(click to see in a new window)
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.
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. 
This entire series makes me so happy I quit doing blow years ago. Quite frankly, a little wake-me-up is not worth the explosive diarrhea, hangovers ten times worse than than normal and the nose bleeds I did get. Not to mention the ANAL SORES AND DEATH I am very thankful I never got.
@2 There are a lot of mentally ill people using coke and crack who are trying very hard to stop and are struggling. They deserve a fair chance to not have a deadly immune system sapping chemical to worry about on top of their substance abuse issues.
I wonder how many people will, A: go through the trouble of getting a test kit. B: use it to test their coke. and C: actually throw their coke away if it tests positive.
If The Stranger were really concerned with public health and making the world (and Seattle, arguably) a better place, it would attempt to discourage the use of a drug that has led to decades of suffering, murder and warfare in countless Latin America countries that happen to be located on the route between cocaine suppliers and the noses of white middle class American kids.
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.
@ 5
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.
Quick addendum, we’ll be in Pioneer Square near the Pergola between 8pm and 11pm on Friday night.
@5
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.
@ 5,6
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.
@5, 6: *sigh* It isn’t cocaine nor cocaine use per se that’s problematic (which you acknowledge); it’s also not prohibition per se that causes the problems associated with illicit/illegal drug use. It’s the use of some drugs by some people in certain conditions that is problematic for others/society. As with alcohol, legalization and regulation don’t solve all the problems associated with the use of a drug; with alcohol, prohibition was simply worse, and the same seems likely for cocaine. But there would still be serious problems associated with the use of the drug by some people, because irresponsible people make for irresponsible drug users, just like they make for irresponsible drivers, employees, voters, etc. The question isn’t whether cocaine use should be something everyone can and does do, or whether we can eliminate all of the problems associated with it’s use. The question is whether the benefit of criminalization (more-restricted access, which reduces the prevalence of all problems associated with the use of a drug by limiting the use of the drug) is worth all of the associated costs ($ spent catching smugglers, dealers, users; lack of safety/dosage/purity info and controls; providing a lucrative economy for organized crime e.g. Latin American guerrilla armies; discouraging users from seeking addiction and overdose treatment; limiting the exercise of agency/self-determination by responsible users). I don’t think the benefits are worth the costs, especially since I don’t think it’s sound public policy to ban everyone from doing something because some people will do that thing in an irresponsible fashion. I get your point about current social context: by that logic, let’s ban sex*, because some people rape or assault others, and sex can be extremely problematic in the current social context, for those both directly and peripherally involved. We could use artificial insemination to reproduce, so sex qua sex is really just a pleasure-seeking behavior (like drug use!), making it okay to ban, right?
*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?
i’m still really pissed at the Stranger for questioning suicide prevention measures but at the same time helping out drug addicts.
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.
3-
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?
I live in Philadelphia and only personally know a few regular cocaine users, and I seriously doubt that any of them would a) even bother to use this chemistry set, and b) do it correctly even if they did. It’s not that they’re bad or stupid people, but the gung-ho attitude of someone who’s like “I DO COCAINE!!!!” does not usually also include, “let me do an experiment to test it for impurities!” People who do big time drugs with known and very bad health effects have already accepted a lot of risk. I’m not sure they’d jump through this hoop just to eliminate a bit of the danger.
Personally I don’t see anything wrong with coke being cut with something that makes it even worse for the person taking it. They should cut it with shards of broken glass as well.
This is great, absolutely great work — thank you Brendan!
Brendan, I hope this isn’t the last of your series of articles on cocaine. I also hope that, along with your tips to help people hellbent on using the stuff to test it’s levamisoliness (hooray for made-up words!), you will provide resources for people addicted to it who might be inspired by your articles to get help.
“Use the kit”!!! The drawing at the top exclaims!!!
How about “don’t use cocaine, retarded dipshits!” ?
Step 1: STOP BEING A FUCKING IDIOT AND QUIT USING COCAINE.
Damn coke users…they should all go to hell…why can’t they just smoke pot like half (or more) of the commenters above. Jeez…
I don’t know why these negative commenters seem to think that only addicts use coke.
I wonder how many of the people declaring “Just don’t use it! Geez…” have ever gotten too drunk, how many of them regularly smoke cigarettes, how many smoke marijuana or have experimented with other drugs… or how many thought Nancy Reagan was an idiot when she said “Just Say No”. It’s a nice thought, but it doesn’t work. So, either you are a moralizing asshole who won’t help people who don’t see the world your way, or you look to REDUCE HARM. This helps reduce harm. If a regular cocaine or crack user wants to clean up their act, it’ll be easier if they don’t have long term autoimmune issues. Geez….
If everyone can test their coke before buying (especially dealers), they’ll be less willing to spend money on tainted coke. Putting testing materials easily into the hands of the consumers is the only way to discourage poisoning the supply chain. Most drug purchases are inspected for strength/quality/impurities, this testing will become part of the process for a percentage of coke sold.
@20 I don’t see a single comment that says that. There are anti-use people and pro-safe use people, and people like me who see that with some users there is a problem and resources for help should be offered.
Of course, if cocaine and other schedule 1 substances were legalized, their production and distribution could be controlled. Purity, and strength issues wouldn’t be killing people.
And remember, Alcohol and tobacco-related deaths every year far exceed the deaths caused by all illegal drugs combined!
Has anyone said to stop doing coke yet? Because I think that’s an important message to have out there, and, for the love of god, I wish ~*someone*~ would tell the public not to use cocaine.
We see a lot of theories and opinions and advice here.
No comments from cocaine users, though.
Lots of comments on “what you should do.”
No comments on “what I am doing.”
Let me put this another way…
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?
#26 asks:
“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.
Dear Stranger,
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.
@20
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.
#30
“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.
Believe it or not, there are a lot of casual drug users out there, as well as teenage first-timers. I know they shouldn’t be doing the stuff in the first place, but I’d rather they don’t die because of this levamisole crap before they can figure that out. If coke is relatively easy to come by, then why shouldn’t this kit be?
When people are aware of the risks they are taking, they can then make better informed decisions about their use. In this case that means:
* 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.
I used to think that using cocaine made you an asshole. Then I realized only assholes use cocaine.
I used to think that commenting on blog posts made you an asshole. Then I realized only assholes comment on blog posts.
What’s next? Trader Joe’s Organic Cocaine?
#35 Lovely, pseudo plagiarizing of Bill Cosby you did there.
i just want to say that pistolkitten is fucking hot!! wish i could date her, and yeah coke is bad for you with or without that shit in it.
I just wanted to say that Pistolkitten is smoking hot!! damn!~ Oh and stop using coke and you wont have to worry about this.
Ok, I’ll chime in. Thanks to the Slog’s postings about this, I’m an ex-coke user. I’d do it maybe once every few months in a social sense, and never got compulsions to do it repeatedly, just a bump to keep the energy up.
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.
@ 43. Thank you. I was wondering when one of you folks would chime in, because I know you’re out there.
Add me to the list of occasional recreational users. Moderation is the key. So many people (especially women, oddly enough) keep doing line after line when they are already completely wasted.
I hope next they also come up with a test to identify coke cut with speed. Man, do I hate speedy coke.
@47 The only “list of occasional users” I see is made up of someone who decided to be an ex-user after reading these articles and finding out the hideous affect coke usage currently has on humanity. Make no mistake– it’s how things ARE right now despite how they should or might be.
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.
To all of the “Everybody who uses coke is an addict, why dont they just die/stop using drugs” NOT everybody who uses coke is an addict, (I know of some very high achieving, well educated young people who occassionally do coke, and I don’t think you could call them “addicted”) Somebody pointed out that children + parents who do cocaine = bad,because it prevents them from parenting properly, and children can end up in dangerous/traumatizing situations, but you could probably say children + any drug done in excess = poor parenting. I mean, some of my friends have been removed from the homes of their alcoholic parents/have been abused by alcoholic parents or relatives.
If somebody is going to use Coke, its better they are aware of whats out there, and are aware of safety precautions.
It’s not that only addicts use coke, it’s that only idiots use coke.
@47 – That’s already out. We at DanceSafe sell Marquis reagent testing kits, which turn orange in the presence of amphetamines and don’t react to cocaine.
http://dancesafe.org/products/testing-ki…
Whoever made the abstinence only education analogy is right on. Whatever your belief about the morality of cocaine use, and the character of those who use it, really doesn’t fucking matter. Safe drug use is a public health issue and should be treated as such.
These comments are really depressing. There is no love here. No one actually cares about the people being exploited in the drug trade or people being poisoned. Is this Seattle now? Integrity about environment, human rights, animal rights, and consumption has just become “all people who participate in unhealthy or douchy behavior should die”. I feel like I might as well be reading the comment section on a Justin Bieber video. (just youtubed a JB video to confirm it is as full of death wishes as this comment section and JB comments are actually slightly more intelligent and positive than Stranger readers comments:)
We don’t need your hate and intolerance, Cartman, et. al. I am always dismayed by the rage expressed by those who very likely get high off of societally-endorsed and accepted drugs such as valium, percocet, and the biggie: alcohol.
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
WWJD…
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”
Actually #6, sniffing some coke IS like a martini after work, there is no difference at all except what the government has made it seem to be.
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.