Posts Tagged ways in which money is contaminated

The next time you deal with paper currency, be aware of the fact that a large percentage of U.S. bills contain traits of cocaine. Yuegang Zuo, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, conducted a research which revealed that 90% of the bills circulated in the U.S. are contaminated with cocaine.

This startling information is a confirmation of the findings of previous studies on the issue. In 1985 the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration study showed that a third to a half of all the randomly tested currency in a Federal District Bank had traces of cocaine. In another study, more than 135 bills were tested in seven cities of the country and all except four, were contaminated. Cocaine binds in the green dye in the bill.

Zuo said that the contamination was 100% in cities like Detroit, Boston, Orlando and Los Angeles, 85% in Toronto, 77% in Salt Lake City, Utah, 75% in Brasilia and 20% in Tokyo and Beijing. He also found that $5, $10, $20 and $50 had greater chances of contamination. 

The quantity of contamination could vary between a nanogram (one-billionth of a gram) to milligram. Thus it actually does not pose any health risk. But those who have to handle an extremely large number of bills everyday – in bank tellers or soft rooms of casinos- repeatedly inhale cocaine involuntarily and has a chance of being positive on a drug test report.

Money gets contaminated if a cocaine user snorts with it and also during drug deals. But not all money gets infected that way. In powdered form cocaine is extremely fine. So when a dirty bill is processed or sorted through the machines, traces of the drug are easily passed on to the other bills in the same batch. Thus bills also get infected through ATMs, counting machines in banks and casinos. Whatever be it, the fact remains that the initial contamination was through the drug users and dealers.