9 in 10 Canadian, U.S. bank notes are traced with cocaine

A new report by United States researchers show that nine out of ten Canadian and American Dollars contain traces of cocaine.

National Meeting of the American Chemical Society was presented with a new study on Sunday, which concludes that 90 per cent of Canadian currency is laced with cocaine. Researchers looked at 30 cities across five countries; Japan, United States, China, Canada and Brazil. Twenty-seven bills were taken from Sarnia and Toronto, according to Yuegang Zuo, a chemistry and biochemistry professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, who is the lead researcher in this study. Amounts of cocaine found in each of the bills ranged from 2.4 micrograms to 2,530 micrograms. Results in the U.S. were very similar. Researchers analyzed 237 bank notes from 17 cities and found 90 per cent of the notes were contaminated. This is not surprising though, say some scientists, who have known that notes can be used in drug deals and or used for snorting coke. Zuo, the lead researcher, believes that this study doesn't generalize Canadians as a whole, "The number is too small. More substantive research is needed." Canada and the United States have a significant higher rate than Japan or China. Only one in five Chinese notes had traces of cocaine and only two out of sixteen Japanese notes had traces of Coke. University of Ottawa criminology professor Irvin Waller told The Canadian Press that he believes that law enforcement may look into this research, "The real issue is how much money you're putting into prevention. Even if you know where (the cocaine) is flowing, this isn't a lot of help unless you're going to be putting money into reducing demand for it in that area." Researches confirmed that the amounts of cocaine could not affect a person's health because they were too small.