<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/a931b4ab-c3da-41e3-ba42-ae8eb1c15973/98F054FD-E05B-4504-A0DB-795777CA4018/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=cocaine-contaminates-majority-of-american-currency" href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=cocaine-contaminates-majority-of-american-currency" style="font-size: 11px;">www.scientificamerican.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=cocaine-contaminates-majority-of-american-currency"><H1>Cocaine Contaminates Majority of U.S. Currency</H1></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=cocaine-contaminates-majority-of-american-currency">August 16, 2009</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=cocaine-contaminates-majority-of-american-currency"><div align="center"><img src="http://content7.clipmarks.com/blog_cache/www.scientificamerican.com/img/D553452E-7E84-4682-B34C-7D2583C16480" alt="U.S. banknotes dollar bills" /></div></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=cocaine-contaminates-majority-of-american-currency">For cocaine users, a rolled up $20 bill may be the most convenient tool for snorting the <A href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=molecular-mechanism-of-co" linkindex="61">powder form of the drug</A>. Or so it would seem from a new analysis of 234 banknotes from 18 U.S. cities that found cocaine on 90 percent of the bills tested.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=cocaine-contaminates-majority-of-american-currency">What might be more surprising is the fact that the percentage of contaminated bills seems to be rising; just two years ago, Zuo did a similar study that found cocaine on only 67 percent of banknotes in Massachusetts. "It is too early to draw a conclusion about why," Zuo says. "The economic downturn may partly contribute to the jump."</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=cocaine-contaminates-majority-of-american-currency"><DIV> Levels of cocaine ranged from .006 micrograms to more than 1,240 micrograms—the equivalent of 50 grains of sand—on <A href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=chemical-test-ids-currenc" linkindex="66">U.S. bills</A>, and $5, $10 and $20 bills on average carried more contamination than $1 or $100 bills.</DIV></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/98F054FD-E05B-4504-A0DB-795777CA4018/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content8.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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