Fwd: Study: 90 percent of US currency is drug money — literally
Bipin Gautam
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"...90 percent of the paper currency in circulation in the United States
carries trace quantities of cocaine. What’s more, this represents a more
than 20 percentage point increase over a similar study carried out two years
ago, researchers point out, when 67 percent of US bills were found to have
traces of cocaine."
COMMENT: Hey now! No fair sniffing... Seriously, there is a problem for
anyone carrying a significant amount of cash while traveling, especially
within the U.S. (because you normally don't declare large amounts of cash
unless traveling abroad with over $10K). If customs or airport security
searches you or your bags and finds it, the first thing they will do is TEST
IT FOR TRACES OF DRUGS! Yep, that they will...and if it comes back positive
for traces of a drug, they will seize it as drug money. But you say, I have
not committed a crime, I have a legitimate reason to carry it on this trip
(travel expenses, buying a car or boat, etc.), the cash came out of my bank
account...here is the withdrawal slip.. Yep, that is true...you will most
likely NOT be arrested or charged with anything but the fact you offer a
valid reason for carrying it and the cash came out of your account just puts
you on their suspects list even though the stated reason and cash source is
legitimate. It is your money that has committed the crime and the only way
to get it back is to go to court and PROVE the cash is innocent. And the
cops will NOT want to give it back because it goes into police slush funds
to buy "equipment" and do training (translation: party time!). Be sure to
have your lawyer bring this article so he can argue before the judge that
the seizure is invalid because statistically virtually all U.S. cash is
tainted and may have passed through many hands from the time it was used by
a drug dealer to the time it got to you so the cash is innocent of any
direct criminal involvement. Some judges buy that argument...some don't. If
the judge does not buy the argument...it is party time for the cops.
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/08/17/us-dollar-bills-carry-traces-of-cocaine/
Study: 90 percent of US currency is drug money — literally
Posted By *Daniel Tencer* On August 17, 2009 @ 11:31 am In
Your money is on drugs.
That’s the conclusion, more or less, of a [1]
study<http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_ARTICLEMAIN&node_id=222&content_id=CNBP_022755&use_sec=true&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=92fc16d0-4182-4bfa-a529-3a0e0c247654>that
found 90 percent of the paper currency in circulation in the United
States carries trace quantities of cocaine.
What’s more, this represents a more than 20 percentage point increase over a
similar study carried out two years ago, researchers point out, when 67
percent of US bills were found to have traces of cocaine.
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts studied samples of dollar
bills in circulation and found that bills containing cocaine are
concentrated “particularly in large cities such as Baltimore, Boston, and
Detroit. The scientists found traces of cocaine in 95 percent of the
banknotes analyzed from Washington, D.C., alone,” states a press release
from the American Chemical Society.
Salt Lake City, meanwhile, was found to have the lowest rate of
contamination.
The study also looked at currency in four other countries — Brazil, Canada,
China and Japan — and found that the numbers are similar for Canada and
Brazil, but much lower for China and Japan. Eighty-five percent of Canadian
paper currency was contaminated with cocaine; 80 percent of Brazilian *reals
* were contaminated. By contrast, in China and Japan that number ranged from
12 to 20 percent.
But the discovery of cocaine on 90 percent of bills does not mean that
anywhere near 90 percent of the population is using cocaine. As Janet Raloff
[2] explains<http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/46501/title/Drugged_money>at
Science News, trace elements of cocaine get stuck in the folds of the
bills and remain there indefinitely, so as bills circulate, they eventually
pass through the hands of cocaine users and become permanently contaminated.
“The US Office of National Drug Control Policy reports that more than 2
million Americans used cocaine in 2007,” *Scientific American* [3]
reports<http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=cocaine-contaminates-majority-of-american-currency>.
“The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, for its part, reported in the
same year that 6 million Americans admit using cocaine annually, consuming a
total of as much as 457 metric tons in a year.”
Six million Americans is roughly two percent of the population.
*RECESSION TO BLAME?*
The most perplexing aspect of the study is the 20-percent increase in the
frequency of contaminated bills over the past two years.
“I’m not sure why we’ve seen this apparent increase, but it could be related
to the economic downturn, with stressed people turning to cocaine,” Yuegang
Zuo, the head researcher in the study, said.
It’s worth noting that the sample sizes used for the study were very small —
for instance, only 27 Canadian dollar bills were studied, and the total
amount of US greenbacks analyzed was fewer than 250.
And for those of you who think you may have found a new use for the dollar
bill, note that “for the most part, you can’t get high by sniffing a regular
banknote,” according to Zuo. “It also won’t affect your health and is
unlikely interfere with blood and urine tests used for drug detection.”
URLs in this post:
[1] study: *
http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_ARTICLEMAIN&node_id=2
22&content_id=CNBP_022755&use_sec=true&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=92fc16d0-4182-4bfa
-a529-3a0e0c247654
*
[2] explains: *
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/46501/title/Drugged_money*
[3] reports: *
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=cocaine-contaminates-majority-of-american-currency
*