In recent weeks I have seen a flood of social media content regarding the death of a singer I had never heard of (Liam Payne), almost invariably with reference to a concoction generically called pink cocaine. 

For me, the name conjures the image of a lightweight girly version of coke. Sadly, it’s nothing of the sort. Let’s take a quick look at what seems to be an in-vogue craze.

Wikipedia will tell you that pink cocaine (aka tussi, tuci, tucibi) "contains a mixture of different psychoactive substances, and is most commonly found in pink-dyed powder form". 

That mixture is neither defined nor consistent. Although it commonly contains drugs like ketamine, MDMA, meth, and cocaine, there is no agreed or universal recipe. Different vendors will sell pink cocaine which contains radically different drugs. 

Straight from the bat you can see a serious safety issue. Without deep testing of the actual contents of your supply, you are in the dark, and are taking a significant risk. Even ignoring your exposure to an unknown combination of classic drugs, which in itself could be severely problematic, it could easily contain fentanyl, or perhaps some relatively unknown research chemical with a similarly dire safety profile. 

Here's another issue: even if you do know the actual contents, you are unlikely to know the ratios. In other words, you don't know the actual doses of each constituent drug. This too is a serious accident waiting to happen. 

So… right here, without going any further …. you don’t know what drugs you are taking and you don’t know the doses you are taking them in. This is like spinning a roulette wheel with some of the numbers equating to tragedy. 

If anyone reading this is foolhardy and reckless enough with their lives to still proceed, here are some tips:

• Establish the real contents. Test your supply!  
• Try to establish the ratios and err on the side of caution re dose.
• Research the dose thresholds and harm reduction info for each constituent drug, perhaps using a resource like the Drug Users Bible or Erowid.
•  If you have never adopted a harm reduction process before, try ‘The 10 Commandments of Safer Drug Use”.  https://drugusersbible.org/content/drugscape/safety_first/the_10_commandments_of_safer_drug_use/index.html
•  Take a VERY close look at the TripSit combination chart. Heed the contents (see the 10 Commandments).

A better tip?

Don't take it. If you are going to take a drug, identify the specific outcome you actually want and select the specific drug to deliver it rather than taking an unknown combo.  

VENDORS: Please really think twice if you sell this stuff, or at the very least, honestly specify the actual contents and ratios. People are clearly getting into serious trouble, and worse, with it.