Researchers who earlier this week found traces of cocaine in freshwater shrimp in rural England have now concluded that the shrimp likely tested positive for cocaine because their plug was all out of methamphetamine.
“Because of a combination of their diminutive size and living in a more claustrophobic environment than their saltwater counterparts, freshwater shrimp deal with numerous psychological issues and we’ve been aware for some time of their tendency to combat those issues by self medicating via cheap stimulants like bathtub crank and prescription diet pills,” said Dr. Randall Kirger, a professor at America’s Brown Valley Community College and the world’s foremost shrimp psychologist.
“The cocaine came as a surprise because it’s so unlikely that we would find that type of contamination in rural areas, where meth is king, especially knowing that shrimp colonies function on a very limited budget,” reports Chad Greenley, a marine researcher at Oxford. “In conducting local interviews, however, our team was able to pin down that a few local meth labs had recently been raided. Cause and effect, that reduces the local availability of the product. This means that the local plugs were probably in low or empty supply. The low concentration of cocaine in (the crustaceans’) systems likely indicates that the shrimp only had enough money on hand to buy meth, but not wanting to leave the plug empty-handed, they settled for a smaller quantity of cocaine, which is all the shrimp could afford.”
Researchers theorized that in the future, freshwater shrimp in the area might stop testing positive for cocaine if local law enforcement were to develop a more environmentally friendly policy of leaving the meth supply intact.
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