Cocaine Danger 101: Feel Good Drug Contains Chemical that Rots Off Skin and Turns Ears Black

Cocaine that comes into the US and UK are illicitly adulterated with Levamisole, a cattle de-wormer drug. The veterinary drug while having a stimulant effect similar to cocaine, also comes with some distressing side effects. It actually causes the skin to rot and die away and turns the ears black, reports the Daily Mail.

Levamisole can trigger vasculitis, a condition where the blood vessels become inflamed, and causes disgusting red and black patches to appear on the skin, even on the face. In the medical files, there is a case of a 42 year old woman who came into hospital suffering from joint and muscle pain, abdominal pain, and horrendous skin lesions. It turned out, the skin sores were due to vasculitis, as a result of taking in cocaine cut with Levamisole. The case can be accessed here -  journal BMJ case reports.

The Levamisole drug that was once used for medical treatment was learnt to have had an adverse effect on the human immunity system and taken off the shelf. However, it was permitted to be used as a drug for livestock. The adulterant apparently causes the white blood cells count to drop, bringing down the immunity with it, compromising the body to become susceptible to varied infections. Dying skin and blackened ears soon follow.

According to Dr Noah Craft, Dermatologist, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute, the gruesome lesions appear days after a hit because of an immune reaction that attacks the blood vessels supplying to the skin.

For more information on Levamisole-contaminated cocaine you can check out a related medical case on California Poison Control System and a study carried out by NCBI on the issue.