What Exactly Is Pink Cocaine? An Expert Explains the Headline-Making Drug

• The headline-grabbing drug “pink cocaine” was mentioned in the ongoing sex-trafficking case of Sean “Diddy” Combs and linked to the death of One Direction star Liam Payne
• “Pink cocaine” is a common term for a mixture of drugs that may or may not contain cocaine
• It’s usually done with ketamine — but as Dr. Adam Berman, a toxicologist and addiction medicine specialist who’s also the associate chief of Emergency Medicine at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, tells PEOPLE, “Nobody really knows what’s going on.”

He is mentioned in a civil suit against Sean “Diddy” Combs and is linked to the shocking death of One Direction star Liam Payne. But what exactly is “pink cocaine”?

For starters, it depends on the series.

“It’s a catch-all term that people use recently for a mixture of substances,” Dr. Adam Berman, a toxicologist and addiction medicine specialist who is also associate chief of emergency medicine at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, tells PEOPLE.

Bags of “pink cocaine”.

JOAQUIN SARMIENTO/AFP via Getty

“Sometimes it contains cocaine, but very often it contains very small amounts of cocaine,” he explains. “It’s usually a mix of what people would consider high and low. You really don’t know what you’re getting when you use pink cocaine.”

However, “very often, ketamine will be in it,” Berman tells PEOPLE. Ketamine — sometimes called Special K — is “a dissociative anesthetic that has some hallucinogenic effects,” the US Drug Enforcement Administration explains.

“Ketamine can cause sedation (feeling calm and relaxed), immobility, pain relief and amnesia (no memory of events while under the influence of the drug)”. One victim alleged Diddy gave them unknown substances — which she later learned contained ketamine, according to the complaint.

Music mogul Diddy faces multiple charges of drugging and raping people as young as 13.

Sean “Diddy” Combs.

Rebecca Sapp/WireImage

According to a report by The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, “pink cocaine” can be combined with methamphetamine, cocaine, opioids or other substances, the journal said, also known as “Tusi” — the phonetic version of “2C,” which is the classification for a certain psychedelic.

However, psychedelics – or even cocaine – are not always included in the powder, which is The Washington Post It is explained that traders paint it pink.

And as the National Poison Control Center warns, “physical and sexual assaults, as well as traumatic injuries, have occurred when people are impaired by this type of drug.”

Matthew Perry died of ‘acute effects’ of ketamine — what you need to know about the hallucinogen

The Poison Control Center adds that the drug can “lead to long-term dependence” and has a wide list of effects — depending on what’s in that particular batch.

“People use drugs to experience a sense of openness, sociability and euphoria. Adverse effects include hallucinations, anxiety, elevated body temperature, increased heart rate and blood pressure, low sodium levels, nausea and vomiting, and rarely, seizures, abnormal heart rhythms, and coma.

“Pink cocaine” was one of several substances found in a toxicology report carried out on the late One Direction star Liam Payne, who died on October 16 at the age of 31.

“Everybody has their own ketchup, but everybody’s ketchup is a little different — but everybody calls it ketchup,” Berman told PEOPLE.

‘Probably More Victims’ of ‘Ketamine Queen’ Charged in Matthew Perry’s Death, Feds Claim

“The biggest danger, of course, is death. There’s a good balance between the upper and lower substances and if one uses a mixture that contains more of the lower substances, so to speak, one can easily stop breathing.”

“It’s really the wild west here,” he said. “Nobody really knows what they’re using when they’re using anything.”

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Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education