Breathe Deep

I've just made travel arrangements for Spain. A new study has found the air in Madrid and Barcelona is laced with at least five drugs!

The Superior Council of Scientific Investigations, a government institute with a fancy name, said that in addition to cocaine, the most prominent, it found trace amounts of amphetamines, opiates, cannabinoids and lysergic acid (a relative of LSD) in air-quality control stations in the cities. But it said there was no reason for alarm. How about celebration?

"Not even if we lived for a thousand years would we consume the equivalent of a dose of cocaine by breathing this air," said one of its scientists, Miren Lopez de Alda, in the statement. The scientific group added that "in no case should these levels be considered representative of the air in the two cities". Maybe I should just change those plans and go to Amsterdam instead.

In Madrid the test site was close to a ruined building believed to be frequented by drug dealers. And in both Madrid and Barcelona, the studies were carried out close to universities. The group also said that the study showed higher concentrations of the components on weekends, suggesting that drug consumption was up in these periods. Uh, duh. I wonder if this is the same group who said breathing car exhaust could be unhealthy, and did their study from inside a tailpipe. It's like saying there's a level of fart and methane in the air at Hometown Buffet. This more like the "your money has cocaine on it tale" than suggesting the air quality runs from good to fair to stoney.

I think I may dismiss the next shocking result of their study that libraries have books.