A cocktail of multiple drugs. This is the sad result revealed by the first toxicological reports, revealed by several American media this Monday, following the partial autopsy carried out on the body of Liam Payne, the ex-One Direction singer who died on Wednesday 16 October after falling from a hotel balcony in Argentina.
These analyzes revealed the presence of crack and benzodiazepines, anxiolytics, but also “pink cocaine”, a synthetic drug which has recently appeared in Europe and France. As its name suggests, it is a pink powder, but it has nothing to do with cocaine.
Ketamine and MDMA
It is a mixture of several synthetic drugs whose composition varies, although it is most often ketamine, a fast-acting anesthetic used in medical or veterinary surgery, and MDMA, often called ecstasy. More rarely, we also find 2-CB, a drug also very popular in Latin America, the compound of which is both hallucinogenic and stimulating.
Also called “Pink C”, “tussi” or “tucibi” (pronunciation of 2-CB in English), it appeared in South America and was spotted for the first time in France in 2022 by the SINTES system of the French Observatory of Drugs and Addictive Tendencies (OFDT) and documented from 2021 via the OFDT’s TREND system. People who have experienced it report “hallucinogenic and stimulating effects of fluctuating intensity”, according to the OFDT.
If most users appreciate this product, most often consumed nasally and speak of ecstasy, euphoria or exaltation, “its effects are sometimes described as much too strong when they thought they were consuming something close to cocaine », Specifies an OFDT report.
A marketing product with “relatively vague contours”
“In view of the stimulating effects potentially sought by users, misled by the name of the product and the sellers’ speech, the dissociative hallucinogenic effects of ketamine can lead to unexpected complications for the user,” the public body also indicates. .
At the time of its appearance, the OFDT underlined the arrival not of a new molecule, but of a new marketing product whose “contours are relatively vague, whether by its name, its appearance, the way in which it is sold and the effects felt by users, and the random nature of its composition. “Most users describe a taste of strawberry, or even specifically tagada strawberry, when sniffing, but also when injecting,” adds the OFDT.
Used in the party environment, it owes its color to pink dyes used to make it more “glamorous” and sell it more expensive than ketamine or MDMA. While these two drugs are sold on average for around fifty euros per gram, a gram of “Pink C” is sold between 60 and 100 euros.
