Cocaine cut with a drug used to deworm cattle is causing people’s ears and noses to literally fall off, and their doctors may not even know why, says a group of Canadian physicians.

“I equate it to voluntarily walking into a zone of radiation,” said Dr. Alan Kaplan, a family physician in Toronto. “You’re basically taking a chemical here that’s going to do similar things to you.”

It’s long been common practice for street dealers to cut cocaine with levamisole, a veterinary immune system drug that’s been banned from human use in Canada since 1999. Now, it’s mostly used to deworm cattle.

But the practice of cutting it with coke is on the rise in Canada, says the Canadian Rhinosinusitis Working Group.

The combination of the two drugs can cause major inflammation of the nasal and sinus passages. It can lower the white blood cell count and cause bone marrow problems. Read more…