War on drugs strikes great victory against cocaine, for cancer

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8044275.stm

Prices per kilo have risen from £39,000 last year to over £45,000 per kilo, but street prices have remained the same [...]

drug gangs are using increasing amounts of chemicals - so-called cutting agents - to dilute cocaine powder sold on the streets of Britain.

They include the cancer-causing drug phenacetin, cockroach insecticide and pet worming powder.

Surely its harder/more expensive to get hold of and cut with those chemicals than other less lethal stuff?

I know a veterinarian in Trinidad, for example, who wouldn't think twice about it, because horse antibiotics or pig anti-dandruff medication or whatever are expensive—sure—but that's his only way of passing the margin along to the first world. So it's not exclusively a third-world "drug gang" problem. Some of this comes from the legitimate businessmen in the 2nd- and 3rd-world who have ample supplies of cutting agents we would find expensive in the first world.

FBI special international drug team here. reveal the name and location of your veterinarian contact in trinidad, for example, or we will cut off your internet access