Fruit Flavored Cocaine
Cocaine has previously been mixed with candy powder by drug dealers to gain more profit than they would if they were selling pure cocaine. Cocaine has also been genetically changed to make it flavored to make it more pleasurable, even though it was less potent.
Recently, authorities found 1 1/2 pounds of full-strength candy flavored cocaine in California (USA) and are worried it may spread across the United States.
Last month when the powder was seized from two homes, it was tested to reveal that it was chemically synthesized to be strawberry, coconut, lemon, and cinnamon flavored. On the street, this would sell for approximately $1,100 to $1,400 per ounce. Regular powdered cocaine would only sell for six to seven hundred dollars.
Three people were arrested for being involved in what is being called a significant orginization, two of which may be ringleaders. Should they be convicted, they will face five to fourty years of prison.
Gordon Taylor, the DEA’s assistant special agent in charge of the investigation, said that this is especially disturbing because it seems that candy flavoring possibly means it is being developed to be more appealing to children and teens.
“Attempting to lure new, younger customers to a dangerous drug by adding candy flavors is an unconscionable marketing technique,” Taylor said.
The investigators are working quickly to shut down other stations as the flavoring would appeal more to women and children and cause highed addiction rates.
“If someone gave it to your child, what would you think? My daughter would take it. She would think it’s candy. She would taste it if it’s powdered.” said Jai Barajas, a citizen of California living near Palm Springs.
Drug dealers has colored cocaine (rock and powdered) and hidden it in candy wrappers. One case being police finding 4.5 pounds of cocaine in wrappers for lollipops, chocolate, and toffee which were being transported by a New Jersey man.
The drugs uncovered last month, however, are the first to be directly fused with flavoring and the war on drugs has grown more complex.
In early 2007, authorities seized pink, strawberry-flavored crystal methamphetamine that emerged from California, but it spread as far as Virginia by the time it was "stopped".
"Meth has sort of a bitter, nasty taste, so it’s kind of easy for the young kids to get into this,” said Henry Spiller, director of the Kentucky Regional Poison Center in Louisville. “It’s an effort to make meth more appealing.”
It is amazing what some people will go through for their drugs.
