From The Daily Mail:
In a list of places where people do drugs, it's probably one of the last you would expect to find a class A substance. However, incredibly, traces of cocaine have been found in more than nine out of 10 baby-changing units in the north west, research has found. An examination of more than 100 units - including facilities in public toilets, shopping centres, police stations, courts and churches - found that 92 per cent of them carried traces of the class A drug...
You'd need nerves of steel to take cocaine in a police station or court, and I didn't know that churches had toilets, but apart from that, so what?
It is, for example, quite possibly the case that cocaine residue is very difficult to clean away and/or that baby changing units are not cleaned very often or very thoroughly. So if a baby-changing unit has only been used for sniffing cocaine a single time in the past few days, which might mean a single visitor out of dozens or hundreds, it still shows up as positive.
Or possibly nine-out-ten UK babies are addicted to cocaine, but that does seem unlikely. How would they fund their habits, for a start?
Monday 19 December 2011
Meaningless statistic of the day
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9 comments:
I read the self same thing years ago, concerning bank notes. Oddly enough, 9 out of ten had traces of cocaine on them.
This is just a regurgitation, I reckon.
Cocaine isn't as new-fangled as we would like to think: traces were found in pyramids. They were dated (somehow) to 6,000 years BC.
They also found traces of tobacco, which pleased me greatly!
CR.
anecdotal but I once interviewed a man who was responsible for refilling ATM machines in a department store. Of course, to the displeasure of the HR person beside me, I asked him about cocaine on bank notes. He said that he had noticed a substantial build-up of white powder in the machines over time, which caused problems for the machinery. So he thought it was probably true.
Cocaine residues could be very old and as you suggest an indicator of cleaning frequency and thoroughness as much as anything else.
Modern techniques can detect such tiny amounts that interpretation isn't easy. Residues are found in river water as users piss it away and cocaine derivatives pass through the sewage works and into the river. It is certainly in the Thames.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7798-river-flowing-with-cocaine-indicates-vast-drug-use.html
I didn't know that churches had toilets, but apart from that, so what?
Oh they do - just look at the Occupiers at St Pauls. It's called an inside wall.
I know of someone who walked into a police station with dope in his pocket. We just nicked him for selling fake wine. Not sure if he has nerves of steel or is just a prat.
CR, the nine out of ten rule applies to bank notes as well, because they pass through [lots of] hands between printing and being burned again, and [a small number of] intermediate owners use them to sniff cocaine.
Diog, maybe banks could make a few quid extra by cleaning their ATMs ever now and then and selling the residue.
AKH, if we are prepared to believe that nine out of ten babies take cocaine, then it's quite probably true that nine out of fish take it as well.
JH, is it not the case that the City of London or the Church of England, with all their spare £ billions, could install a few outside portaloos or something for everybody's mutual benefit?
SL, did you nick him for the dope as well, or how did you find out about it?
Since they are an enclosed lockable space, baby changing units would seem an ideal place to indulge in all manner of anti-social behaviour, cocaine abuse included.
B, good point. I like using disabled toilets, but baby changing room will do.
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