Babies! Cocaine! 90 percent!!

Latest breathless headline from the Telegraph (UK): Cocaine found in nine out of ten baby changing units

Wow! That’s the mother load for tabloid journalism: children (babies!), drugs, and statistics.

The article goes on to discuss all sorts of completely irrelevant stuff related to drugs and Amy Winehouse along with the obligatory anecdotal story of a former addict:

“Coke came first, my child came second.”

So, what’s with the baby changing tables? Cocaine traces were found on 92 of 100 of these in a particular area including ones in “shopping centres, hospitals, police stations, courts and churches.”

Hmmm, seems a little odd to me (unless you’ve got some thrill-seeking coke user who is bent on hitting every baby-changing table in the region). Who were the scientists doing this study?

The team of Real Radio journalists who carried out the study… The tests, carried out by using specialist wipes…

Oh.

Bet you five bucks that there’s a common element like baby powder that causes false positives with those “specialist wipes.” In fact, a little googling will show that baby wipes have been found to cause false positives in certain drug testing devices.

But that’s not as interesting a story, is it?

[Thanks to Transform for the tip]
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41 Responses to Babies! Cocaine! 90 percent!!

  1. Danas says:

    Judging from the title, I thought that 90% of babies tested positive for coke.that would have been an interesting read lol

  2. darkcycle says:

    Oh…fer gawds sake.

  3. Freedom Fries (Extra Large) says:

    OMG! What about the kids man, the kids. I don’t feel safe anymore, I must forfeit more rights and freedoms that they hate us for.

  4. Dante says:

    Won’t anyone think of the children(s changing stations)?

    Oh, the horror!

  5. JDV says:

    Are people really doing lines of coke off of baby changing stations? 0_o

  6. kaptinemo says:

    Ugh. Having changed enough diapers in my life to not ever want to see another one again, you have to marvel at the stomachs of some of those useful idiots at the Telegraph. Most people never clean those places off after they’re used (shudders).

  7. Deep Dish says:

    I have an idea: stop Kerlikowske or Sabet in the streets and test their wallets for residue.

  8. claygooding says:

    STAY AWAY from the brown coke!!!

    • kaptinemo says:

      And the yellow snow, for that matter.

      I miss Frank Zappa. He would have loved tearing this kind of pop-culture insanity to shreds.

      • Duncan20903 says:

        .
        .
        Dreamed I was an eskimo
        Frozen wind began to blow
        Under my boots and around my toes
        The frost that bit the ground below
        It was a hundred degrees below zero…

        And my mama cried
        Don’t be a naughty eskimo
        Save your money, don’t go to the show

        And she said, with a tear in her eye
        Watch out where the huskies go, and don’t you eat that yellow snow
        ———
        Classic.

        • Yage Panther says:

          “don’t you eat that yellow snow” was the very first drug law (long before do not eat that apple):

          The yellow snow not-to-eat is the one coloured by reindeers after ingesting fly agaric mushrooms, that snow was used by white-bearded shamen in red coats for their flights on sleighs….

  9. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .
    Back in the day when I was into the crack they hadn’t yet started installing those changing tables but if they had existed then I’m almost certain I would have put them to use. Public restrooms were a favorite recharging place for the people who were my associates as well as for myself back in the day. I’m not sure why that would be different today, they’re very convenient and the authoritarians still haven’t been able to figure out how to install cameras in the stalls so they’re very private.

    One thing that is never mentioned when these stories are printed about trace amounts of cocaine being detected here and there but primarily on currency is that it seems clear to me that cocaine persists on the surface of an object for a very significant period of time. The only way that 90+% of bills can have traces of cocaine is if the stuff just never goes away. I’m not so certain that the tests need to be inaccurate to explain the results, especially in Big Brothersville where perhaps one of the only places you might be certain that you’re not on camera is in the head. The British love their cameras.

    • kaptinemo says:

      Oh, Hell, frakkin’ NIDA again. Always on the lookout for any possibility of more funding for studies, no matter how silly-assed they are.

      Jeez, don’t these goofs realize we’re broke and can’t afford this Golden Fleece Award stuff anymore?

  10. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .
    Why bother with individual urine tests when you can just test the entire county? OK, it’s an oldie but will always be a classic in the “WTF are these people thinking??” category:

    Sewage Tested for Signs of Cocaine
    By Bill Turque
    Washington Post Staff Writer
    Monday, March 27, 2006

    If government studies are a reliable guide, about 25,000 residents of Fairfax County — 2.5 percent of its population — have used cocaine in the past year. The same data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health suggest that about 9,000 have partaken within the past 30 days.

    Those estimates, based on personal and computer-assisted interviews, rely almost completely on the candor of the respondents. The Bush administration, hoping to someday broaden the government’s knowledge of illegal drug use, is probing the mysteries of Fairfax’s sewage for a clearer picture.

    Earlier this month, the county agreed to participate in a White House pilot program to analyze wastewater from communities throughout the Potomac River Basin for the urinary byproducts of cocaine.

    “It’s a very strange request,” Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerald E. Connolly (D) said of the White House program. “We’re ready to do anything and everything we can do to eliminate illicit drug use. But I’d want to know a lot more about what this will actually lead to.”
    /snip/

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/26/AR2006032600880.html

    It really is true that it requires a particular form of organic brain dysfunction to qualify as a bureaucrat. It’s just not arguable anymore.

  11. divadab says:

    A word on the source of the article – the UK Telegraph – a fear-mongering iron-lady worshipping conservative paper for mostly older managerial class commuters and retired old ladies(of both genders).

    They apparently like stoking their readers’ fear of the unruly young going about ruining the country!

  12. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .
    This one is a must click if for nothing more than a look at the picture of the drunk old man in pink babydoll & g-string:

    http://www.csindy.com/IndyBlog/archives/2011/12/21/whats-the-difference-between-alcohol-and-weed

    • darkcycle says:

      ugg…not what I needed first thing in the morning, Duncan.

      • Duncan20903 says:

        .
        .
        Isn’t that much what you get first thing every morning when you go to brush your teeth? Oh that’s right, that’s why you had the mirror taken out of your bathroom. Sorry old man, my bad.

        • darkcycle says:

          No way. Put a bag over my head and I look good for an old guy (from the waist up, that is, my legs turned into sticks-for some reason when I lost all that weight it was from the belt down).

    • Leonard Junior says:

      It’s nothing new; he’s probably on the gay side of bourbon street. I once saw a drag queen directing traffic out that way. Really funny. But the best bars are in the Marigny.

  13. Deep Dish says:

    The NY Times is on fire, again. In an op-ed:

    Jurors Need to Know That They Can Say No

    IF you are ever on a jury in a marijuana case, I recommend that you vote “not guilty” — even if you think the defendant actually smoked pot, or sold it to another consenting adult. As a juror, you have this power under the Bill of Rights; if you exercise it, you become part of a proud tradition of American jurors who helped make our laws fairer.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/21/opinion/jurors-can-say-no.html

  14. Francis says:

    “The tests, carried out by using specialist wipes…”

    Baby wipes that also test for cocaine? What a weird combo. I mean, I can understand being concerned about the possibility that your teen child is hiding a coke habit from you, but an infant? I guess kids really are growing up faster these days…

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .
      Speaking of specialty wipes, it wasn’t too long ago that I learned that back in the old days before toilet paper that people used corn cobs to serve that purpose. Most confusing I must say. Fresh or cured? Do they go vertical or horizontal? Perhaps optional depending on personal preference? Why did it take so darn long to invent toilet paper? Would pranksters break into their neighbors outhouses and dip the corncobs in lemon juice and black pepper? Life really is a mystery at times. [sigh]

  15. Scott says:

    Heck, cocaine is everywhere. Four out of five dollar bills test positive for cocaine, and this is from the debunkers of urban legends:

    http://www.snopes.com/business/money/cocaine.asp

    Why not public baby-changing tables, which are often in retail businesses? If you tested the parents’ fingers, you’d find coke there, too, even on the fingers of the most devout non-inhalers.

  16. JohnWayne&RandolphScott says:

    We’ll send them all we’ve got:

    “The entire police force in the Mexican port of Veracruz was dissolved on Wednesday in an effort to root out corruption, and armed marines were sent in to patrol.

    A state spokeswoman, Gina Dominguez, said 800 police officers and 300 administrative staff had been laid off.

    Armed marines barricaded police headquarters and navy helicopters flew over the city where 35 bodies were dumped in September in one of the worst gang attacks of Mexico’s drug war.”

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/22/mexico-veracruz-police-force

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .
      …the Marines were pleased by the promise of extra income just in time for Christmas. The locals were annoyed at having to figure out the new address of where to deliver their periodic payments to cover la mordida.

  17. claygooding says:

    And local dealers now have added customers because even soldiers get high.

  18. ezrydn says:

    Must be all them “crack babies” we heard so much about YEARS ago. LMAO

    • darkcycle says:

      How did I miss that one EZ? I must be slackin’ 🙂

      • ezrydn says:

        Damn, DC,

        After all them dire warnings we got unloaded on us years ago, I’ve just been waiting for those babies to show themselves. And now, those babies are having babies of their own. You just KNOW Kerli missed that one, too! LOL

        You’re not slackin’. You just crusin’ while you’re readin’. 😉

  19. claygooding says:

    Ten dankest marijuana strains of 2011

    Our marijuana critic, William Breathes, smoked more than 140 different samples of medical marijuana in 2011. We sent him down fuzzy-memory lane and asked him to pick out the top ten strains he smoked, and here are the results along with the original strain writeup from his Mile Highs and Lows dispensary review.

    http://www.westword.com/slideshow/ten-dankest-marijuana-strains-of-2011-35788021/10/

    WARNING,,slide keyboard where you don’t slobber on it.

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