You can’t go back in the water even when you think it is safe.
Brazil has a serious problem. Brazil has a lot of problems. But I bet that this one was not on anyone’s bingo cards:
Yes, Cocaine sharks.
Cocaine Shark looks like a bad B-movie but is also a real thing. Trace amounts of cocaine have been found in sharks around Brazil.
The reality, however, is less thrilling and more frightening. Cocaine enters the ocean in a variety of ways, including through inadequate sewage treatment plants and by way of stray packets left by smugglers. Wildlife then bites open the packets.
Between 2011 and 2017, traces of cocaine were detected in surface and sewage waters in 37 countries. It has also spread to other aquatic animals, such as mollusks and crustaceans. However, no study has ever examined whether sharks were affected.
It’s not a lot of cocaine. The great whites are not gulping down bags of cocaine like in the awesome (and infamous) B-movie, “Cocaine Bear.” Sharks and other ocean organisms are unlikely to be affected by cocaine-like the bears in the great American film “Cocaine Bear” or even real-life bears.
The Gizmodo article (linked above), reported on what they found:
Researchers in Brazil published a paper last week, Science of the Total Environment. They sought to correct this by capturing thirteen Brazilian sharpnose sharks near the coast of Rio de Janeiro. The species is small, measuring less than three feet (0.9 meters), and feeds primarily on small fishes and squid.
The scientists captured the sharks and dissected their bodies to obtain samples of the muscles and livers. These were then tested for cocaine and other chemicals. The results were shocking. Every shark tested positive for Cocaine, and 12 of 13 had benzoylecgonine in their systems. This chemical is produced when cocaine filters through the liver.
It’s disappointing. If you want to boast about cocaine sharks, then they might as well be great whites. It’s already impressive to think of a 15 foot, 1-ton, razor-toothed, aquatic death weapon. But having one of these creatures pumped up on cocaine is even more amazing. You’re now talking.
I can imagine several uses for great-white sharks who are high on cocaine. Dropping a few of them off the coast of Somalia could help to eliminate piracy in that area, and a dozen great-whites with withdrawal symptoms may deter drug smugglers from smuggling drugs through the Gulf of Mexico. Sharks can smell blood for miles. One wonders what an addicted shark who is suffering from withdrawal symptoms would do to get his next fix.
The cocaine sharks could not come on land to indulge in their bad habit. We hope.
This seems reasonable:
