Truth about deadly ‘pink cocaine’: Narcos warn new designer drug cocktail is cooked up by the sons of El Chapo is flooding US and UK

Also known as 2C, tusi or cocaina rosada so-called ‘pink cocaine’ has seen a rise in publicity and use in the US and UK.

Despite being invented in the 70s and having a minor presence in the party scene since the 90s, the designer drug has only recently enjoyed a burst in popularity driven, in part, by its alluring pink hue. 

Such a surge has come alongside a number of tragic deaths, with experts telling MailOnline the drug was ‘very dangerous and unpredictable’ as the recipe varies so much. 

Packets of the drug have been reported by authorities in England, Scotland and Wales, as well as multiple US states and popular Spanish holiday hotspots, with distribution linked to the sons of former Mexican cartel boss El Chapo

But what exactly is pink cocaine? How widespread it is? And what could be some of the catastrophic consequences of taking it? Here MailOnline explains.

Despite being called pink cocaine the drug doesn’t actually contain its namesake drug, at least most of time. 

While recipes vary analysis suggests it is most often a mix of the tranquilizer and hallucinogen ketamine, the stimulant and psychedelic MDMA, amphetamines like meth.

This is mixed with legal stimulants, like caffeine, as well as strawberry food dye to give its characteristic appealing hue and a sweet smell.

The concoction described above is considered a standard pink cocaine mix but versions that add in LSD, other hallucinogen like bath salts, actual cocaine, and powerful opioids like fentanyl have also been recorded. 

It’s this potential roster of drugs that can make pink cocaine particularly dangerous as users have no real idea what they may be taking and in what amounts, essentially making taking the drug a game of ‘Russian Roulette’ according to some experts. 

Pink cocaine’s price varies in depending on the recipe. Sometimes it’s marketed as a boutique designer drug running as much as £80 (about $100) a gram, more than cocaine. 

On other occasions, when mixes are bulked out with cheaper components, it has been known to go for as little as £8 ($10) a gram. 

The drug is mainly sold in powder form but can also come as pills.  

Pink cocaine’s history dates back to the 70s when a compound called 2-C was synthesized by American biochemist Alexander Shulgin.

2-C belongs to a class of drugs called phenethylamines which produce a combination of psychoactive and stimulant affects. 

While it enjoyed some popularity as a party drug it was only when large-scale organised crime groups, primarily in Latin America, became involved that 2-C started to transition to pink cocaine.

It was marketed as ‘tuci’ the phonetic version of 2-C but these new versions are a knock-off and don’t actually contain the original compound.

Instead, cartels used more readily available supplies of ketamine and MDMA, thought to be mainly supplied by labs in China, to mimic the effects of 2-C.

This has continued as the drug started to be pushed to English speaking markets with the name pink cocaine, essentially a marketing ploy to piggyback off regular cocaine’s popularity. 

A 2023 paper on pink cocaine published in The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse said analysis has shown up to 99 per cent of the supplies of drug seized of the drug in Latin American countries didn’t contain any 2-C.

Pink cocaine distribution varies but US authorities have pinned some of the supply entering their country on the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel. 

The Sinaloa Cartel is led by the sons of the infamous Mexican drug lord El Chapo, after the latter’s extradition to the US in 2017.

A report from the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) flagged pink cocaine as a rising concern and noted the Sinaloa Cartel was taking advantage of growing interest in the drug. 

‘The Mexican government has not disclosed the seizure of any tusi labs in Mexico, but the Sinaloa Cartel is capable of importing large quantities of ketamine from China to facilitate tusi production in Mexico,’ the report reads. 

From there pink cocaine supplies are distributed via the cartel’s US network to American users, including on social media channels such as Telegram. 

The DEA said the rise of pink cocaine was also part of broader and dangerous trend where supplies of illicit substances were increasingly synthetic, made in a lab, rather than grown from natural sources like plants.

Such synthetic drugs, can be many times more powerful, such as fentanyl and methamphetamine and have led to ‘the most dangerous and deadly drug crisis the United States has ever faced’ the DEA said. 

Pink cocaine has also appeared in the UK, with authorities and experts warning it’s rising in popularity. 

Public Health Scotland issued an alert on the drug earlier this year, stating trends showed the drug was on rise in some parts of the country.

It has also appeared at British music festivals. The Loop, a Home Office-licensed drug checking service, issued a warning about pink cocaine back in 2022.

The effects of pink cocaine vary depending on the mix, but users have cited feelings of euphoria, alertness and enhanced perception making it a popular party and stay-at-home drug.

But it also comes with a catalogue of potential health risks.

These commonly include hallucinations, agitation, seizures and even cardiac arrest but as the mixture can vary so much the potential list is extensive. 

Addiction to any of the drugs that form pink cocaine is also a concern.  

Lee Fernandes, lead drug and alcohol therapist at the private addiction treatment centres, The UKAT Group, said: ‘The dangers of mixing drugs like ketamine, MDMA and methamphetamine together are profound. 

‘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.’

Some US experts have reported pink cocaine also being used as date rape drug due to its ketamine content putting users in a ‘K-hole’ a disassociated state brought on by the tranquillizer.   

Ian Hamilton, an addiction expert from the University of York, also told MailOnline part of the danger with pink cocaine is in the name.

Drug users may assume it actually is cocaine and thus take it in amounts they normally would despite it being a completely different cocktail of drugs. 

He said this, combined with how much the recipe varied batch-to-batch, made it incredibly dangerous. 

‘The risks to health are wide ranging given the variation in dose and composition,’ he said.

‘These could include fatal overdose, breathing problems and heart problems.’

Mr Hamilton the extent of pink cocaine use in the UK was unknown as there was no national data collection on it, with experts instead relying on sporadic reports across the country but it did appear to be on the rise. 

‘Given the above it’s difficult to know why it’s popularity appears to be increasing, it could be this is supply led rather than driven by demand,’ he said. 

There have been fears that pink cocaine is gaining free publicity due to being named in the Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s sex-trafficking investigation.

Diddy‘s on-off girlfriend Yung Miami ‘transported pink cocaine for him,’ court documents have alleged. 

The lawsuit claims that in April 2023 Yung Miami brought the pink drug on a private jet from Miami to the Water Music Festival in Virginia because ‘Sean Combs wanted tuci but Brendan forgot it.’

Pink cocaine has no specific legal classification in the UK, but its ingredients of class A or B illicit drugs carry a potential sentence of 7 years in prison for possession alone. 

Pink cocaine has been linked to a number of deaths. 

Wannabe singer Camila Sterling, 24, was found dead in a luxury Miami Beach hotel suite with the mix in her system in March last year. 

There have also been reports from Spain of teenagers dying due to pink cocaine. 

Other fatalities been linked to people taking pink cocaine and driving with one such case involving influencer and model Maecee Marie Lathers, 24. 

Lathers was involved in car wreck that killed two people, Abraham Molina and Jesus Rubio, on August 10. 

Police said Lathers was driving with a suspended license when she sped through a stoplight at nearly 80mph in her white Mercedes-Benz and rammed into a black Range Rover and silver Suzuki 

She blamed the crash on taking s ‘pink cocaine’ and a toxicology report found a variety of drugs in her system 

Last night reports also emerged that the drug may also be linked to the death of former One Direction star Liam Payne, though these have yet to be confirmed.