Pubdate: Mon, 23 Jul 2007
Source: California Aggie, The (UC Davis, CA Edu)
Copyright: 2007sThe California Aggie
Contact:  http://www.californiaaggie.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2725
Author: Geoff Johnson
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

FLAVORED COCAINE HITS LOCAL STREETS

Experts Say It Poses The Same Dangers As Regular Cocaine

Coconut, strawberry, banana and chocolate may not sound like drugs, 
but those are a few of the flavors that cocaine now comes in.

In what Yolo Narcotic Enforcement Team (YONET) Commander Roy Giorgi 
is calling "another tool to put out their product or make it more 
appetizing for our younger generation," dealers are now offering 
cocaine with flavoring and coloring for up to 40 percent more than 
the cost of regular cocaine.

The variation, Giorgi said, is new to California and has only 
resulted in one major bust in June, which involved the cities of West 
Sacramento and Stockton and about 3 pounds of the flavored drug.

"It's a relatively new issue for us, and we're still collecting more 
and more intelligence," said Gordon Taylor, head of the Drug 
Enforcement Administration's Sacramento office. "I'm not really 
prepared at this point in time to say what areas it's prevalent in, 
but certainly we've seen it in the Sacramento Valley area."

Giorgi said the substances used to flavor and color the cocaine are 
unknown as of yet, but so far the drug seems to carry the same risks 
as unflavored cocaine.

"You're going to get the elevated heart rate, the respiratory rate 
[and] the psychological [problems]," Giorgi said. "We have very 
little information on what part of the process they're doing it. 
We'll have a lot more when the analysis comes back. We have some 
information, but we're not putting it out to the public yet because 
of pending investigations."

Far from being watered down, however, Giorgi said he suspected that 
the inflated price is due to a product that retains more purity than 
most shipments.

"Whatever process they're using is taking a lot of work," Giorgi said.

Giorgi distinguished between the recent bust and those on university 
campuses; he said campus drug busts are exceedingly rare. When they 
do occur, Giorgi said, most involve marijuana, ecstasy, or cocaine.

Taylor said no arrests have been made within the Sacramento region itself.

"It's also maybe [just] a fad too," Giorgi said. "It's not a new 
drug, but it's a new style of the drug, just [like] the flavored 
methamphetamine.... We've had flavored ecstasy pills."

Stephanie Lake, program coordinator for the Alcohol and Drug Abuse 
Treatment and Prevention Program at UC Davis, said that although 
flavored cocaine is growing in the Midwest, there is no evidence of 
the drug on campus.

"I've been here eight years, and I've never seen a student that's 
used flavored cocaine," Lake said. "There's actually controversy 
around whether it should even [be] talked about because we don't know 
the amount of people that are actually using it right now."
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman