Pubdate: Thu, 16 Nov 2000
Source: Reuters
Copyright: 2000 Reuters Limited.
Author: Patricia Reaney

SCIENTISTS TRACK ORIGINS OF COCAINE

LONDON (Reuters) - Science is closing in fast on international drug cartels.

U.S. researchers said on Wednesday they had devised an accurate method of 
tracing cocaine back to its country of origin, giving drug enforcement 
officials a powerful new weapon in their battle against traffickers.

"Science is catching up," James Ehleringer, of the University of Utah, told 
Reuters in an interview.

"We can tell who is pushing what."

By examining the so-called fingerprint of cocaine the scientists can tell 
where it came from, if a country is in compliance with drug regulations and 
whether or not the narcotics originated in the country where they were 
confiscated.

The technique will also help officials to reconstruct trade routes, tell if 
two samples have a common origin and identity new cocaine producing regions 
as they develop.

The manufacturing process that transform the coca leaves into the narcotics 
peddled on city streets does not alter the fingerprint.

Much like human DNA fingerprints, cocaine and other drugs like morphine and 
heroin have a distinct makeup.

But instead of looking at DNA, the scientists search for environmental 
signatures that determine the isotope ratios of carbon and nitrogen in cocaine.

"We've identified a fingerprint but we can't explain how we get the 
fingerprint, only that the fingerprint seems to be reliable," said 
Ehleringer, whose research is published in the science journal Nature.

He and his colleagues think soil composition, humidity and the length of 
the dry season influence the fingerprint.

"All these things are contributing to specific isotopes and basically what 
you have is a fingerprint plot, and the combination of environment and soil 
appear to be unique for a location," he added.

About 99 percent of the world's cocaine comes from Colombia, Bolivia and 
Peru. The scientists, who work closely with the U.S. Drug Enforcement 
Agency, can trace cocaine back to specific regions.

"If a piece of material (cocaine) comes in we have a pretty good 
probability of what country it originated from," said Ehleringer.
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