The warning system first issued an alert on pink cocaine in February 2023, when researchers noticed a spike in chatter from Redditors. Palamar explained there’s a whole community called “Psychonauts,” in which people use novel drugs or induce “altered states of consciousness” and post about their experiences. When Palamar first heard of pink cocaine, his team immediately scoured posts on Reddit as part of his research for the National Drug Early Warning System. Comprehensive data, chemical analysis, and user knowledge about tusi are urgently needed to grasp the prevalence, effects, and potential harms of this enigmatic, evolving substance.
What Does It Mean To Have a Substance Abuse Problem?
- InSight Crime open source research has also identified credible media reports of tusi in Mexico, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay.
- Users could wind up with undesired effects or take a larger amount than past experience tells them they can handle.
- With sellers potentially differentiate themselves by adjusting quantities and types of drugs in their tusi, there is a unique challenge in reducing harms from use.
- “Contrary to the belief that “pink cocaine” is a drug of the elites, used by models and rich people, this product is being used by people from every level,” said Claudio Vidal, a director at Energy Control in an interview with Vice.
- Comprehensive data, chemical analysis, and user knowledge about tusi are urgently needed to grasp the prevalence, effects, and potential harms of this enigmatic, evolving substance.
- However, for such a widespread substance there was considerable disagreement about what it actually was.
These synthetics—opioids, benzodiazepines, cathinone’s, and a variety of other high-risk drugs—now show up often, according to Julián Quintero, a sociologist and researcher at Social Technical Action, a Colombian drug policy NGO. It seemed that methamphetamine, cocaine, and ketamine were used to make the substance. “It is called pink cocaine, but it usually doesn’t contain cocaine. Instead, Tusi is a dangerously unpredictable cocktail of substances, dyed pink with food colouring to appeal to young party-goers.
The drug, which originally came from Colombia, has grown in popularity in the U.S. and other regions around the world. It was perhaps inevitable the drug would start to pop up in Spain, the European country with the closest links to Colombia’s drug world. “This drug is connected to the neo-drug trafficker culture in Colombia,” Julian Quintero, a sociologist and researcher at Social Technical Action, a Colombian drug policy NGO, told VICE World News. In Colombia’s major cities, the drug has become synonymous with a new generation of young narcos who are making and selling the drug for use in the country’s late-night club scenes and seedy tourist sex trade. Various sources claim that the duration of its effects vary from 30 minutes to a maximum of 8 hours. Similar to ecstasy, tusi can cause an intense feeling of happiness and an increase in energy, making it popular at electronic music parties.
Where is pink cocaine coming from?
The Spanish police dismantled a tusi lab in Madrid in May 2022, arresting a Colombian and Spanish man who produced and distributed the drug across Spain. Ultimately, its wide availability and drop in price meant tusi shifted from an elite drug to one accessible to everyone. Tusi samples tested by Échele Cabeza highlighted the mixture mainly consisted of MDMA and ketamine, but also methyl salicylate (a numbing compound) and amphetamines. While chemically distinct from 2C-B, sellers soon realised that combining MDMA and ketamine produced similar psychoactive effects that could mimic 2-CB while still branded as sophisticated and high-class. However, the illegal market quickly adapted to fulfil its demand, producing a fake version of the drug that people desired because of its association with the upper class.
- Like with other drugs of abuse, you may develop an addiction and tolerance (meaning you need more to have the same high).
- “When individuals are looking for pink cocaine and believe they are purchasing it, they are actually putting a substance that is laced with fentanyl and they are unaware of it and they are overdosing and dying.”
- If you or someone you care about is seeking support for substance abuse and addiction challenges, we are here to offer our assistance.
- Despite its name, the concoction rarely contains 2C series drugs.
MORE NEWS FROM COLOMBIA
Known to buyers as “tusi” (pronounced ‘2C’) – and by the media and police as “pink cocaine” even though it contains no cocaine –the concoction is increasingly being taken by drug users and seized by police in Spain, and is surfacing elsewhere in Europe. “When individuals are looking for pink cocaine and believe they are purchasing it, they are actually putting a substance that is laced with fentanyl and they are unaware of it and they are overdosing and dying.” “Contrary to the belief that “pink cocaine” is a drug of the elites, used by models and rich people, this product is being used by people from every level,” said Claudio Vidal, a director at Energy Control in an interview with Vice. According to a UN drugs report published in 2022, pink cocaine has been found in the UK, Austria, Switzerland, Canada and south-east Asia. A string of seizures across Latin America have revealed how “tusi,” a pink synthetic drug powder, is expanding into new countries and increasing its share of the region’s flourishing synthetic drug markets. Coast Guard reported seizing pink cocaine among other drugs off the coasts of Mexico and Central and South America.
What Is Pink Cocaine?
They make you feel like drugs that already exist, such as cannabis and cocaine. Pink cocaine hasn’t been around very long, so researchers don’t know much about the long-term effects it may have on people who use it. Before 2019, the NGO, which tests drugs sent in by the public, received only a handful of drug samples it identified as tusi, but in the last three years it has received 150.
On the contrary, it was growing so much that in 2013, Colombia’s police director responded to the seizure of a few thousand alleged 2C-B capsules by claiming the drug was replacing cocaine. According to a 2012 article by Revista Semana, Alejo started out refining and selling tusi in Medellin, but ran afoul of the city’s hegemonic crime group, the Oficina de Envigado. These designer drugs created both the euphoria of MDMA and the visual distortions of LSD.
Street drugs aren’t regulated by the government, so there’s no way to know exactly what’s in pink cocaine. It’s typically a powdery mix of ketamine and illegal substances likely dyed with food coloring. “Contrary to the belief that “pink cocaine” is a drug of the elites, used by models and rich people, this product is being used by people from every level,” said Claudio Vidal, a director at Energy Control. In August police found 13 kilos of what they called “pink cocaine”, likely the largest haul so far of tusi in Europe, on the island of Ibiza, along with regular cocaine and ketamine, €440,000 (around £380,000 or $460,000) in cash and a submachine gun. The effects of tusi are varied and depend on the specific mix of substances in each dose. If you or a loved one are concerned about pink cocaine use or addiction please get in touch with our fully-trained Treatment Advisors who are on hand to answer any questions or queries.
A spokesperson said its policies ban the buying or selling drugs, and most conversations on its message boards are warning other Reddit users about pink cocaine. The effects of pink cocaine can be unpredictable, and side effects vary widely depending on the individual and the specific drug mixture. While not containing traditional cocaine, pink cocaine, also called tusi, tusibi, or tuci, is often a mix of ketamine, methamphetamine, molly, and opioids. Pink cocaine is typically a mix of synthetic drugs such as ketamine and MDMA. In May, police found a drug lab in a town just outside Madrid where they said suppliers had been mixing up drugs to create pink cocaine.
Ambiguity of content and obstacles to harm reduction
With sellers potentially differentiate themselves by adjusting quantities and types of drugs in their tusi, there is a unique challenge in reducing harms from use. He explained that dealers tend to market tusi as the “real deal” coming from Europe; mescaline is also claimed to be in it to market tusi as stronger than other drugs. The fact that tusi is a concoction of several drugs creates new challenges in its detection, analysis, and harm reduction. By 2021, tusi was the third most analysed substance by Échele Cabeza; they noted that almost three-quarters of its consumers (72.6%) were predominantly young people aged between 18 and 29.
All states have some version of Good Samaritan laws, which protects people who call for help during an overdose. This combo can trigger side effects that are uncomfortable, scary, or harmful. Ongoing drug use may also change your brain. Your side effects may be mild to severe. This mix of “uppers” and “downers” is sometimes referred to as a “speedball.”
Is Pink Cocaine Addictive?
In August 2022, police found 13 kilos of what they called “pink cocaine”, likely the largest haul so far of Tusi in Europe, on the island of Ibiza, along with regular cocaine and ketamine, €440,000 (around £380,000 or $460,000) in cash and a submachine gun. In America, since 2020, DEA has seized a total of 960 pink powders, 4 exhibits contained 2C-B and 956 exhibits of “other” substances. “If someone is desiring that effect from regular cocaine, and somebody hands them ‘pink cocaine’ and it’s more of a ketamine concoction, they’re not going to feel very well,” Palamar said. One pink cocaine user, who takes the drug at least once a month, agreed to speak with CBS News without revealing her identity. For drug use, Palamar equated it to a diary to alert people to the effects of drugs. Many Americans have only recently learned of the drug known as “pink cocaine” from a deluge of celebrity horror stories.
The Popularity of Pink Cocaine
Due to it’s composition and being a custom mixed drug, the effects are unpredictable and can vary significantly. Over time, users can build a tolerance, needing more of the drug to get the same high, which escalates the addiction risk. As with many synthetic drugs, it can cause psychological and physical dependence. The term tusi itself does not have a specific meaning in standard Spanish; it is an everyday term used in the drug trade and among users. Listen to our Pink Cocaine Podcast explaining what pink cocaine actually is and where it comes from.
It is pink in color due to the addition of food coloring, and sometimes strawberry or other flavoring, according to the National Capital Poison Center. Pink cocaine is often confused for real cocaine. The anonymous user who spoke to CBS News said she has found fentanyl in her own supply. Those unknowns — about the substance and the high — pushed Frank Tarantino, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Agency in New York, to issue an urgent warning to CBS News New York. Nearly 80,000 Americans have died from poisonings linked to carfentanyl in the past two years, according to the National Institute of Drug Abuse.
This loss of exclusivity has put off some of the drug’s richer users but has been more than compensated by the growth in middle- and working-class consumers, Quintero told InSight Crime. In 2021, a gang was even dismantled that put fentanyl into their tusi. “When toosie colombian drug it began to be revealed that the substance did not really have 2C-B in it, many people began to make it, to “cook” it as they say,” Julián Quintero told InSight Crime.
The War On Drugs Is Built On Racism. It’s Time To Decolonise Drug Policies.
“If you’ve been drinking, it’s going to make you sick to your stomach and the dissociative effects are not going to be very pleasant,” he said. Users could wind up with undesired effects or take a larger amount than past experience tells them they can handle. “It’s just some pretty powder that their friends are using. Drug analyses that Palamar reviewed showed tusi didn’t typically contain 2C-B.
Ketamine and MDMA are the most common ingredients, although cocaine, methamphetamine, oxycodone, caffeine, cathinones, and other designer drugs are found as well. Due to its varying contents, Tusi often bypasses traditional drug tests, complicating law enforcement and public health responses. Spanish police announced they had busted seven members of a gang who are alleged to have been involved with distributing cocaine and Tusi in Madrid and Malaga after smuggling it in drug-filled suitcases by air from Latin America. Tusi’s rise mirrors global trends in synthetic drug consumption, especially among younger demographics in nightlife settings. In Latin America, the drug has been linked to increased incidents of sexual assault and violent crimes at parties.