After more than 20 deaths in Argentina, adulterated cocaine worries Uruguay and Paraguay

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Uruguay and Paraguay, where a certain percentage of drugs in circulation are mixed with other substances, are concerned about last week’s events in Argentina, where adulterated cocaine caused 23 deaths and more than 80 people were hospitalized for poisoning.

In Paraguay, the National Secretariat for Drug Control (Senad) reported that 10% of the cocaine seized during operations by special agents in 2021 contained adulterants that were harmful to health.

“Based on data collected by the Senad’s Special Forensic Laboratory, 117 of 1104 cocaine samples analyzed in 2021 contained adulterants. This represents 10% of the cocaine seized during special agent operations,” the agency said on its website.

The Paraguayan authority pointed out that “it is common in the drug trade to add chemicals to cocaine in order to increase the quantity of substances and increase profits. The main adulterants they identified include caffeine, lidocaine, phenacetin, levamisole, and acetaminophen.

“Cocaine use itself is sufficiently harmful to humans because chemicals such as sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, kerosene, lime,” as well as acetone, ethyl acetate, or toluene are used in the extraction process.

Based on this report on the seized cans, the Senad forensic laboratory will expand the analysis of substances to detect other types of chemicals that may be present in the marketed cocaine cans.

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URUGUAY

After the events in Buenos Aires province, the country’s government was on alert, not ruling out the possibility that some of the adulterated doses could be in their country. The Uruguayan health system has not received a case of this type, but warns that it is a problem of concern also in his country, where 26% of the drugs seized in the country are “mixed.”

According to Uruguayan daily El País, the Technical Forensic Institute found that “just over a quarter of cocaine samples seized in the first nine months of 2021 contained at least one adulterant.”

“Although the type of adulterant varies, the proportion is generally similar for smokable cocaine (cocaine base paste) and inhalable powder (cocaine hydrochloride),” the article states. The main adulterants included caffeine in 56% of the altered samples, phenacetin (in 46%), and levamisole (in 6%).