Contaminated currency
After the initial contamination, the substance is transferred to other notes in close contact, often stacked together, in enclosed environments common in financial institutions.
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.
[4][5] Another study, conducted at Argonne National Laboratory, found that four out of five dollar bills in Chicago suburbs contain traces of cocaine.
[9] According to the Journal of Analytical Toxicology, the initial source of the contamination likely comes from money used in the Illegal drug trade in circulation, and the U.S. Federal Reserve unwittingly spreading the substance to clean currency by mixing notes together via counting machines, in addition to simple proximity.
In addition to traces of illicit drugs, a recent study of currency within New York City have shown that various bacterial species of the human skin and oral flora are also transferred onto paper bank notes, including Cutibacterium acnes, Staphylococcus epidermidis and Micrococcus luteus.
In one raid in 2002, £465,000 was found which had been stored in a room where heroin was being prepared, and was so heavily contaminated that officers were advised not to touch it without protective equipment.
Subsequent tests have confirmed this determination, and serve as the basis for court cases against drug dealers, since the basic level of drug contamination remains fairly constant throughout the UK, despite factors that might immediately be thought to affect levels, like rural or urban environments, rich or poor or areas with high or low crime rates.
Drug users with hepatitis who share with others the rolled paper note (or straw) used to snort cocaine can facilitate the transfer of the disease to thousands.
As drug users are frequently impaired, they can easily fail to notice small traces of blood on these rolled banknotes.
[18] This is considered to be of particular concern, as eight out of ten carriers are unaware of their status (as hepatitis can lie dormant for decades), and have little in the way of access to regular healthcare .
"[18] Professor Graham Foster, of St Mary's Hospital, London, said: "Sharing banknotes or straws is a significant risk factor that people need to be more aware of.
[29] Similar concerns were raised during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, though further research conducted by the Bank of England found that banknotes were once again an unlikely fomite for transmitting the virus compared to contact with other objects and airborne transmission.
