August 18, 2009 6:28 a.m. EST
Boston, MA (AHN) – A study made by University of Massachusetts researchers showed that about 85 percent Canadian currency contain trace amounts of cocaine. Canada and the U.S. topped the list of nations with high levels of cocaine traces.
University of Massachusetts chemistry professor Yuegang Zuo, who led the research team, presented their findings Sunday at the 238th national meeting of the American Chemical Society.
The study analyzed banknotes from 30 cities in Canada, the U.S., Brazil, China and Japan. The team studied 27 loonie bills sampled from Toronto and Sarnia in Ontario. Cocaine trace amounts found in the Canadian dollars ranged from 2.4 micrograms to 2,530 micrograms.
When the researchers examined the 234 American greenbacks from 17 U.S. cities, they found almost 90 percent of the bills had trace amounts of cocaine, which gets contaminated during drug transactions and when used by addicts to snort the drug by rolling the currency.
The Japanese and Chinese banknotes yielded less amounts of cocaine ranging from 12 to 20 percent.
A previous study made by the same team two years ago had only 67 percent of the U.S. currency with cocaine traces.
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