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Most banknotes have traces of cocaine on them; this has been confirmed by studies done in several countries.〔 〕 In 1994, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals determined that in Los Angeles, out of every four banknotes, on average more than three are tainted by cocaine or another illicit drug. Additionally, paper money in other parts of the world show a similar drug contamination, and studies indicate that they might even serve as a vector of disease, though researchers disagree over how easily diseases are transmitted this way. Five dollar bills have the most cocaine on them. This is because five dollar bills are the most printed bills in the U.S. Several theories have been suggested to explain this contamination beyond the predictable contamination due to handling during drug deals and the use of rolled up notes for snorting drugs. After the initial contamination, the substance is "infected to" other notes in close contact, often stacked together, in enclosed environments common in financial institutions. ==In the United States== In a study reported in ''Forensic Science International'', A.J. Jenkins, at the Office of the Cuyahoga County Coroner (Cleveland, OH), the author reports the analysis of ten randomly collected one-dollar bills from five cities, and tested for cocaine, heroin, 6-acetylmorphine (also called "6-AM"), morphine, codeine, methamphetamine, amphetamine and phencyclidine (PCP). Bills were then immersed in acetonitrile for two hours prior to extraction and subjected to Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis. Results demonstrated that "92% of the bills were positive for cocaine with a mean amount of 28.75+/-139.07 micrograms per bill, a median of 1.37 μg per bill, and a range of 0.01-922.72 μg per bill. Heroin was detected in seven bills in amounts ranging from 0.03 to 168.5 μg per bill: 6-AM and morphine were detected in three bills; methamphetamine and amphetamine in three and one bills, respectively, and PCP was detected in two bills in amounts of 0.78 and 1.87 μg per bill. Codeine was not detected in any of the one-dollar bills analyzed". The study confirmed that although paper currency was most often contaminated with cocaine, other drugs of abuse may also be detected in bills. Another study, conducted at Argonne National Laboratory, found that four out of five dollar bills in Chicago suburbs contain traces of cocaine. Previous studies have found similar contamination rates in other cities. But the Argonne study is the first to demonstrate that if you handle contaminated bills, you won't wind up with drugs on your hands. "It's virtually impossible for cocaine to rub off", Argonne chemist Jack Demirgian said. This estimate of contamination could be as high as 94%, according to Bill and Rich Sones of the Chicago Sun-Times. This was confirmed by Ronald K. Siegel in his book, ''Intoxication: Life in Pursuit of Artificial Paradise'', who noted the figure as well. It was uncovered in the ''Sacramento Bee'' that while the initial source of the contamination comes from money used in the Illegal drug trade in circulation, the U.S. Federal Reserve unwittingly spreads the substance to clean currency by mixing the notes together. The Journal of Analytical Toxicology confirms this assessment, noting that counting machines (in addition to simple proximity) are the agents of transfer. The discovery that cocaine is so prevalent in U.S. banknotes has a legal application that reactions by drug-sniffing dogs is not immediately cause for arrest of persons or confiscation of banknotes. (The drug content is too low for prosecution but not too low to trigger response to drug-sniffing dogs.), though this has been contested legally in a number of U.S. states as a standard of what constitutes 'unusual' levels of contamination remains to be achieved (''see below''). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Contaminated currency」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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