From the mailbag this morning:

Hi Brendan,

I just read your articles on cocaine cut with levamisole and it was extremely interesting for me, as my husband just returned home from the hospital after 7 weeks and 7 operations to save him from this horrific phenomenon!

His skin burned, starting on his ears, then his arms and legs. He had to have skin grafts in some areas. However, before these symptoms appeared he suffered from autoimmune-type problems that were similar to RA [rheumatoid arthritis] or lupus.

We went to Duke University after over a year of trying to solve the autoimmune issues when he began the almost Stevens/Johnson [warning, link has some tough photos] type burning. It was determined that it was levamisole. In your articles it sounded as if it is best to report these cases in an effort to help awareness of this problem. We were told there was another case at a different hospital in Durham at the same time we were there.

Is there someone to whom I should report my husband’s case? He was a professional [sportsman], but this may have ruined his career. I believe that the autoimmune symptoms were precursors to the burning skin as he no longer has the joint pain associated with autoimmune diseases. Who can I report this instance to, as I would like to try to help so that this doesn’t ruin someone else’s life?! I feel strongly that the joint pain was the beginning and this may help with diagnosing peeps earlier—before they burn. Thank you so much for the articles and the effort to get the word out.

T

Thanks for writing, T. And I hope your husband is feeling better.

The Center for Disease Control stopped monitoring due to budget cuts. You can make a voluntarily report to the FDA (download forms here), but since the U.S. has opted for prohibition instead of regulation and control, there’s not much the FDA can do about levamisole-tainted cocaine.

So we’ll have to place our faith for decent quality-control in the hands of drug manufacturers.

Obligatory postscript for those whose first response to this post is “people shouldn’t take cocaine”: As we’ve seen over and over again, abstinence-only education is not the way to minimize the social harms of risky behavior. Just Say No didn’t work for Nancy Reagan in the 1980s and it’s not going to work for us now.

Brend an Kiley has worked as a child actor in New Orleans, as a member of the junior press corps at the 1988 Republican National Convention, and, for one happy April, as a bootlegger’s assistant in Nicaragua....

7 replies on “Levamisole-Induced Sickness: One Reader’s Experience”

  1. “Just say no to getting high as motherfucker” sure doesn’t work, but “Just say no to have the skin rot off your bones” sounds a little more compelling.

  3. If a business gives you crappy products or dangerous products it’s ok to take legal action or report them to the BBB.
    If a dealer gives you stuff cut with Levamisole is it ethically acceptable to rat them out?

  4. To be fair to the dealers out there, most (perhaps all) of the levamisole being cut into cocaine is being cut in at the country of origin. The dealers (as far as my research goes) know as little about it as the users.

  6. Not that I think it’s a good solution, but I’m guessing killing coke fiends is probably more effective than ‘just say no’.

  7. as long as you know the price of admission to taking illegal drugs includes permanently ruined health or death, go ahead and take ’em. the more you know…

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