How ‘pink cocaine’ is spreading across the world’s party scene – with potentially fatal consequences

On the Ibiza party scene, many revellers are hardly strangers to recreational drug use. But this summer, they were warned to take heed: a dangerous new party drug was emerging, the use of which was compared to playing Russian roulette.

Has “pink cocaine”, as it is known, now claimed its first high-profile victim? A post-mortem examination has reportedly found that Liam Payne, the former One Direction star, had it in his system when he fell to his death from his hotel room balcony in Buenos Aires on Oct 16. It is too soon to know if the fatal incident was attributable to the drug, but its potentially grave effects are already known.

In fact, pink cocaine is not one drug but a powdery cocktail, or pill, often including MDMA, ketamine and methamphetamine. Samples have also been found to include cocaine and opioids. Despite its name, cocaine is not necessarily part of the mix. It can be present, however, as can caffeine, hallucinogens such as mescaline or LSD, and stimulants known as bath salts.

Originating in Colombia, the drug has spread in the United States and become increasingly popular in nightclubs. Its effects are varied and can include euphoria, increased alertness and enhanced sensory perception. Since it tends to contain both stimulants and depressants – “uppers” and “downers” – it is hard for users to know what kind of experience they will have on it.

In some cases, it is laced with the potent and dangerous opioid, Fentanyl, national drug treatment experts at the UKAT Group warn.

They describe pink cocaine as highly addictive and unpredictable but note that the combination of stimulant and hallucinogenic effects makes it popular as both a party and stay-at-home drug.

“The dangers of mixing drugs like ketamine, MDMA and methamphetamine together are profound,” says Lee Fernandes, drug treatment expert at The UKAT Group. “Whilst the user will initially experience extreme euphoria, increased alertness and enhanced sensory perception, that experience is followed by an extremely negative cocktail of feelings like paranoia, persistent anxiety and depression.

“This is what makes pink cocaine so addictive; because of the extreme ‘low’ that comes with taking it, users typically try to avoid that crash by simply taking more to keep them high. But when that crash comes, which it does, it leaves the user in an extremely vulnerable state; both physically and most worryingly, mentally.”

The drug, also known as “tusi”, has been present on European shores for at least a couple of years, with Spain’s Guardia Civil seizing 13 kilograms of it in 2022. This was thought at the time to be the largest amount confiscated in Europe so far.

Since then, its spread has continued in other European countries including Britain, where it has already been found in four different regions. Earlier this year, Public Health Scotland reported that some drug trend monitoring groups in Scotland had noticed a recent rise in the commodity.

The product “appears to be attracting increasing consumer interest,” the European Union Drugs Agency’s European Drug Report 2023 noted. The authors suggested its effects may be poorly understood by users, pointing out that “people using mixtures of drugs may be unaware of the substances they are consuming, or that interactions between different drugs can expose them to elevated health risks.”

This year’s version of the report described the brightly coloured, distinctive product as “an example of the more sophisticated marketing of synthetic substances to consumers, who are likely to have very little understanding of what chemicals they are actually consuming.”

Law enforcement agencies are meanwhile battling to keep it off the streets. Last month, Spanish authorities seized 21 kilograms of it across Ibiza and Malaga. Spanish newspaper El País reported last year that the drug was considered a “luxury” for “affluent people.”

“You never know what you’re going to get,” warned Lluc Acero, who runs the Ibiza Calm drug clinic, in a stark message to partygoers on the island in the summer. A “big wave” of the drug had arrived there this year, he told ITV News.

In New York, a gram can cost between US$20 and US$100 and the drug is mostly sold online and through social media.

Bridget Brennan, New York City’s special narcotics prosecutor, told CBS News that the drug has been seen in some “date rape” cases.

“It can put people into a ‘k-hole’ where they feel like they’re in a blank space, like they are disassociated from their body, they’re disassociated from their brain, they don’t know what’s going on,” she told the US broadcaster.

An initial toxicology report following Payne’s death at the age of 31, was handed to prosecutors on Oct 21. It showed he also had traces of cocaine in his system, according to an Argentine official. The final results of the investigation are unlikely to be made public for several weeks.

Whatever its conclusion, the dangers of pink cocaine are bleakly evident.