Chamblee54

There is a doozie of a story about cocaine in thestranger.(HT to dangerousminds) There are few good things to say about the current situation, and even fewer “good guys”. The producers, the smugglers, the money lenders, the police, and the consumer all have bloody hands.
The focus of the story is a substance called Levamisole, an agent used to cut the drug. Levamisole is not detectable by the “bleach test”, and looks like pure coke. The original use of Levamisole is deworming livestock. Ingestion by humans can cause immune system problems.
There are tests available to detect Lavamisole. However, the test kits are considered drug paraphernalia. It seems like the government would rather poison cocaine users than help them obtain a pure product.
The three part series needs to be read in its entirety to get the whole story. Part two is especially horrific. It tells the story of “Diego”, as he works in the coca fields and factories. Also interesting is the way the cocaine trade has evolved over the years. The big cartels, which imported through the Caribbean, have been broken up. They have been replaced by thousands of smaller producers, which import through Mexico. With the vast amounts of money involved, the product cannot be stopped.
One sentence in particular stands out. “The big problem for the narco-capitalists in Colombia, Corva explains, wasn’t so much how to get the drugs north as how to get the cash back south.” NAFTA and banking deregulation has made the flow of money south much easier. So much of the currency that America is borrowing to fuel our economy winds up in South America. ( China, a source of much of the capital in our borrow and spend economy, reportedly produces much of the Lavamisole. )
PG has never been fond of cocaine. He has known others who are, and has seen some horrible behavior as a result. The US government appears to be making the situation worse, and possibly profiting from the cocaine trade.