Tuesday 20 February 2007

How lubricant stops drug addicts

One look at Pete Doherty in the cold light of day does it for some. Others need more proactive persuasion to stop absorbing cocaine through their nasal soft tissue.

The bars and clubs of central London, in the hope that customers will stop shoving their money up their noses in the toilets and shove it across the bar instead, have tried all sorts of things to stop cokeheads.

Some clubs employ bouncers to conduct random searches of toilet-bound customers. But there are drawbacks. The current bouncers' turf-war is one. The prospect of the self-same bouncers consuming their finds is another.

Other establishments remove any convenient coke-sniffing ledges from their loos, including toilet seats, but that is, if you'll forgive the expression, an inconvenience to other customers. In any case, your dedicated cokehead will use any flat surface, even a sticky toilet floor.

Now there's a development that promises a much higher success rate. It's a ploy that began in a Swindon pub, spread to Bristol, and now to a bar towards the north end of Dean Street, Soho.

In the toilets of this establishment, several large notices make the following announcement: "Every surface in this toilet has been sprayed with WD-40."

Excuse me? WD-40? The stuff we used to squirt on our bicycle hubs to loosen the nuts?

That's the stuff. And why? Well, apparently when cocaine comes into contact with WD-40 the resultant mixture, if sniffed, will cause every blood vessel in the nose to explode.

Burly bouncers, searches, missing loo seats... and now WD-40. It's enough to drive anyone to drink.
First Post:

... sounds like an April Fool to me - except this is only February.