In my current script, there’s a scene where someone is supposed to be murdered by having a large amount of cocaine (let’s say 10x more than an individual dose) secretly dumped into their food (or drink).
I want to know what would realistically happen in that scenario.
First of all, would the taste be very obvious? (in a glass of wine or in a bowl of soup)
Secondly, would it cause the same effects as traditional ingestion? Physically and mentally?
Lastly, would they die? And if so, how long would it take?
I came across some information on a drug use website that suggested that the oral ingestion of cocaine is “a waste”, meaning that it would be absorbed by the stomach and have no effect, aside from maybe numbing your throat and tongue. They were of course referring to a typical dose though, so I still want to know what would happen in my scenario. How much would ‘guarantee’ a quick death, and what would that death look like?
It has a very alkaline taste*, so yeah, you’d taste it. Maybe not so much if it were mixed into a large serving of mashed potatoes or something like that
Isn’t there plenty of cases where drug mules have died from cocaine-filled condoms bursting in their stomachs?
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Or perhaps that’s just a myth. I really don’t know.
So, the cocaine somehow miraculously survives the part of the manufacturing process where it’s precipitated from the industrial kerosene/ether leaf extract by concentrated sulfuric acid; but succumbs to the measly pH 1 in the gastrointestinal tract.
It depends on the person and their individual tolerance.
You would be able to taste it. Now the person might not be able to identify the taste, but something would be off to them.
The effects would not be as intense as would would have snorting or shooting the drug. The onset of effects would take long but the high would be there.
Again, it really depends on how much is ingested. I would think the amount needed to kill a normal person would be significant enough to stop said person from drinking or eating anything laced with it. You can taste it and cocaine does not exactly taste like citrus.
Cocaine is only destroyed slowly by the bodies enzymes, and not by HCl. In fact its a hydrochloride when it comes from the plant, what effect would adding more HCl have ???
Here’s a paper which says that oral ingestion is almost as good, it justs a bit slower, probably as the cocaine dilutes into a greater volume of fluids.
After I had some polyps removed from my nose and my septum straightened some years ago, they stuffed yards of cocaine bandage up there. I don’t remember getting high though.
I can answer the morbidity question (unfortunately). A family member died recently after ingesting cocaine (using a method called “parachuting” or “snow bombing,” where you wrap the cocaine in paper and ingest it). The immediate cause of death was ventricular fibrillation resulting in cardiac arrest.
So if your murderer is able to get the coke in something that *won’t[/I[ numb the mouth/alert the victim, and depending on a few factors, it could work. Can s/he empty some cold capsules and slip the coke in that way? Maybe mashed potatoes with a lot of gravy.
It’s not a myth. At a former job, I sometimes went to various state and Federal prisons to serve as an interpreter in deportation hearings. One hearing I observed was for a Nigerian guy who’d served as a drug mule and was caught when his flight was delayed, and stomach acid ate through one of the numerous condoms full of cocaine that he had swallowed. He was in the process of overdosing on arrival in the U.S. and was rushed to the hospital.
He lived, but ended up serving a very long prison sentence (IIRC he had swallowed cocaine with a street value of something link $7 million). If he lived to finish his sentence, he would then have been deported.
