Weird question for the brain trust, what does cocaine smell like?
 

I have been watching a series on National Geographic called "To catch a Smuggler" and they go to various airports and border crossings and show the smugglers getting caught trying to sneak illegal drugs through.

Some are pretty ingenious, most are just stupid.

In Columbia, surprise surprise, cocaine is the most smuggled product. In Spain, all flights from Columbia get extra scrutiny.

One dummy walked off the airplane with his luggage evidently reeking of cocaine, and the cops just grabbed him on the walkway and checked his bag, and it was full of several kilos of very pure bricks of coke.

In several other airports the officers dig into a suitcase and they get a scent of coke, and rip the bags apart and get brutal with the luggage to get to the coke. They regularly mention the strong smell of coke.

So my question is that a smell that anyone is willing to describe? Is it an earthy plant smell, or some sweet or sharp smell? I honestly have no idea as I have never been close to coke, and I was Just curious. I would expect most "street" coke is cut with all sorts of stuff, and smells like what it was cut with. It must have a strong odor for so many of the officers in the show to comment on it.

I have never used any sort of illegal or recreational drug beside alcohol and I only like beer. Legal to posses and available in many places.

I hate with a passion the skunk stink of marijuana as I have unfortunately had to smell that crap. It is worse than a stinky cigar, pipe or cigarette, and they all stink and are revolting.

The series has been interesting.

And this thread is not a discussion on the war on drugs. That is a separate thread for PARF. I just have an honest question about the smell of cocaine. I never want to try it, but I am just wondering if that smell can be described.

I don't recall it having an odor.... Been a looong time ago however. ahhh the 80's!

Must have a very faint smell as whenever you see people in films smelling it they always seem to really have to a take long hard sniff :confused:

No one really knows. It’s all cut with maximum additives by the time it gets out of the factory…

ask the 'cocaine bear' :)

What's even more interesting is what does it taste like? I see it on TV with cops taking a taste to determine if it is coke (I am sure they don't do this in real life) or the buyer have a bit of taste and says,this is good stuff. What does it taste like? What's considered good? If there's certain taste, the seller should be able to use additives to achieve that taste?

I'd say a very medicinal clean smell. If put on your gums its very similar to orajel (Benzocaine) or novacaine. Incredible numbing effect.

My buddy in High School's father was a dentist...had lots for gum numbing.
He always had a supply.

I was never into it....beer was better for me then.

Pure cocaine can have a sweet-ish flowery scent but only in totally pure form. It's taste is typically bitter somewhat metallic.

I did chromatographic profiling of it back in the day.

No smell when almost pure; MO - but if so all the stuff to cut it with. The taste is very sharp in an unpleasant way. Sort of like when you chop up aspirin raw without the coating

I worked in bars, and in one in particular where coke was VERY prevalent. I had managers and other employees offer me some. At night when the lights came on, you'd occasionally find little ziplock bags the size of a thumbnail with coke in them. One regular was told to stay away for a while because the owners had heard that the DEA was watching the place. I heard stories of raids before my time where they brought in drug dogs, and the dogs just went nuts, and couldn't pinpoint anything presumably because they were surrounded by it everywhere.

In the year that I worked there, and the other almost 4 years that I worked in other bars (where it was around) I have never done anything other than see it in the little baggies.

I also always see the bit about tasting, it, and apparently, that's a real thing. I'd potentially do that. I don't have the type of personality to become addicted to things or even enjoy being buzzed. I've never had anything other than alcohol. The only time that I ever remember feeling anything that might have been like being high was when I woke up from general anesthesia after having all 4 wisdom teeth removed. I vaguely remember being pretty happy.

Um hmm.

No smell.

In pure form it must have a strong smell from what the show depicts. The scene that prompted the question showed a man rolling a large suitcase along a corridor at the airport, and he just rolled past a cop and the cop alerted to the "strong odor" of coke. He had 12 bricks of very pure cocaine pressed into hard bricks with a logo (that they blurred for TV) on them to show the buyer they were pure and from a certain source.

All the customs and border agents and the cops all mentioned the strong odor.

I process film for 25 years. We would get 100s of rolls of film in per day, many still in the plastic cans Kodak sold the film in. I spent a lot of time dumping the 35mm film cans out of the plastic cans, and tossing the plastic cans in a special trash can just for the plastic cans. More than once I dumped out some funny green "tea" leaves that were in the can, and I just called some of the the other employees over to please "dispose" of it, and no one ever objected to cleaning it up. One time there was a lot of white powder in one can. Several employees were happy to taste it and rub it on their gums, and dispose of it. I never thought to ask if it had a taste or odor. I could not imagine putting an totally unknown white powder in my mouth. Belch.

The leafs were/are chewed as a stimulant by workers and is sorta like coffee at that level.
Been to a party with a small soup bowl on the table but never felt the appeal. For medicine definitely.
Processed with all kinds of chemicals. Might as well sniff glue.

WW2 pilots used a lot of meth pills to stay awake. Government issued.

There is no incentive to cut the product when leaving the source. The more you smuggle the more profit available to the distribution once at the destination, or primary destination. I'm sure wholesale dealers are willing to pay more for what they can get more out of.

From what I know, it used to be cut with a baby laxative in the 70's. IDK why a baby would need a laxative, never had any (babies).

I don't remember a smell. It would instantly num your gums. I have heard that eye surgeons once used cocaine because it dissolved so quickly and effectively with no adverse aftermath. That could be an old wives tale and I'm not looking it up.

Ya, I don't think pure would have much smell. Especially if packaged properly.
But if you saw it on TV, it must be true!

Could it be a matter of quantity? I'm not ashamed to admit that I've been around plenty of coke in my time (I've related here many times how far out of control I got when I lost my father at 18). I actually don't regret those years, I kind of value what they taught me. A peek behind the "curtain" that far too many who have never been there like to expound upon. But I digress...

So, back to quantity. I've seen ounces of it at a time laid out on scales. No smell that I could detect. This was absolutely uncut stuff, since at that level of their little supply chain that nonsense was not tolerated. That happens way down at the schitthead street dealer level.

There are chemicals used to process it from leaf to powder, of course. I wonder if when packed into bricks these chemicals have not fully flashed off and evaporated. Maybe that happens pretty quickly after those tightly packed bricks are broken open and broke down into ounces and grams, where it is spread out as a powder. That's about the only thing I can think of.

We actually record that series "To Catch a Smuggler" on NatGeo. It's very entertaining!

Same situation here, have known people that did (some may still) and was definitely huge in the bars and private clubs in the 80s.
On a more recent note, close to 20 years or so. There use to very a cool dive bar not far from me, Vinnie and a few other Bird board members have been there with me. During the 70s, 80s and 90s it was pretty wild . Jim, the owner was a friend of mine, locally connected, (the CPA he used, who was right next door was dating the sheriff) . After Jim died, his two sons ran it, and literally ran it into the ground. Between serving their underage friends, ignoring the locals who kept the doors open and brought drugs out in the open. I was sitting next to Tyler one time and a friend of his comes in the bar, now it was a U bar, and yells ACROSS the bar, "Tyler, need a Bump?". Well I started spending much less time there and a longtime friend who is in law enforcement saw me at the club and pulled me aside. He said they were watching the bar and I should avoid it until he tells me otherwise, which I did.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1678725112.jpg

It smells like brake fluid.

I doubt the recipe is on the Net and IDT I want to search it. But didn't they soak the leaves in acetone and then distill the solution? Or just let it evaporate and scrape up the residue? Seems like there was one more step (np pun).

Anyway, acetone would not leave much of an odor.

Somebody please post the "Taxi - Rev Jim and Latka's cocaine cookies" clip :).

Broke my nose in college .... infirmary doc used cocaine liquid on a swab to totally numb it.....

'twas never my thing ... "it enhances yer personality" ... and I was an azzhole :D

Cocaine numbs the gums as well.

Going to want to go with a non polar solvent for the extraction from the coca leafs. acetone is the last step for purification.

"...but that's no reason to throw me in hell, cause I didn't use the cocaine to get high, I just like the way it smells"

From the song 'Conversation with the Devil' by Ray Wylie Hubbard

I remember reading somewhere about Elvis' minions using this to wake him out of his drugged-out haze when he needed to get up & going :(

It doesn't, but never waste an Apoc Now clip.

<iframe width="640" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xdzoIHJBGt0" title="Smells like Victory" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>

In a world of stupid endeavors I tried to make my own, doing cocaine is a bus I am happy to have missed.

Heaven?? Just sayin....

there are many factors like what it was cut with or production method (solvents). i don't buy that it can be smelled while being smuggled through a port of entry as the packagers go to great lengths to seal the product. pretty good read here https://www.thewoodsatparkside.com/how-is-cocaine-made-the-cutting-agents-may-surprise-you/

i have not done it in 20 years or so, but it always seemed to smell a bit different. what I do recall is I had to take a dump as soon as i got my package in my pocket. it also from time to time would make me throw up, especially if I had just eatin a meal.

im old now and know better. it was fun at the time i guess.

It smells a bit like a sweet solvent, little bit like hoppes9 but thats probably not the actual cocaine, but the production process leftovers...

You do get it more as fresh off a brick than old stuff that has passed to many hands and was repackaged

Yeah, but that's because you were going to use the top of the toilet tank...

Interesting, that's some more info than I'd previously had. I know that the bar manager that I worked with/for at the one place where it was ubiquitous (really, strangely widespread and open) would leave work on Sat night (Sun morning) and not infrequently, when he and I would show up for work Tue afternoon, he wouldn't have slept or eaten since before the last time that I saw him.

It has been fascinating to watch the series as they move to different countries, and catch smugglers, and people with fake passports. Evidently Albina is a real hub of citizens trying hard to get out of the country and into Ireland or Great Britain.

One lady had what looked like the meat sold at the deli, and she had 5 or 6 of them in her luggage. They were in the plastic net wrapping, and inside that was vacuum packed with labels and all real enough looking. They sliced open the meat, and inside was a kilo of coke in each one. Off to jail for 6 to 12 years for her.

Lots of people bring in food from home. Weird plants and meats. New Zealand tries hard to protect the island from invasive plants and insects. It is amazing what people try to bring in.

And they show the cargo and mail operations. The dogs are amazing at whet they can catch my smell. Some dogs are trained to smell cash, but most are drug dogs. They had one package that was packed in a large pot, filled with coffee, inside that was a double layers vacuum packed tubs of peanut butter, inside that was a plastic jar, vacuum sealed, and inside that was MDMA. The dog caught that he as he walked past. The shipment was worth over a million bucks on the street.

The "one or two" times I was around it, I thought it had a very distinctive smell. Maybe it was the chemical for processing it or what it was cut with but it's so distinctive that anytime I smell that small, the memory comes in.

People who use it have a very distinct odor.

Kinda sour.

If you are smuggling it you are probably also using it.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1678804995.jpg

I have continued to watch the series on Nat Geo, "To Catch a Smuggler". Various countries have people try to bring drugs through the airports or on shipments. Of course they only show the ones that were caught.

One thing the inspectors regularly do is sniff the laundry, or large insulated winter coats.

They do a test and the swab turns blue. The purer the cocaine the brighter the blue. Cut coke has just a pale blue color, and the very pure compressed bricks are vivid blue.

One of the inspectors opened a suitcase and made a face like she smelled something unpleasant. One of the other inspectors said that has a strong odor, and she said it is a weird sort of bad mustard smell. They tested it and it was almost pure uncut cocaine.

Smugglers have figured out how to liquefy in and put it in bottles of shampoo or face cream of about any liquid. They can mix is with a rubber, and apply it as a layer to make it look very convincingly like the inside of luggage.

The most astonishing thing are the drug sniffing dogs. At the US - Mexico border a dog alerted on the back of a car. They took it back for further inspection and could not find anything in the car, so one inspector dropped the gas tank, siphoned off some gasoline, and looked inside the tank. There were multiple packages floating in the gas. They were shrink wrapped in multiple layers of heavy plastic to protect the coke for the gasoline. So floating in gasoline, in the rear of a car wrapped in multiple layers of plastic the dog could smell it. Dogs are just amazing. And all he wanted was to get the play with his toy and the handler.

My Lab has a nose that won't quit, and came from a first rate breeder of over 500 pups over 30 years. Champion stock .... a lot of them became search & rescue sniffers or drug dawgs .... her nose, athleticism and stamina are simply amazing :).

If a smuggler tries to hide a tennis ball inside a suitcase full of cocaine .... she'll find it :D

Cocaine was (maybe still is) often cut with a powdered baby laxative. Wouldn't have any effect if still in the package though...you'd have to snort it to get that 'cleansing' effect.

I only smelled it once, but didn't inhale .
I always thought it had tinge of kerosene, or some industrial solvent