Black Cocaine

In News

• Recently, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) arrested a Bolivian woman from Mumbai airport for allegedly carrying black cocaine. 

What is Black Cocaine?

• “Black cocaine” is a rare drug, is a mixture of regular cocaine base with various substances to camouflage typical appearance (e.g. charcoal), to interfere with colour-based drug tests (cobalt salts form deep red complexes in solution), to make the mixture undetectable by drug-sniffing dogs as activated carbon may sufficiently absorb trace odours.
• It is being used by drug peddlers coming to India from South American countries. 
• It neutralises the smell of cocaine so that it can pass through checkpoints easily. 
• The pure cocaine base is then recovered from the mixture by extraction using common organic solvents such as methylene chloride or acetone.

Source:IE