What is ‘pink cocaine’? Designer drug linked to Liam Payne and named in Diddy lawsuit
By Leticia Juarez
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LOS ANGELES (KABC) — A partial autopsy has revealed that former One Direction singer Liam Payne had multiple substances in his system when he plunged to his death from a third-floor balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Toxicology results show he had a mix of drugs including one called “pink cocaine.”
“The first piece that we almost always see in pink, or pink cocaine, is ketamine – a dissociative drug, something that makes people feel like they’re detached from reality,” former DEA agent Bill Bodner said. “The second component is psychedelics.”
Bodner says that despite its name, there’s often no cocaine in the toxic mix of drugs, which includes synthetics like ecstasy, methamphetamine and benzodiazepines.
Its name comes from the bright pink color derived from food coloring and may include strawberry flavoring that can be taken as a pill or inhaled.
Pink cocaine is also known by its street name “tusi” or “tuci” and acts as both a stimulant and a depressant.
“Very, very cheap to make and they can kind of tailor the drug to what the drug user is looking for,” Bodner said.
Pink cocaine got its start in Latin American nightclubs as a party drug.
Recently, it was linked to Sean “Diddy” Combs in a lawsuit filed by his former music producer Rodney Jones.
He alleged it was “required all employees from the butler, the chef to the housekeepers, to walk around with a pouch or fanny pack filled with cocaine, GHB, ecstasy, marijuana gummies (100-250 mg’s each), and Tuci (a pink drug that is a combination of ecstasy and cocaine).”
But like any drug there are several dangerous side effects on the body and user’s perception of reality.
“One of the things around mixtures such as this is people’s behavior might become unpredictable and they may do things that they wouldn’t have otherwise done,” said Dr. Brian Hurley, an addiction psychiatrist with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
Law enforcement and public health officials are warning parents that the designer drug – with its bright color – is growing in popularity among its target audience of teens to young adults.
“No matter where you live or how isolated you think you are from street drugs, now with social media with the smartphone, everyone lives in an open air drug market,” Bodner said.
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