TV station detects cocaine on cash

HARTFORD, Conn., Nov. 11 (UPI) -- A Hartford, Conn., TV station says four out of nine bills it collected from local businesses tested positive for cocaine.

WFSB-TV said it collected ones, fives, a $10 bill and a $20 bill from a grocery store, a coffee shop and a gas station and turned the money over to Fred Smith at the University of New Haven for cocaine-exposure testing, the station reported Tuesday.

Smith said his equipment was designed to detect amounts of as little as 50 nanograms of the drug. He said one nanogram is about the size of a pinhead split into 1 million pieces.

He said four of the nine bills given to him by WFSB tested positive for cocaine exposure.

"The drug likes to stick to the fibers in money, and passes easily from bill to bill," Smith said. "It's virtually impossible to get high from the amount that's on the bills."

He said the drug also sticks to other common objects.

"We're probably touching objects contaminated with cocaine every day without knowing it," Smith said.