the back of its colour as a high more exclusive than cocaine, and Vice describes it as “more of a brand than a specific substance”.
The drug is made by suppliers in local DIY kitchen labs and the composition varies from batch to batch. It’s often bulked out with caffeine, but forensic tests have found that it has been known to contain drugs such as benzos, meth and cathinones, but rumours it also contains fentanyl have never been proven.
A report published by the UN revealed that the drug has been found at a music festival in the UK, as well as in Austria and Switzerland. The product has also been appearing more prevalently in recent years in Spain, likely facilitated by the country’s close links to the Colombian drug world.
“This drug is connected to the neo-drug trafficker culture in Colombia,” Julian Quintero, a sociologist and researcher at Social Technical Action, a Colombian drug policy NGO, told Vice.
“The best party places and the million-peso prostitutes at the most ostentatious parties are not in the hands of the traditional adult “patrons” of the drug trade, but of daring youngsters who have learned to ‘cook’ tusi in their own kitchens.” Quintero said, with the help of tusi, neo-drug trafficker culture has “taken the monopoly of money and beautiful women away from the cocaine traffickers”.
He concludes: “With tusi, anyone can be a young man playing a drug trafficker. The teenage gangster culture has been democratised.”
Man-made drugs such as tusi are becoming more popular as they are cheaper and quicker to ‘cook’, but the effects of them can vary much more than with plant-based drugs.
In other recent drug-related news, MDMA could be made available in US hospitals as soon as 2024 after new research found that the drug was an effective treatment for patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
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