You can now snort chocolate to get high
By Jeremy Layton
July 4, 2017 | 6:20pm | Updated


This product could give a whole new meaning to the word “chocoholic.”

Coko Loko, a snortable chocolate powder that mixes cacao with ingredients commonly found in energy drinks, debuted last month as a legal, drug-free way to get a quick energy buzz.

But doctors are already voicing concerns about the inherent safety risk of putting chocolate up one’s nose.

The product was created by Nick Anderson, the 29-year-old entrepreneur behind the company Legal Lean. Marketed as a safer, legal version of codeine cough syrup (otherwise known as “lean” or “purple drank”), Legal Lean was designed as a stress reliever to “relax the mind.”

Coko Loko, however, serves an entirely different function. Along with cacao powder, the product contains gingko bilboa, taurine and guarana — ingredients commonly found in energy drinks like Red Bull and Monster. The result is a sharp energy kick that lasts 30 minutes to an hour, triggering an endorphin rush without the side effects of a sugar crash.

“It’s almost like an energy-drink feeling, like you’re euphoric but also motivated to get things done,” Anderson told the Denver Post.

Snortable chocolate is not exactly a new phenomenon. European clubgoers commonly use raw cacao as an alternative to harder stimulants, and Belgian chocolatier Dominique Persoone caused a stir in 2007 when he invented the Chocolate Shooter device for snorting cocoa powder.

Coko Loko uses cacao, which is processed at a lower heat than cocoa and retains more valuable nutrients. But medical professionals have long been concerned about the negative health effects from the powder’s other ingredients. Taurine and guarana have been shown to increase blood pressure and cause heart palpitations, and doctors fear the negative side effects can compound when the product is inserted directly into the nasal cavity.

“There are a few obvious concerns,” Dr. Andrew Lane, director of the Johns Hopkins Sinus Center, told the Denver Post. “First, it’s not clear how much of each ingredient would be absorbed into the nasal mucus membranes. And, well, putting solid material into your nose — you could imagine it getting stuck in there, or the chocolate mixing with your mucus to create a paste that could block your sinuses.”

The product is not approved by the Food & Drug Administration, and the agency has not yet decided how to regulate it.

Tins of Coko Loko are available in stores and online for $24.99 and have become mildly popular in Houston and Atlanta, according to the Denver Post.

http://nypost.com/2017/07/04/you-can-now...te-to-get-high/