How to Use the Levamisole Test Kit
The Mystery of the Tainted Cocaine, Part III
In This Series
- The Mystery of the Tainted Cocaine, Part 1
- The Mystery of the Tainted Cocaine, Part II: How It's Made and How It Moves
- The Mystery of the Tainted Cocaine, Part III: How to Use the Levamisole Test Kit
- The Mystery of the Tainted Cocaine, Part IV: Drug Prohibition, Human Suffering, and How One Act of Congress 100 Years Ago Set Us on a Global Road to Hell
- How to Help Change the Terms of the Drug War
- How to Make a Levamisole Test Kit (Warning: It’s Nerdy)
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As covered in the first two parts of this series, a dangerous—and mysterious—new cutting agent called levamisole has entered the cocaine supply. It's being cut into cocaine in Colombia (meaning that local dealers probably don't know any more about this stuff than you do). Levamisole is a medicine typically used to deworm livestock (cows, pigs, horses), but in humans it can trigger a catastrophic immune-system crash called agranulocytosis. Basically, levamisole can obliterate your white blood cells, leaving you vulnerable to infections. It's impossible to pin down exact numbers, but in the past few years, people have been hospitalized and several have died due to levamisole poisoning.
Several sources—from federal government agencies to local doctors at Harborview Medical Center who are testing cocaine and cocaine users—estimate that around 70 percent of the U.S. cocaine supply is cut with levamisole. It's everywhere, from Seattle to France to the UK.
Stranger Personals
Typically, it's difficult for drug users to reliably test their drugs for impurities—it requires expensive, unstable, and sometimes dangerous chemicals used in laboratory conditions. But when Nathan Messer, head of the local drug-harm-reduction group DanceSafe, got in touch with a doctor in Seattle named Mike Clark (a psychiatrist and molecular biologist at Harborview) about levamisole, Dr. Clark had a moment of inspiration. He was already familiar with levamisole. He'd been using it in his lab for years, as a way to block an enzyme that interferes with certain color-change reactions in tissue samples. (Technically speaking, levamisole inhibits most types of mammalian alkaline phosphatase—it slows the enzyme to a crawl, preventing it from working.) Dr. Clark's idea was to inhibit the enzyme and then test for the inhibition.
The result: DanceSafe and Dr. Clark created an easy-to-use kit out of inexpensive materials that tests for levamisole. The Stranger is paying for some of the materials, helping to distribute the kits, and collecting anonymous data about what we learn.
Basically, you use the kit to reproduce the same chemical/enzyme reaction in two vials right next to each other. One is a test vial for your sample (powder cocaine, crack, or any other substances you'd like to test for levamisole contamination), and one is a control vial to compare against the test vial.
Follow the instructions to the right.
If the vial with the cocaine/crack in it doesn't turn yellow after you follow the instructions, that means your sample is contaminated with levamisole. (Levamisole inhibits the chemical reaction that would normally turn yellow.) If both vials turn yellow right away, your sample is not contaminated with levamisole.
The test is semiquantitative—meaning it can only roughly tell you how much levamisole is in your sample. Levamisole inhibits the reaction but doesn't stop it entirely—eventually, your test vial with the sample will turn yellow, no matter what. The faster your test vial turns yellow, the less levamisole you have (because little amounts of levamisole will only slow the reaction a little), but you'd need a spectrometer to accurately detect how much levamisole is in the sample.
• The People's Harm Reduction Alliance at the University District needle exchange: 1415 NE 43rd St (behind the post office on the Ave), 330-5777, www.peoplesharmreductionalliance.org. It's open Tuesday and Thursday from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., and Friday and Sunday from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m.
• DanceSafe: To get kits, e-mail seattlecoke@dancesafe.org or call 888-636-2411, option 1. Dance- Safe will coordinate kit-distribution tables around the city, including Pioneer Square. This Friday evening, November 12, find them near the pergola at First Avenue and Yesler Way. Check Slog for future locations and updates.
• Capitol Hill: Volunteers will be handing out kits in the Pike/Pine corridor on Friday and Saturday, November 12 and 13, between 8:00 and 10:00 p.m.
The symptoms of levamisole poisoning are frustratingly broad—levamisole makes your body susceptible to all sorts of infections. You might have a fever, sores (especially in your mouth or anus), rashes, diarrhea, vomiting, a thick coating on your mouth and tongue, lesions, or other symptoms.
If you suddenly become ill and have been using cocaine, DO NOT hesitate to see a doctor and BE HONEST about your drug use. A doctor's primary interest is to help you get well, not turn you over to the police. As Dr. Geoff Baird at Harborview said in the most recent Stranger article about levamisole: "It is not our job to arrest patients or police them or enforce those sorts of laws."
Another benefit to being honest about your drug use: Patients who have unexplained immune-system crashes sometimes get a bone-marrow biopsy, which involves shoving a thick-bore needle into your pelvis. This is unpleasant. Fess up to your cocaine use, and you'll probably get a blood or urine test instead.
Technically, any device that "tests" an illegal substance (for purity, strength, adulterants, whatever) is considered drug paraphernalia, and use of drug paraphernalia is a misdemeanor under Washington State law. But The Stranger and the ACLU have had discussions with city attorney Pete Holmes and county prosecutor Dan Satterberg, who said they consider the levamisole test kit to be more of a public-health benefit than a criminal menace. 
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I know the rebuttal to that is going to be "It's not the drug, its the prohibition of the drug that causes the problems" and I agree. But in the here and now, attempting to legitimize cocaine use as somehow being a safe activity so long as you test it first is counter-productive and irresponsible.
Brilliantly put! The Stranger seems to think that cocaine use only affects the fools that snort it. But the fact is that cocaine use affects the children of the users even more. I have many friends who were sexually abused by friends of their parents while the parents were too busy doing coke, selling coke or trying to obtain coke. Coke is a big fucking deal, it's not a martini after work to blow off steam, and i am so disappointed with The Strangers attitude towards this.
If reading the first half of Brendan's Part II does not discourage a person from blowing coke due to its negative affect on other humans, then nothing will. I'm assuming you have not read it or you would certainly not be able to say that "The Stranger seems to think that cocaine use only affects the fools that snort it."
Go read Diego's story.
Telling the Stranger it should spend its print-space lecturing at people about not using cocaine is like advocating abstinence-only education. Teenagers are going to have sex anyway, so you should make sure they have information on how to sex as safely as possible. Coke users are going to use coke anyway, so you should make sure they have information on how to use coke as safely as possible.
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*Of course, some kinds of sex ARE illegal, and there are people out there who think (a lot) more of it should be. Legislating sex is exactly as absurd-or-not as legislating drug use, and people's mileage varies.
@9: Good call, we get abstinence-only drug education as well as sex education. Do we have any statistics on drug use/impacts among teens and young adults who get comprehensive drug education to compare to the results of giving kids abstinence-only drug education?
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the hypocrisy is stunning and disgusting.
i think both should be helped. to suggest that those contemplating suicide don't deserve our best effort but drug addicts do is twisted.
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I really do hope that the people you write of can get help.
Your comment makes me wonder. What would the Stranger recommend if one of those mentally ill, levamisole-addled folks got so depressed because of the levamisole effects that they went to the nearest Aurora-type bridge to jump? Do they deserve a suicide barrier then, or would the Stranger give them a leg up?
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How about "don't use cocaine, retarded dipshits!" ?
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And remember, Alcohol and tobacco-related deaths every year far exceed the deaths caused by all illegal drugs combined!
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No comments from cocaine users, though.
Lots of comments on "what you should do."
No comments on "what I am doing."
We all have a lot of ideas regarding how others should behave when using and dealing drugs.
But are cocaine users really best known for their judgement and foresight?
"I wish ~*someone*~ would tell the public not to use cocaine."
Nancy Reagan did, starting in 1982. Fat lot of good it did us.
In fact, Washington & Boundy's "Cocaine and crack: what you need to know" (1989) notes that cocaine usage increased by more than fivefold from 1976 to 1986. "Just say no" didn't work, so maybe it's time to try something else.
Seriously, I wish all the "just stop" retards would "just stop" their kneejerk reaction whenever the drug topic comes up. It's a crap situation and it's going to take some hard work and creativity to mitigate the negative consequences.
I love you for this. Truly. While I think smoking crack is a bad personal choice, I don't think that people who make bad personal choices deserve to go through catastrophic immune-system crashes.
This kind of journalism is outstanding enough these days, but in actually INVESTIGATING something, you found a way you could have a positive impact, and you took it. Thank you for helping those who may not be able to help themselves. That Jesus dude would totally approve.
I hope this inspires more efforts like it.
From: "The Stranger's 2010 Back to School Guide"
"blow stops being fun after about the 10th or so time you do it, so if you find yourself continuing to do it beyond that point: Congratulations! You're a coke addict."
Don't fool yourself.
"While I think smoking crack is a bad personal choice, I don't think that people who make bad personal choices deserve to go through catastrophic immune-system crashes."
I'm not saying they deserve these results, but I do make the assumption that if one is smoking crack, or more specifically, if one is a crack-head, it is probably safe to assume that they are doing whatever it takes to justify this behavior - denial and avoidance being among them. Addiction robs one of their ability to think rationally. I am also making the assumption that most of those posing comments here so far are not active addicts, and are not in the process of trying to justify their behavior to themselves. Immune system crashes are the result of the complexities of addiction - not simply from using drugs responsibly on a recreational level from time to time.
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* knowing what symptoms to look for and report to a doctor
* that there is medical help available if they seek it and are honest about their use
* that this can be treated
* that they can help by informing their friends who use
* that they can test their own and friend's supply
* and that they are non-tainted sources of cocaine in the city
Drug users care about themselves and take steps when they can, even addicts. Otherwise there wouldn't be needle exchanges.
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That said, this sort of test and the sort of advice that they're giving is exactly what's needed - it encourages less use, and smarter use for those who continue it. Drugs will be used. Tests and more knowledge will mean LESS medical problems, less usage overall and a shift in attitude towards the substance itself and the abuse of it in our society. This will make miles more progress than your superiority complexes.
The people making idiotic generalizing statements need to drown themselves. Do you have the same attitude towards smokers? Anyone else making less-healthy choices? Oh, you had a fatty meal - go jump off a bridge. Fuck you.
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I hope next they also come up with a test to identify coke cut with speed. Man, do I hate speedy coke.
I'm also someone who did coke here and there at parties. I've even bought it before. I feel terrible admitting this but it's true and I'll never ever touch that shit again. Fuck that. I was fine with making choices about what I put into my own body, but I was incredibly self-centered and stupid to think that my body was the only one involved.
The fact that your thoughts, without a hint of irony, were along the lines of "Sweet! Keep up the coke testing, guys, so that I'll have a way to figure out what blow will be more awesome before I snort it" made me pretty angry. No wonder the Colombian borderline-slave laborers find some small satisfaction in pissing and shitting in your cocaine.
If somebody is going to use Coke, its better they are aware of whats out there, and are aware of safety precautions.
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http://dancesafe.org/products/testing-ki…
I wholeheartedly endorse PHRA and all harm reduction groups and drug-users' groups and the important life-saving work that they do.
Brendan Kiley, I hope you are nominated for, and receive, a Pulitzer Prize.
Lee Hertel, injection drug using representative, State of Minnesota HIV Services Planning Council; and volunteer, Minnesota AIDS Project Mainline Program. Minneapolis, MN
i wonder if he'd be like "fuck all these cokeheads, im glad they are dying by blowing shitty coke cut with livestock dewormer"
i wonder if he'd be like "someone needs to protect these cokeheads, cokeheads are people too, cokeheads are my children too"
You annoy me. And on top of that you're ugly.
I forgot about all the retarded addicts who give drugs a bad name. Drugs are fine, it's the people that use them that are morons.
That being said, I have been to treatment, I am no idiot or stereotype like most people want to assume addicts are, and I don't want to die. That's not why I use cocaine. So, I will be getting a kit if possible for the sake of harm reduction. Until I can get clean and sober for good, I would like to reduce the odds that i'll die of an immune defficiency.
Also by Brendan Kiley
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How LaRae Lobdell, a Photographer No One Had Ever Heard of a Year Ago, Changed the Way We See Seattle Theater
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