The substance is pink in color, sometimes smells like strawberry and in Europe it goes by different names: tucibi, tusi, pink powder. More commonly, it’s called pink cocaine, and it’s considered a luxury drug for the wealthy: A single gram costs $90, $100, or $120.
The same amount of regular cocaine costs about 70 euros, according to a report published this year by the Spanish Observatory on Drugs and Addictions (OEDA in Spanish). But pink cocaine is neither cocaine nor luxury.
Between 2019 and 2022, Energy Control – an organization that works for the safe consumption of drugs – analyzed 150 samples of pink cocaine. He found dye in almost all of them and cocaine in only two of them. Most pink cocaine was a cocktail of various cheaper drugs. 44% of the samples contained ketamine, MDMA (ecstasy) and caffeine.
Very good marketing
“It’s important to demystify Pink Coke. After all, this is a booming business. They sell it as something very exclusive, but it’s a regular triphasic drug,” said Berta de la Vega, coordinator of Energy Control in Madrid, Spain.
Triphasic refers to a mixture of ketamine with stimulants such as ecstasy (in this case) or speed, a type of amphetamine. It works to counteract the depressant effects of ketamine and is easy and cheap to make. A gram of MDMA costs 40 euros, sometimes a little less, ketamine costs about 20 to 35 euros, and powdered caffeine can be bought online quite cheaply.
“You take a little bit of each, mix them together, add the pink color, a little strawberry smell and, voila, you sell it for 120 euros,” added de la Vega.
Ignacio, a 25-year-old who lives in Madrid, said that whenever he took tusi, his friends gave it to him so he didn’t have to pay 100-plus euros a gram. Before trying it, he wasn’t sure what it was – from what he’d heard, it was “a potpourri” of drugs
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Tusi: I know what you’re getting (#TusiSabesLoQueTeMetes)
Last summer, Energy Control launched the Tusi: I Know What You’re Taking (#TusiSabesLoQueTeMetes) campaign, an initiative to raise awareness about the substances one consumes and the dangers of buying a drug thinking it’s something else.
This is especially true for mixtures that combine drugs. Some of the samples analyzed by the organization even contained crushed acetylsalicylic acid, or common aspirin. De la Vega warned that “if one does not know what one is taking, it is more difficult to control the desired results.”
In the case of tusi, the risk depends on the ratio of the substances in the mixture as well as on the other drugs it is taken with. For example, if a person uses pink cocaine that is high in ketamine and also drinks alcohol, this will enhance the depressant effects of both substances, which can lead to loss of coordination, sedation, and blackouts. If ecstasy is the main ingredient, taking it with alcohol causes dehydration and increases the risk of heatstroke.
“Who knows what it contains or what it is made of. The only constant is color”
Ignacio, a 25-year-old who lives in Madrid, said that whenever he took tusi, his friends gave it to him so he didn’t have to pay 100-plus euros a gram. Before trying it, he wasn’t sure what it was—from what he’d heard, it was “a potpourri” of drugs.
He asked several acquaintances who regularly did pink cocaine and found that it was different every time: “Who knows what’s in it or what it’s made of. The only constant is the color,” he emphasized.
The drug is also always expensive. Ignacio doesn’t usually see pink cocaine that often because it’s expensive, he said, but he doesn’t see the drug as exclusive to “wealthy circles.”
Ignacio “has often seen it in electronic music venues, especially festivals or big clubs, in the same places where you see other drugs.” He wouldn’t categorize it as a fashion drug, although a few years ago he hardly ever saw it, and in recent months he has encountered it several times at parties.
“It is very important to make a clarification. The media have used the terms tusi and 2-CB interchangeably. It’s not the same. 2-CB is a different substance”
Photo: YouTube
The “simple traders”
For Ignacio’s friends, at least, it’s easy to get. They buy it from “simple dealers” who sell various drugs, including tusi. Given how expensive the substance is, Ignacio was surprised that his friends’ regular dealer gave them “a little” on two occasions. When they contacted the merchant to buy pills, he gave them a bag of the pink substance for free.
Spanish police sources say that, until now, it had been “seized mostly in small quantities”. Pink cocaine is usually sold and consumed in individual bags like other narcotics. For now, the sources add, drug trafficking is not a concern.
They were arriving in suitcases at Spain’s Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport from Latin America
However, recently, police announced that they had dismantled a ring that was trafficking pink cocaine, as well as regular white cocaine, destined for distribution in Malaga, southern Spain, and the capital Madrid.
The drugs were airlifted and arrived in suitcases at Spain’s Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas airport from Latin America, where the network had partners to bypass screening of luggage containing the drugs. Authorities arrested seven people and seized 24 kilograms of cocaine and 120,000 euros hidden in a suitcase at Barajas airport.
When they searched the homes of the group’s members, police seized another 26 kilograms of cocaine, along with almost eight kilograms of pink cocaine, €110,000 in cash, nine high-tech vehicles and a firearm with 500 rounds of ammunition.
Tusi and the capitalist logic
“It is very important to make a clarification. The media have used the terms tusi and 2-CB interchangeably. It’s not the same. 2-CB is a different substance,” De la Vega explained. The OEDA report notes that it is the “third most commonly consumed new psychoactive substance” after ketamine and spice, a synthetic cannabinoid.
María Elena Cogollo, of the Spanish Police’s drug analysis team, explained that the consumption of the drug has not yet become problematic.
Another difference between tusi and 2-CB is how they are processed. “The second is more complicated. It requires know-how, additional materials, waste management, a series of reagents… Not everyone can do it,” said De la Vega.
The coordinator of Energy Control believes that many dealers take advantage of the fact that customers confuse one substance with another and sell everything at a high cost, regardless of the type of drug: “Although it is an unregulated market, the capitalist logic it is established in it. If something costs less money and they can make more profit, so much the better.”
