Apparently “chocolate snorting” is a European trend that needed to be brought to the United States. After discovering that snorting cacao can give you a full body high, Legal Lean, an Orlando-based company, has released Coco Loko. It’s a cacao-based powder with all the components of an energy drink: ginkgo biloba, taurine, and guarana.
Nick Anderson, founder of Legal Lean, told the Washington Post that he invested $10,000 in making his own “raw cacao snuff” after trying chocolate snorting in Europe. His website says the powder offers a rush of endorphins, serotonin, euphoric energy, and “calm focus.” (Anderson also sells a legal version of “lean,” a drug made with codeine cough syrup and soda, for $12.50.)
The Post asked Dr. Andrew Lane of the Johns Hopkins Sinus Center whether snorting chocolate powder is safe. He said, “There’s no data, and as far as I can tell, no one’s studied what happens if you inhale chocolate into your nose. When I mention it to people, nobody’s ever heard of it.” He adds that he may just not be in the “in crowd.”
Lane speculates that risks include the possibility of “the chocolate mixing with your mucus to create a paste that could block your sinuses.” Still, he concludes, “Certainly this is better than using an illicit drug.”
So basically, it’s better than cocaine, but still, probably don’t do it.
