High Crime in the Cocaine Industry | Hacker News Reader

High Crime in the Cocaine Industry

meanjin.com.au

56 pointslermontov65 comments

> One aircraft was being pursued over Homestead, Florida in 1994, so ditched its cargo. A 34-kilogram bag of cocaine fell directly into a back yard where chief of police Curt Ivy was chatting with the Neighborhood Crime Watch about what to look out for in their quiet community.

Well that is ironic.

Cocaine is a terrible drug that can severely alter one's personality. Most people turn into self centered twats.

One of the most addictive substances known, legalization, acceptance and wide use could have drastic effects on society.

Apparently some have already forgotten about the crack epidemic of the 90s. Many cities are still dealing with the crack generation offspring and the mentally ill crackheads from that era.

Do you have a source that proves people become self centered or is that anecdotal? I know people who have done cocaine and they haven't drastically changed because of it.

As someone who deals with cokeheads every week I think it attracts self centered people and enhances that trait.

I don't think legalization would be a bad thing. Our current opioid epidemic is pretty equally driven by legal and illegal abuse.

Acceptance and wide use seems unrelated to legal status.

Was the crack epidemic in the 90s caused by legal cocaine?

Crack and cocaine are different. Route of administration has an enormous impact on addictiveness. While cigarettes are pretty addictive, a nicotine pill wouldn't be at all.

It says a lot about the state of HN's community that this post is poorly received, while posts supporting cocaine use are seeing more support. This used to be a techie playground; between comments in the heroin thread yesterday[∆] and in this thread today, now HN seems like a druggie haven.

[∆]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18193884

It's poorly received because it's hyperbolic. I've been around many powder cocaine users and have never seen someone's personality radically change. It's a stronger version of caffeine with more euphoria, that's about it. Given the health impacts, I dont recommend using it, but people should be honest about what this thing is, what it does, and how it feels, not participate in fear mongering.

I stronger version of coffee that might give you a heart attack.

drugs are technology

> One of the most addictive substances known, legalization, acceptance and wide use could have drastic effects on society.

Very similar things can be said about alcohol (just look at how many people are addicted to it), yet we have learnt how to live with that drug. The same arguments against alcohol were used in the prohibition era.

I think an argument could be made that we're not really doing a great job of dealing with alcohol as a destructive and dangerous drug.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/201...

This isn't an argument against legalization, it's an argument against normalizing drug use via social and cultural acceptance and promotion.

The counter argument is that while it is still causing many ills, it did not "destroy the fabric of society" or something like that. The thing is that many people enjoy drinking alcohol, so finding a good balance is difficult.

Most people wouldn’t use drugs even if they were legal and freely available. Just like most people aren’t alcoholics. There are a lot of myths around drug addiction.

Cocaine criminalization contributed a lot to the crack epidemic. Being cheaper is a lot more important when there's a 20000% markup, and being more potent per weight and volume is a lot more important when it needs to be trafficked.

Pure cocaine is a peaceful subtle drug. The product produced by cartels, even at 90% purity is cut with amphetamines, bath salts, and other gross drugs.

Pure cocaine is habit forming but the cravings seem to be more of a daily than a hourly thing, which is the case with cut products.

If you do cocaine you can practice harm reduction by washing in acetone, and if you have it available, cloraform. “Pink cocaine” available on the dark net has been washed using the above methods, then cut with b vitamins.

It’s amazing That people will stick things up their nose that have been polluted by every drug dealer who has touched it on its journey to them. Who knows what could be in there.

They’re already snorting one of the more famously addictive drugs that does quite a number on your cardiovascular system, they’ve already demonstrated a lack of judgement. If they snort a lot of cocaine on a regular basis, then like a heroin addict they’re desperate to get high and would happily snort borax if it had a little coke in it. Of all the drugs out there the ones to really avoid are the ones that are powerfully physically addictive, and offer little therapeutic benefit: cocaine, heroin, meth. They’re just bad news, and at best you get away clean, at worst your life is wrecked. It’s not like pot or mushrooms or even responsible acid use, some drugs are just best avoided. Having said that I’m against prohibition, but people should fucking avoid coke.

Or as is popular, TL;DR “who knows what could be in there.” They already know it has cocaine in it!

This is the environment governments create and also proves it is in human nature. It would be like banning sex and then be amazed how much STD are around.

>If you do cocaine you can practice harm reduction by washing in acetone, and if you have it available, cloraform.

I'm gonna be real with you. A product that's washed like that, especially by an amateur at home (e.g. you or me) doesn't sound like something I want to sniff up into my nose.

Acetone and chloroform are both extremely volatile and rapidly evaporate leaving no residue. In fact in the lab people use acetone to help dry glassware of water. There's nothing dangerous here.

Maybe if you get pure acetone like a lab would. The acetone I've had experience using from auto parts and hardware stores definitely leaves streaks on glass and clothes smelling of chemicals.

And if you use that, you’ll pour all your cocaine down the drain. You need the 100 percent pure anhydrous stuff. They don’t sell that at the hardware store.

Acetone is not something you should purposely expose yourself to but it is also not an especially dangerous substance. The human body produces small amounts of it during normal metabolism; more if you're diabetic or drink a lot of alcohol.

I have used pure cocaine (presumably, as I was in colombia) and I disagree. It probably depends on the individual and dosage. For me, the main effect of cocaine is wanting more cocaine. It's not even an enjoyable high outside of a purely how-much-dopamine-is-in-my-brain definition.

> For me, the main effect of cocaine is wanting more cocaine.

From my limited exposure, that's pretty much a given.

> It's not even an enjoyable high outside of a purely how-much-dopamine-is-in-my-brain definition.

Is that a note on your views on cocaine in general, or as a difference to what is generally available (non-pure)?

The poster I am replying to is stating that pure cocaine is a great drug. I am disagreeing. YMMV

From what I have read, the original delivery mechanism for cocaine was chewing on the leaves of the coca plant. In that form, it's quite mild.

Extract from the coca plant has medicinal uses. From that perspective, it absolutely is a good drug. (Coca Cola contains extracts from the coca plant, minus the hallucinogen called cocaine.)

Pure cocaine is almost certainly the mild, inoffensive drug described above. It only becomes an aggressive and problematic thing with much modern processing.

OP is clearly not talking about chewing coca leaves. He is talking about pure vs. impure powdered cocaine.

Maybe chewing coca leaves is healthy, maybe it's not; I don't know. But it's not really relevant to a discussion about cocaine, the powdered street drug. One barely exists outside of a handful of Andean countries, the other is a worldwide health catastrophe.

The person I am replying to is arguing based on supposed firsthand experience. Their supposed expertise based on firsthand experience sounds dubious on the face of it and is also being called into question by others:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18210799

Everything I have read indicates it can be a mild drug. That isn't straight up crazy talk.

It shouldn't be outright dismissed based on "I was in Colombia once and tried something I imagine is pure, never mind that I don't even speak the language."

That isn't a fair characterization. Most of this is going to be subjective because there's no quantifiable metric for a drug's "pleasantness," but crystalized cocaine is the 1:1 comparison being made.

Perhaps worded a little sharper than I really intended. Other than that, it's not terribly different from what you are saying.

There is a very relevant difference between active and inactive cuts. The cocaine I tried likely had inactive cuts, which calls my assessment of field prices into question, but not active cuts as it makes no economic sense, and thus wouldn't affect my anecdotal assessment of the mental effects of cocaine.

I have also had coca tea, and quite enjoyed it. It was a more euphoric coffee alternative. For me I assume it's a dosage issue: tea is nice but doing a line of extracted cocaine is very excessive for my brain and body. But honestly this is very much an anecdote as I dont do well with any stimulants.

Funny, coca tea is an expression I sometimes use for diet coke.

Tell yourself whatever you want, but the awful cardiovascular and neurological effects of cocaine are well-documented and their mechanisms are well-understood. Impurities and adulterations don't make things better, but cocaine itself is awful for you.

What little experience I've had with cocaine just left me with the impression that it's like caffeine turned up to 11.

This changed my views on both caffeine and cocaine.

I now see caffeine and caffeinated beverages as more problematic, habbit-forming stimulants which I avoid consuming far more than prior to the "my newly rich friends discovered cocaine" phase. And cocaine as a largely overhyped, relatively benign (for an illegal drug with such a reputation) but habit-forming substance made desirable by the media, and expensive by scarcity the war on drugs creates.

They're more similar than they are different, and it seems absurd to me that one is legal while the other isn't.

But cocaine isn't just caffeine dialed up to 11. The legality of one versus the other has to do more with cocaine's far greater acute and long term health risks when consumed at levels that provide effect.

If the normal way of consuming caffeine was snorting a powder that was mostly the pharmaceutically active conpund and bulking agents they’d look reasonably similar. If cocaine was available legally as tea or as powder but taxed much higher there’d be a lot of coca tea drinkers who wouldn’t touch the powder.

The dose, and the delivery method, make the poison.

That's why I specifically wrote to the point of effect. You can snort caffeine to the point of effect and healthy individuals will be fine.

The distinction between compounds goes far beyond dosage and delivery mechanism.

> You can snort caffeine to the point of effect and healthy individuals will be fine.

How can you possibly know that? Do you have scientific research to cite?

I would assume that someone that ingests enough caffeine (by any means) to "the point of effect" (whatever that means) is going to have some serious risk of heart attack. I know several people who have wound up in the hospital for monitoring after drinking, oh, about 8 cups of coffee within several hours. They didn't realize it was the coffee, they were just like, uh oh, something is not right with my heart beat. The doctors say "how much coffee have you had today? Yeah, you'll probably be okay, but don't do that again."

> How can you possibly know that? Do you have scientific research to cite?

Of course, this is well worn territory:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5445139/

The method of delivery is not my claim, so someone would need to show that snorting to effect has a greater negative effect on health than drinking.

"Effect" here typically means desired or pleasurable palpable impact on mood or behavior. For both caffeine and coca that typically entails euphoria and an increase in energy. Beyond a certain point that trend reverses and negative effect come into play.

Anecdotes aren't particularly useful metrics for these discussions, frankly.

From that article,

> The threshold of caffeine toxicity appears to be around 400 mg/day in healthy adults

That's only about 4 cups of coffee, man! Or just two "NoDoz".

The article does not mention snorting caffeine. It seems reasonable to me to predict that if people starting snorting caffeine in an effort to get greater neuropharmacalogical effects, it would be pretty easy to go over 400mg.

There are few (if any?) documented deaths from caffeine overdose from drinking coffee (or even energy drinks), probably because the delivery mechanism means you need to drink a lot of beverage to get that much caffeine (8+ cups of coffee is really gonna fill up your stomach etc.). There ARE documented deaths from caffeine overdose from caffeine pills etc. though. Mechanism of delivery matters. The range between usual caffeine dose and an amount that can be dangerous is smaller than most people think (in that respect similar to aspirin and acetaminophen).

I am not sure what you mean by "to the point of effect", but I don't believe the literature you cite supports your claim that "You can snort caffeine to the point of effect and healthy individuals will be fine." Method of delivery does matter, in part because it effects practical dosages.

In fact, we don't need to guess, while as far as I know nobody's snorting it, highly-concentrated caffeine in powder/granule form (presumably similar to what we'd hypothetically imagine people snorting) _is_ documented as dangerous:

> "FDA Warns Consumers About Pure and Highly Concentrated Caffeine"

> "The FDA advises consumers to avoid pure and highly concentrated caffeine sold in bulk as powdered and liquid dietary supplements."

> "It can be extremely difficult to accurately measure pure and highly concentrated caffeine, and you can easily consume a dangerous or even lethal amount."

> "Dietary supplements consisting of pure or highly concentrated caffeine are potentially dangerous, and serious adverse events can result, including death."

-- https://www.fda.gov/Food/DietarySupplements/ProductsIngredie...

> "On May 27, his brother found him unresponsive on their living room floor. In an effort to increase his energy, Mr. Stiner had used caffeine powder a friend had purchased on Amazon, but miscalculated the dosage, overdosed and died. The medical examiner said the cause of death was “cardiac arrhythmia and seizure, due to acute caffeine toxicity due to excessive caffeine ingestion.”"

-- https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/05/18/caffeine-powder-po...

I don't think you're making a counterargument here; I'm not saying caffeine doesn't have negative impacts on health at any level. I'm saying to the point of effect (which again I detailed), it is safer than cocaine is comparably.

The mechanism of ingest only matters if the latency of effect is so great that a user goes past the point of pleasurable effect. Drinking or snorting cocaine has negative physiological effect closer to the point of pleasurable pyschological effect than does caffeine.

That's like saying fentanyl isn't particularly dangerous, because you aren't going to OD on the level that is pleasurable. Not how it works. If the difference in dose between what you would have wanted and a toxic dose is relatively small, that makes it dangerous.

Pure or high-concentration caffeine is quite clearly dangerous.

> That's like saying fentanyl isn't particularly dangerous, because you aren't going to OD on the level that is pleasurable.

It's actually the total opposite of what I'm saying. I'm saying that caffeine specifically is less likely to do that than cocaine (or fentanyl).

> Pure or high-concentration caffeine is quite clearly dangerous.

This is another argument I did not make.

I can vouch for natural caffeine, getting you high. I used to pack some of the energy drink ingredients, and there was definitely a point where it was psycho-active.

Historically racism and fear played a massive role in the prohibition of cocaine, it's similar to marijuana in that regard.

Cocaine was present in Coca-Cola for over a decade before being removed, not because of the negative health risks but because blacks got access to it once it became available in bottles. Prior to bottles, it was only available at fountains accessible only to whites. [1]

It's not like caffeine is without its risks and negatives. I lived with someone addicted to caffeine for a decade and it was like living with a junky in a number of ways. She tried quitting dozens of times and it would just cause a week of migraines and dysfunction before she'd relapse. Every morning she would be pissy and make a mess of the kitchen until she got her caffeine fix.

Caffeine is also a major cause of suffering for surgical patients because the operation is oftentimes the longest they've gone without caffeine in decades, so they're experiencing withdrawal symptoms throughout the experience having already fasted for a day.

Some day Cocaine will be legal again.

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/why-we-to...

The legality of one vs the other seldom has any rational basis. Or explain "the legality of one vs the other" with regard to cannabis, or alcohol (which once was illegal but is no more).

That said, I agree it is pretty clear that cocaine is a much more dangerous drug than caffeine. (not talking about coca leaf tea, which may not be, but cocaine specifically)

technically, cocaine isn't addictive at low dosages. i.e. coca leaf tea, provides you all of the same stimulant as a cup of coffee... without the crash or the addition.

Read that again: you can drink coca leaf tea, and NOT suffer the effects of caffeine addiction.

Peruvian neighborhoods usually have it buried somewhere in their bodegas.

So is alcohol. As with most things the amount of harm likely depends on amount used.

The problem with cocaine (in my limited experience) is people take a bit, want more, and wind up binging. And quite often it turns into a habitual thing which does affect both health and wallet.

Cocaine (insufflated, injection and smoking are different cases) doesn't have to be used like this just as a person can have a beer or two now and again without great harm or danger. However people often lack control once they get started with it. Some people are like this with alcohol, habituation and binging and generally out of control behavior once they have a little.

I'm not a doctor, I don't know the harm levels at low dosage infrequent use, but I personally doubt a small bump or two a few times a year is really that harmful or dangerous.

The problem is, given access, dosage doesn't usually stay low nor infrequent. I haven't been around cocaine in years, decades really, but I have seen some sad stories and it is best stayed away from in my opinion. However it's not quite as bad as some people believe, and I have seen people who used it in a way I would consider responsible.

I tried it once, did nothing for me, didn't try it again. I agree that it can be used responsibly, however one of my friends who did it sparingly ended up with a sinus infection that travelled to the brain, requiring brain surgery, which he is still dealing with the effects of many years later (doctors said it was most likely from cocaine use).

Since Ether was made difficult to get in the 1990's, producers have been using nastier drying agents. As someone that had done the stuff made with Ether, the present quality is shite.

Cocaine is a sort of anti-depressant. When used as unrefined coca leaf, it's relatively safe. Three Catholic Popes have partaken of coca leaf tea on visits to South America [0] -- it helps people deal with altitude sickness while they adapt. Coca leaf extract was used in the original Coca-Cola formula. The stimulant was removed in 1903 [1], leaving just the coca leaf flavoring and some of the plant's other beneficial compounds.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/09/its-not-cocain...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola#Coca_%E2%80%93_cocai...

There are drugs that are mood-elevating substances sort-of similar to cocaine, but without the euphoria and crash. They are available as prescriptions and in the market (slightly less pure, but good enough for my dog). This class of drugs mostly fell out of favor as their patents expired and the drug industry came out with newer patent-protected generations of drugs.

I met a fellow who tried cocaine in college. He said, "been there, done that, don't need to use again". People who get hooked on cocaine are those who are severely depressed -- they like cocaine because it helps them feel normal.

I've never used cocaine myself, but I've watched the use crack cocaine. Too much makes the user temporarily psychotic, which is why it's now an illegal substance. I learned from a Hacker News comment/submission a while ago that cocaine causes its harm by shredding the mitochondria. [searching] Ahh, found it, this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10956058

"been there, done that, don't need to use again"

Agree with this sentiment. I have a super addictive personality but the diminishing returns are so extreme that after an hour or two it's just a waste of time. I've never really understood how people can develop a problem with coke given how expensive it is.

The loop works like this: you start drinking, you get drunk, too drunk to drink more so you buy cocaine, happily drinking and doing cocaine until the next day.

It goes hand in hand with alcohol and if you're developing a problem with booze it's easy to continue with cocaine.

> Because more than 500 kilograms of leaves are needed for just one kilogram of cocaine, requiring almost two hectares, vast plantations are essential for production in any serious volume...

How much water does it take to produce a kilo? This seems like a much less environmentally-friendly vice than cannabis or even tobacco.

It's generally grown in South American rain forests, I would imagine they don't use irrigation, so the water requirement is irrelevant.

Not irrelevant, just not tracked. In a Bayesian sense, we're using water, but we don't know how much.

The illegal economy is a huge part of the overall economy (nationally or globally). We would benefit from more economic research into it, although there are obvious challenges to doing such research. But I liked this article.

Who ever wrote this article spelled Colombia wrong 4 times

And spelled plata (money) as plato (dish). Also, was grossly off with prices of cocaine paste sourced from fields (it's actually less than half of reported price of 3k kilo). And about the fact you can easily buy it at the source without running into big issues, as in: almost certain death.

I paid like 3 dollars for a single gram in Medellin and I'm a dumb foreigner who speaks no spanish so the field price should be like 1000 dollars a kilo or less

You are the same person claiming to have used "pure cocaine" because it was in Colombia. Your product was cut, which is why it was so cheap. Pure cocaine easily turns into an oil so socially consumable amounts almost have to be cut to use efficiently.

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