The news that about 70 percent of cocaine in the United States is cut with the veterinary de-worming chemical levamisole, which can give users “patches of blackened, dying skin on the ears, face, trunk or extremities,” was terrifying enough. Now the contamination level has been upped to “three quarters of the cocaine bricks” seized by the DEA and science has found an additional, less superficial side-effect of the dirty drug: “a sometimes fatal lowered count of white blood cells.” The “improved mood” and “hyperalertness” fade, but the bad bone marrow is forever. [Scientific American]
