Pink Cocaine: Ingredients, Effects, and Real Risks

Pink cocaine is a pink-dyed powder sold under the street names tusi and tuci, and it rarely contains cocaine. Laboratory testing identifies it as a variable drug mixture built around ketamine, frequently combined with MDMA and caffeine.

Composition changes from batch to batch. The pink color comes from food dye rather than from any active ingredient.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration reports that pink cocaine produces mind-altering, hallucinogenic effects comparable to MDMA. Its unpredictable chemical makeup, including occasional fentanyl contamination, creates the central danger.

Seizure records from New Jersey and prevalence data from the Northeast show the substance moving well beyond nightclub districts in Miami, New York, and Los Angeles.

Key Highlights

• •Pink cocaine contains no cocaine in most samples. DEA laboratory testing most often identifies ketamine as the base drug, with MDMA as the frequent second component.
• •An analysis of 68 samples labeled pink cocaine, tusi, or 2C-B collected between 2016 and 2024 detected ketamine in 94% and MDMA in 81%.
• •The DEA seized 960 pink powders between 2020 and 2025. Only 4 of those exhibits contained 2C-B, the psychedelic the tusi name originally referenced.
• •America's Poison Centers documented 18 pink cocaine exposures across four states beginning in January 2024, and 83% of those patients required medical treatment.
• •New Jersey State Police seized 250 grams of tusi alongside 57 kilograms of cocaine and 1 kilogram of ketamine in an April 2026 Bergen County trafficking case.

What is pink cocaine?

Pink cocaine is a pink-colored powder made from a changing mixture of illicit drugs, most often ketamine and MDMA. Street names include tusi and tuci. Laboratory analyses show that it usually contains no actual cocaine.

Pink cocaine is a marketing label rather than a defined chemical substance. Dealers blend available drugs, add pink food coloring, and sell the result under a single street name. Strawberry or bubblegum flavoring agents are sometimes added, producing the sweet odor associated with the powder.

The powder is typically snorted or swallowed in capsule form. Injection is uncommon. The only consistent property across seized samples is the color itself, which guarantees nothing about the contents.

This separates pink cocaine from single-compound drugs. A person using cocaine or methamphetamine consumes a known pharmacological agent at an uncertain purity. A person using pink cocaine consumes an unknown set of agents at unknown doses.

The DEA states plainly that the actual substances in pink cocaine remain unknown until a sample undergoes laboratory testing.

What is pink cocaine made of?

Pink cocaine is a polydrug mixture. Laboratory analyses most frequently detect ketamine, MDMA, and caffeine. Some batches additionally contain methamphetamine, cocaine, prescription opioids, synthetic cathinones, or fentanyl, and the exact formula differs from one batch to the next.

DEA laboratory work has identified pink powders containing ketamine with MDMA, methamphetamine with ketamine and MDMA, cocaine with fentanyl, and fentanyl with xylazine. A 2024 analysis published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry examined 68 samples submitted to a drug-checking program between 2016 and 2024 and found ketamine in 94% and MDMA in 81%.

Why is pink cocaine called tusi?

Pink cocaine is called tusi because the name approximates the pronunciation of 2C, referring to 2C-B. That psychedelic phenethylamine formed the original product. Current pink cocaine rarely contains 2C-B, yet the tusi and tuci names persist as marketing shorthand.

Chemist Alexander Shulgin first synthesized 2C-B in 1974. The compound circulated through club and rave scenes during the 1980s and 1990s. As international controls tightened and 2C-B supply contracted, trafficking organizations substituted a cheaper ketamine-based blend, dyed it pink, and retained the established name.

Alternative spellings include tuci, tussi, tusibi, and tucibi. Reported origins place early street circulation in Colombia, from which the product spread through Latin America, Spain, Italy, and into U.S. nightlife markets.

What does pink cocaine do to the body?

Pink cocaine produces mind-altering, hallucinogenic effects similar to MDMA, though the response depends on which drugs a specific batch contains. Documented effects include euphoria, distorted perception, hallucinations, agitation, elevated heart rate, and raised body temperature.

The following effects appear consistently across DEA, poison center, and medical toxicology reporting.

• •Euphoria, increased energy, and heightened sociability
• •Distorted sensory perception and visual hallucinations
• •Dissociation, confusion, and disorientation
• •Anxiety, agitation, and paranoia
• •Tachycardia and elevated blood pressure
• •Hyperthermia and hyponatremia, meaning dangerously low blood sodium
• •Nausea and vomiting
• •Seizures, rhabdomyolysis, and acute kidney injury in severe presentations
• •Respiratory depression and sedation when opioids are present

Onset and Duration by Component

Onset and duration track the component drugs rather than the powder as a whole. The table below reflects standard pharmacokinetic ranges for the substances most often identified in seized samples.

How does pink cocaine differ from cocaine?

Pink cocaine and cocaine share only a name. Cocaine is a single plant-derived stimulant alkaloid. Pink cocaine is a locally mixed synthetic blend built around ketamine, a dissociative anesthetic with a fundamentally different mechanism, duration, and risk profile.

Is pink cocaine addictive?

Pink cocaine carries substantial addiction risk because its component drugs are individually addictive. Ketamine produces psychological dependence and tolerance. MDMA, methamphetamine, and cocaine drive stimulant use disorders. Fentanyl contamination introduces rapid physical opioid dependence.

Regular ketamine use produces escalating tolerance, cravings, and a withdrawal presentation marked by fatigue, low mood, and cognitive impairment. Repeated MDMA and methamphetamine exposure depletes serotonin and dopamine signaling, producing depressed mood, anhedonia, and cravings between episodes of use.

Because a person cannot know which drugs a batch contained, dependence often develops without a clear understanding of its source. Clinically, this presents as Polysubstance Use rather than dependence on any single identified substance, and assessment must account for every agent involved.

Treatment for Polysubstance Abuse

Treatment for pink cocaine use addresses polysubstance use rather than a single drug, since the powder combines dissociatives, stimulants, and potential opioids. Clinical care begins with a full substance assessment, then matches the person to an appropriate outpatient level of care.

The Archangel Centers operates licensed outpatient addiction treatment programs in Tinton Falls, New Jersey and Matthews, North Carolina.

In New Jersey, the highest outpatient level is licensed as Partial Care and runs a full clinical day, Monday through Saturday. The Matthews center delivers the equivalent level as a Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP) across five days. Clients stepping down, or entering at moderate acuity, move into the Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP), with virtual IOP available to New Jersey residents, or into the weekly Outpatient Program (OP).

Medical detox and inpatient stays are arranged through accredited partner facilities, and recovery housing is coordinated with community partners.