In the Media

For media inquiries, please contact us at ndews-cc@ufl.edu.

Recent media highlights

Ketamine: NDEWS Deputy Director Joseph Palamar Featured in CNN FlashDoc Short on Ketamine’s Science and Stigma

January 10, 2025: Special K: The Science & Stigma of Ketamine

NDEWS Deputy Director, Dr. Joseph Palamar, was featured in CNN’s exclusive documentary 'Special K: The Science & Stigma of Ketamine.' The documentary explores ketamine’s evolution from a battlefield anesthetic to a party drug, and now to a promising treatment for mental health disorders. Dr. Palamar provides expert insights into the risks and challenges of an unregulated ketamine landscape.

'It's a cheap high:' How a party drug could become a lifesaving antidepressant via CNN

2024 Drug Trends: NDEWS Deputy Director Joseph Palamar featured in Salon

December 21, 2024: Psychedelics rejected, Captagon factories and "pink cocaine": The drugs that defined 2024 by Elizabeth Hlavinka

In Salon’s recap of 2024’s defining drug trends, Dr. Joseph Palamar, NDEWS Deputy Director, discusses the growing popularity of "pink cocaine," also known as “tuci.” This drug, a vibrant pink powder, is a mix of substances like MDMA, ketamine, and 2C-B but rarely contains actual cocaine. Its unpredictable composition makes it difficult to track and heightens the risk for people who use tuci. Dr. Palamar expressed concern over the potential for fentanyl contamination in tuci, which could turn the drug from a recreational novelty into a deadly threat. The spread of pink cocaine in Latin America, Europe, and the U.S. highlights the challenges of monitoring and mitigating risks associated with unregulated drug cocktails.

Cannabis leaves, pharmaceutical MDMA, and pink cocaine (aka Tussi) (Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images)

Tusi: NDEWS Deputy Director Joseph Palamar discusses NDEWS' web-monitoring efforts in reporting on pink cocaine via CBS News

November 25, 2024: "Pink cocaine" is the latest street drug. This team of researchers has been warning the public about it for a year by Tom Hanson, Laura Geller, Justin Sherman

NDEWS Co-Director Joseph Palamar, PhD, was recently interviewed by CBS News in a segment titled "Law enforcement raises warning over so-called pink cocaine." Palamar can be seen in the segment standing in front of a display of the NDEWS Web Monitoring Team's most recent report on pink cocaine, or tusi, as he explains how increased chatter on Reddit can be used to predict drug trends. NDEWS published its first alert on pink cocaine in February 2023.

Learn more about NDEWS Online Monitoring here: https://ndews.org/novel-surveillance/web-surveillance/

Tusi: NDEWS Deputy Director Joseph Palamar interviewed by VoX

November 4, 2024: What in the world is pink cocaine? By Celia Ford

"The fact that it’s a pretty color draws a lot of people in,” Palamar said. Cases of pink cocaine being contaminated with fentanyl have yet to be reported in the US, but that hasn’t stopped Palamar from worrying about it. Over the past several years, potentially fatal doses of fentanyl have been found in samples of fake prescription pills, methamphetamine, and cocaine. Given its rising popularity, it’s reasonable to think that pink cocaine could be next. Palamar urges users to act with intention: Know what your drugs are made of, and dose with caution.

Photo illustration by JooHee Yoon for Vox

Tusi: NDEWS Director Linda Cottler and Deputy Director Joseph Palamar quoted in The New York Times

October 22, 2024: What is 'Pink Cocaine'? by Emily Schmall

The New York Times reported on tusi, also known as pink cocaine, highlighting the DEA's reports on increasing distribution of the polysubstance, which is often found to contain ketamine in addition to other substances. “Ketamine is going to dethrone Ecstasy very soon, and tusi is really going to bump it up,” NDEWS Deputy Director Dr. Joseph Palamar was quoted as saying in the article. NDEWS Director Dr. Linda Cottler told the New York Times that she considers pink cocaine among the most dangerous club drugs because dealers and users rarely know what is mixed into any given batch. Palamar also spoke about the potential dangers. “All you need is one drug dealer to mix fentanyl into their tusi batch,” he said. “They have the ability to poison a bunch of people.”

Photo credit: Getty Images via The New York Times

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Last modified: 01/27/2024

The National Drug Early Warning System (NDEWS) is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (U01DA051126) to the University of Florida (PI: Cottler; Co-Is: Goldberger, Nixon, Striley), New York University (Deputy Director: Palamar), and Florida Atlantic University (Co-I: Barenholtz).