THE dangers of using cocaine may be greatest on hot days.
Peter Marzuk at Cornell University in New York and his colleagues showed from
records of drug-related deaths that the average number of fatal cocaine
overdoses rises by a third when temperatures are above 31.1 °C.
The team says people are no more likely to take cocaine during hot weather.
They speculate in The Journal of the American Medical Association (vol
279, p 1828) that cocaine can put too much strain on users’ hearts if they are
already stressed by heat.
