What is 'pink cocaine,' the recreational drug Liam Payne had in his system when he died?

we're learning more about the death of One Direction singer Liam Payne an initial toxicology report found Payne had several drugs in his system at the time including pink cocaine it's a recreational drug which is a combination of other drugs so we wanted to find out more about this joining us is Dr Jo Suzuki director of addiction Psychiatry at briam and Women's Hospital Dr Suzuki thank you so much for joining us yeah glad to be here so first of all what is pink cocaine so pink cocaine refers to a drug mixture that's been around predominantly in South America for a decade or more um popular as a party drug but now becoming more prevalent in the US and in Europe um it often represents a mixture of drugs predominantly ketamine uh with MDMA with pink food dieta to give it that characteristic color um cocaine can be found in it sometimes but it's actually not the most commonly found ingredient so it's a sort of a misnomer that is referred to as pink cocaine but you can find things like methamphetamine uh even opioids and sedatives um and that's what makes it particularly dangerous because you really don't know what you're ingesting what are the side effects or long-term risks of using it since it is such a mixture right so if the main ingredient is ketamine then it can cause things that are you know well described dissociation dep depersonalization uh nausea increased heart rate blood pressure but these effects are typically shortlived and you know self-limiting it becomes particularly ketamine itself becomes particularly dangerous at higher doses because it's a an uh dissociative anesthetic so it's an anesthetic uh you know medication but also in combination with other drugs particularly sedatives uh alcohol or opioids um and the combination is what really leads to you know potential fatal overdoses with with ketamine um the side effects are things like um uh obviously the psychiatric uh problems longer term it can it can cause cognitive issues uh liver problems but one of the most uh you know well described problem longer term is bladder problems which can be quite severe that can require surgery for example and I know you mentioned seeing it in Latin America is it something that we're seeing here locally uh we're not seeing it specifically here in Boston um but it's just a matter of time uh before this becomes much more commonly found in different Geographic areas and I wouldn't be surprised if we start to see this here locally as well okay Dr Suzuki thank you so much for your time we appreciate it