damn that "eurotrash"

[vicman]

courtesy of NB

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BERLIN (Reuters) - Almost all euro banknotes circulating in Germany contain traces of cocaine, scientists said on Wednesday, as notes rolled up by users to snort the illegal drug contaminate the cash system.

"Nine out of 10 banknotes show clearly measurable amounts of cocaine," Fritz Soergel from the Institute for Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Research in Nuremberg told Reuters on Wednesday. Some 600 euro notes were examined in the study.

The study could not provide conclusive evidence on levels of cocaine usage in Germany and the euro zone but Soergel said there was a clear correlation between the findings and levels of recorded cocaine abuse in European countries.

"Studies have shown that the amount of cocaine found on banknotes in countries where there is less cocaine usage, such as France, Finland and Greece, is much lower than in countries where it is more widespread," he said.

Results from a separate study the institute carried out on euro notes in Barcelona were particularly startling, he said.

"We were almost knocked flat by what we discovered there. The concentrations of cocaine on Spanish euro notes were almost a hundred times that of what we recorded in Germany," he said.

An investigation in London in 1999 showed more than 99 percent of banknotes in circulation were tainted with the drug.

Tests by the European Union (news - web sites) on national currencies of countries now using the euro prior to its introduction in 2002, showed the deutschemark had the third highest level of cocaine contamination behind the Spanish peseta and the Irish pound.

The prevalence of cocaine traces on paper money is often attributed to cash counting machines in banks, which mix contaminated notes with uncorrupted ones.

Soergel said the concentrations found suggested other reasons than cross-contamination which demanded further research. "The problem goes much deeper," he said.

Neither the German government nor European Central Bank, who print the notes, would comment on the findings, which made the front page of several leading newspapers on Wednesday.

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:laugh: