Caffeine, cocaine, and painkillers detected in sharks from The Bahamas

Not surprising. A lot of these substances get metabolized, or just diluted by water and filtered out without being like, magically deconstructed and turned into all CO2 and H2O and N2. So a lot of wacky chemical compounds humans tend to consume tend to get detected wherever humans gather and discharge bodily fluids that eventually reach the ocean. This does not immediately indicate that e.g. evil corporations are dumping toxic wastes, forever plastics pieces are leaching out scary additives, etc.

This classifies Cocaine Shark as a documentary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocaine_Shark

The measured concentrations are on the order of 1-20 ng/mL in blood. Cmax in humans when taking those drugs are about 100-1000x higher.

I wouldn't put too much weight on the finding that those with detections had different urea/lactate etc. There might be something underlying explaining both drug and physiology, like age.

Could still be bad to have chronic exposure at such low levels - also fish physiology is different.

They probably ate lawyers from New York who were on vacation…

I wonder how much of this is just that our tests are getting more sensitive.

#justlikeus

this clearly points to an previously unknown seasonal migration from wall st.

First it was cocaine bear, and now cocaine shark.

Does that make for more aggressive sharks in the waters with unexplained behaviors?

Is caffeine really that bad?

After the "plastic glove" smoking gun the other day, I wonder if this is another instance of lab contamination making it into the results.

Sharks obtain cocaine by eating people?