On Canada’s East Coast, an Unexplained Influx of Pure Cocaine
Nobody knows the smell, taste or feeling of pure cocaine like someone who injects it. Eric Sampson, who’s well known on the streets of Halifax, Nova Scotia, is one of those people. But a few months ago, a shot hit him in a way he’d never known was possible.
At first, he felt like the effects came and then went as usual. He went to bed. But an hour later, he woke up suddenly from a dead sleep. “All I could taste was coke. I was freaked out. I put on my shoes and just ran. I went to the hospital. They had to give me a dose of liquid Ativan to calm me down.”
A toxicology report revealed that cocaine—and only cocaine—was in his system. A veteran cocaine injector knocked on his ass by cocaine alone? Something had changed in the supply.
Anecdotally, since around the summer of 2019, Halifax has seen a drastic rise in both the availability of cocaine and in its purity. Any seller either already had pure cocaine or could get it.
There are a few ways to tell whether your coke supply is pure. First, pure cocaine has a strong, specific smell—almost minty. Second, when you mix it with water it becomes clear. For more than a year now, almost every time I’ve tested my supply when preparing to inject, it’s come back crystal clear—the clearest cocaine I’ve ever seen.
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By Matthew Bonn
