11 ms·
90 percent of U.S. bills carry traces of cocaine (2009)
- swagv 11y agoAnd 99% carry traces of feces
- matheweis 11y agoMaybe this is the reason for the false positives from drug dogs ;)
- iRobbery 11y agoPerhaps this is how they find large amounts of hidden cash, with the same drug dog?
- ZoeZoeBee 11y agoDogs can be trained to the scent of many items, some are trained to specifically smell for cash. The TSA black labs are designed to sniff out explosives and not drugs. Some dogs are even being trained to sniff out electronics. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-197623/Dogs-help-sniff-crime-cash.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-197623/Dogs-help-sni...
- drcongo 11y agoIt may be true, but the Daily Mail is definitely not a reputable news source.
- desdiv 11y ago>Dogs can be trained to the scent of many items I heard there's been some breakthrough in reading digital data through scents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_and_Flo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_and_Flo
- quanium1337 11y agoHere we go, the war on cash begins...
- justinjlynn 11y agobegins? where have you been? the big push to debit cards and gradually making procurement of any reasonable quantity of cash (especially given inflation these days) almost impossible has been going on for ages.
- jrockway 11y agoI don't find it all that hard to procure cash.
- jdblair 11y agoI really don't understand this. What's a reasonable amount? I withdrew $2500 in cash from my bank last week. No questions other than "how would you like that?" and "would you like an envelope?"
- justinjlynn 11y agoWell, let's see... Living in San Francisco. If you paid for rent, groceries, and every thing in cash you could easily require 4k per month. That just so happens to be slightly below reporting amount. Do this enough and you'll be suspected of structuring your withdrawals to avoid the 5k withdrawal reporting threshold. I know the plural of anecdote is not data but it has been my experience that if you try to use cash for everything it gets you a nice little chat when you come in to make your monthly withdrawals and a threat to close your accounts that they will not give you in writing (I've asked). This is not just one institution and $deity save you if you have even so much have even looked at a bitcoin exchange let alone transacted with one. That was enough for US bank to threaten to close my accounts if I did any more business with them. If you want to transact in cash, just try to do it regularly and in volume, for everything. You'll only realise you're in a cage once you've run up against the invisible bars.
- trhway 11y agoIs it drug paraphernalia in your wallet?... 90% seems like a very satisfactory probability for probable cause
- awqrre 11y agoTherefor, if you have money, it's ok to do cocaine...
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- rl3 11y agoIt's nice to see they recorded the denomination of each bill. Too bad the article didn't go into further detail in its summarization. The abstract[0] says $1 and $100 denominations were less likely to test positive. The latter is curious. Perhaps it's because lower denominations are more likely to be used by street dealers, or that $20 bills make up the majority of triple-digit ATM transactions. It's worth noting that currency has a lot more than just trace amounts of cocaine on it.[1] Trace amounts of any common narcotic can create problems if probable cause with fur happens to get a whiff of your cash. >There is cocaine dust around the machines. These bank tellers breathe in cocaine. Here I thought handling large amounts of cash was just intrinsically exhilarating. [0] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18646272 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18646272 [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_currency#In_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_currency#In_the...
- simonebrunozzi 11y agoHmm... on [1], how can it be that they tested 10 banknotes, and "92%" tested positive?
- bluenose69 11y agoQuoting from [1]: "ten randomly collected one-dollar bills from five cities"
- mtanski 11y ago> The abstract[0] says $1 and $100 denominations were less likely to test positive. Most of the ATMs in NYC give me $20 notes. Sometimes for a larger withdrawal (300 or more) they mix $20 and $50 notes.
- glaberficken 11y agoI wonder what they would find if they tested for fecal matter instead, for example...
- kristopolous 11y agoBut how can I extract and collect it for personal use?
- oxide 11y agowash a stack of bills and drink the water?
- kristopolous 11y agosounds like a party drug mix! can you believe people pay extra for such concoctions?!
- iolothebard 11y agoI just threw up a little in my mouth at the thought. Probably still tastes better than the bill brew you're suggesting :-)
- muniri 11y agoGreat article. This is why I only carry $1 bills.
- refurb 11y agoI hate to sound like a broken record, but "traces" can mean amazingly small amounts these days due to testing sensitivity. Remember this when you read "traces of [insert toxic metal] were found in drinking water!!". I don't know what the testing limits for cocaine are, but parts per billion wouldn't surprise me. For some metals, it can be parts per trillion. Ppt would he equivalent to one microgram in a cubic meter (one metric ton) of water.
- snsn2828 11y agoAll I could hear in my head while reading this was the theme song for Narcos
- b3h3moth 11y agoMany years ago an Italian magazine[0] wrote that 100% banknotes of the city of Milan was highly polluted by cocaine. [0] http://bit.ly/22d6yKX http://bit.ly/22d6yKX (ita)
- acd 11y agoHow many persons does a US bill pass on average in circulation before its handed into a bank? You are connected to with an average distance of 3.57 to every facebook user. What is your average distance to a substance user?
- JBReefer 11y agoProbably a distance of 1 for basically everyone
- hotpxl 11y agoDude. I gotta burn all my US dollars and smoke them.