A recreational substance termed “pink cocaine” is gaining popularity and causing misunderstanding because it does not normally include cocaine.

The pink powder, which is actually a mix of other narcotics tinted pink, has been discovered in drug seizures, forcing law authorities to issue warnings.

Pink cocaine is also known as “tusi,” however both nicknames are based on marketing rather than fact. According to experts, it rarely contains cocaine and is more likely to contain ketamine, which has quite distinct effects.

What Is The Recreational Drug ‘Pink Cocaine’?

Why is it pink?
Pink cocaine gets its pink tint from food coloring or dye, according to Joseph Palamar, a drug trends researcher at NYU Langone Health in New York.

“Sometimes it has cocaine in the mix, but it’s typically more of a ketamine concoction,” says Palamar. Studies have discovered batches containing methamphetamine, MDMA, bath salts, caffeine, and opiates.

“It’s a concoction that anyone can make if they have a couple of drugs and a pink dye,” Palamar told reporters.

According to research released last year by Palamar, the term “tusi” may have been coined to emulate 2C-B, a recreational drug popular on the rave scene in the 1990s and noted for its euphoric effects. The drug analyses that Palamar evaluated revealed that tusi did not often include 2C-B.

According to him, young people nowadays may be unaware of the history of the name tusi and may be confused by the name pink cocaine.

“It’s just some beautiful powder that their pals are using. “They probably have no idea what it is supposed to be,” he explained.

Why is pink cocaine dangerous?
The threat stems from the unknown contents. Users may have undesirable side effects or take more than their previous experience indicates they can handle. Ketamine is a potent anesthetic that has been licensed for surgical usage, but it has also been used recreationally and to treat depression, anxiety, and pain in recent years. It has the potential to produce hallucinations as well as interfere with breathing and cardiac function.

What Is The Recreational Drug ‘Pink Cocaine’?

“Ketamine is not a fun drug to most people,” Palamar stated. “It kind of puts you in your own little world and things tend to feel very alien when you’re on it, especially in large doses.”

Someone who is drunk at a party and believes cocaine may counteract the effects of alcohol will be unpleasantly startled with pink cocaine, which is primarily ketamine, he added.

“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 told me.

Where does pink cocaine come from?
In May, the United States Coast Guard reported seizing pink cocaine and other drugs off the shores of Mexico, Central and South America.

“That was the first time that I heard of large batches being imported into the U.S. as tusi,” Palamar told me. It might just as easily be created by drug dealers in the United States who mix their own, he claimed.

SOURCE | AP

MEXICO CITY — Hurricane Kristy grew into a Category 3 storm in the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday and is predicted to stay away from land as it becomes stronger, forecasters said.

The storm was about 650 miles (1,045 kilometers) southwest of the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula, moving west at 20 mph (31 kph). The National Hurricane Center in Miami reported maximum sustained winds of 125 mph (205 kph).

Hurricane Kristy Strengthens Into A Category 3 Storm In The Pacific Ocean

Kristy’s waves will hit areas of the Baja California peninsula’s west coast late this week, causing potentially fatal surf and rip current conditions, according to the center.

Kristy formed as a tropical storm off Mexico’s southern Pacific coast on Monday before intensifying into a hurricane on Tuesday. Forecasters predicted steady to rapid strengthening on Wednesday and Thursday, followed by moderate weakening beginning Friday.

Hurricane Kristy Strengthens Into A Category 3 Storm In The Pacific Ocean

The storm was predicted to continue moving across open water. No coastal watches or warnings were in effect.

“This one is moving due westward at a quick forward speed well out to sea, so there are no concerns about land,” said Brad Reinhart, a senior hurricane specialist at the center.

Oscar, which made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane in Cuba on Sunday, dissolved into tropical remnants in the Atlantic Ocean Tuesday. The island is recovering from floods and power shortages.

SOURCE | AP

LONDON — Adam Staples knew he had found something when his metal detector beeped. And then another. And another.

Soon, “it was just ‘beep beep, beep beep, beep beep,'” Staples explained.

Staples and six companions discovered a trove of almost 2,500 silver coins in a farmer’s field in southwest England, where they had been buried for about 1,000 years. The coins are worth 4.3 million pounds ($5.6 million) and will be housed in a museum, helping to shed light on the stormy aftermath of England’s Norman conquest.

“The first one was a William the Conqueror coin — 1,000 pounds, 1,500 pounds in value,” Staples said Tuesday at the British Museum, where the hoard will be on display in November. “That’s a great find. It is a find-of-the-year type of finding. And then we got another one; we believed there might be five or ten.

“And it just got bigger and bigger,” he added, describing the largest find in his 30 years of exploring the fields and furrows of Britain as an amateur detectorist.

Hoard Of 1,000-Year-Old Coins Unearthed In A Farmer’s Field Sells For $5.6 Million

The cache, discovered in 2019 and just bought by the South West Heritage Trust, included 2,584 silver pennies produced between 1066 and 1068, with some depicting conquering King William I and others his defeated Anglo-Saxon predecessor Harold II.

Michael Lewis, director of the Portable Antiquities Scheme, a government-funded project that records archaeological discoveries made by the public, described it as “one of the most spectacular discoveries” of recent years, particularly because “its story has yet to be fully unraveled.”

Lewis believes the coin hoard will contribute to a better understanding of the most famous date in English history: 1066, when William, Duke of Normandy beat King Harold at the Battle of Hastings, replacing England’s Saxon monarchs with Norman French overlords.

“Most of us are taught about the Norman Conquest of England at school, probably because it was the last time that England was successfully conquered,” according to Lewis. “But it’s a story based on certain myths,” like the idea that the conflict fought “English versus French,” or “good” Saxons against “bad” Normans.

The warring families were connected, and Lewis stated that the hoard “helps us to tell a different story, one that is more nuanced.”

Though the invasion caused a historic schism, the coins in the trove are strikingly similar whether they were produced before or after the conquest. One side depicts a monarch’s head in profile, while the other bears an emblem: an elaborate cross for William and the slightly ironic word “pax” (peace) for Harold.

Amal Khreisheh, curator of archaeology at the South West Heritage Trust, believes the coins were buried for safety as local rebellions against Norman control erupted.

Hoard Of 1,000-Year-Old Coins Unearthed In A Farmer’s Field Sells For $5.6 Million

“We know that the people of Exeter rebelled against William in 1068 and that Harold’s sons, who were in exile in Ireland, came back and started mounting attacks along the River Avon down into Somerset,” she told me. “So it’s probably against that background they were hidden.”

The Chew Valley Hoard, named for the rural location where it was discovered, was purchased for the nation using proceeds from the philanthropic arm of Britain’s national lottery. After touring the British Museum and other museums in the United Kingdom, it will be permanently housed at the Museum of Somerset in Taunton, 130 miles (210 kilometers) southwest of London.

SOURCE | AP