Tuesday April 21, 2026
Science —
Long after the high is gone, illegal drugs linger in the environment. Cocaine and its breakdown products, for example, are found in rivers and lakes worldwide. And like children living with secondhand smoke, wildlife in polluted waters—including tiny crustaceans, fish, and even sharks—can’t help but take up these drugs.
Less is known about the impact. In laboratory studies, water fleas exposed to cocaine swim faster and crayfish will venture behind their hiding places, a risky behavior in nature. Now, a research team has conducted the first experiment with fish in the wild. The findings, published today in Current Biology, show salmon exposed to cocaine and its main byproduct roam more widely. “It is an important and very interesting study,” says Mark Servos, an ecotoxicologist at the University of Waterloo who was not involved.