WASHINGTON, D.C. - During its average life of 20 months in circulation, U.S. currency gets shuffled, touched, traded, pilfered, squandered, stolen, and farted on, often many thousands of times. It passes through convenience stores, banks, bars, brothels, and shady street corners across the country. Every handling of every bill adds flecks of oils and bodily fluids, dirt, food, bacteria - and sometimes even drug residue.
Results of a study conducted by William Roelings of the University of Massachusetts were released this weekend confirming previous indications that 90 percent of paper money circulating in the U.S. contains cocaine, not to mention a wee bit of nasal mucous.
Money can pick up trace amounts of cocaine when a user parties with a rolled up bill; subsequently, it can contaminate more bills inside currency-counting machines at banks.
One-hundred percent of the Benjamins in several American cities tested positive for cocaine, including Detroit, Michigan, well known to many as "Rock City"; Boston, Massachusetts, home of the tea party with a twist; Los Angeles, California, in many areas of which cocaine use is mandatory; and Orlando and Miami, Florida, where some residents actually eke out an existence on a diet of mere bananas and blow.
Roelings hopes to use his data to create a "drug use map," which he said could even provide insights about the recent death of Orange Glo, Florida, pitchman Billy Mayes.
Though contaminated bills do not generally pose serious health risks, organizations that use cash-counting machinery indicated some resourceful employees have found innovative ways to extract the white powder from bills.
"We had one teller who always wanted to work with the cash-counting machine in the basement of the bank," said Charlie White of Jellybean Savings and Loan. "Well, we walked in on him one night. He had crossed a couple of wires in the back of the thing, and he was shuffling every single bill in the bank through it at an incredible rate! There was cocaine dust in the air, and all around the machines. He was on the floor frenetically scraping together lines of the stuff with his driver's license when we walked in.
"...And guess what sort of a tube he had rolled up in his other hand?" he added.
Of all the countries in the study, U.S. bills had the highest percentage of cocaine at 90 percent, followed by Canada with 85 percent, Brazil with 80 percent, and China and Japan had the lowest rates, with 20 and 12 percent respectively.
"We were actually quite surprised to find any cocaine in the Chinese bank notes," said Roelings.
After the Communist Party took control of China, he said, it virtually rid the country of drugs from 1949 until the 1980's by means of severe substance use penalties. Two years ago, Rowlings collaborated with scientists in Beijing to test bank notes and didn't find any traces of cocaine.
He believes that's because, after they confiscated it all, the communist leaders had common sense enough to use clean plastic straws.
Roelings also said most of the remaining 10 percent of U.S. currency not contaminated with cocaine likely had accidentally been sent through the laundry within the last several handlings.
Special thanks to Yuegang Zuo (professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth) who conducted the study quoted.
