Scientists gave cocaine to Salmon and were SHOCKED when the Salmon swam faster

Salmon exposed to cocaine swim almost twice as far as those without it, according to a study released this week by researchers at Australia’s Griffith University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

They took 105 wild Atlantic salmon out of Sweden’s Lake Vattern, exposed them to cocaine and benzoylecgonine, which is what your liver turns cocaine into, and then tracked their movements. The coked-up salmon traveled 1.9 times farther per week than the sober salmon. The ones exposed to the metabolite swam an extra 7.6 miles.

I mean, no kidding. If you give any living creature cocaine, it’s going to perform at levels the sober mind could never dream of. That’s not groundbreaking science. That’s just how cocaine works. You could give cocaine to a turtle and it would set a land speed record. You could give cocaine to a sloth and it would clean the entire rainforest in an afternoon. This is not new information.

Cocaine Salmon Swim Faster Than Non-Cocaine Salmon

Salmon exposed to cocaine in the water swim longer distances than those that go without, according to a study released this week. https://t.co/wneV9NpMyg

— CBS News (@CBSNews) April 22, 2026

The researchers are framing this as an environmental concern because cocaine use is on the rise globally with an estimated 25 million people using it in 2023 according to the U.N. and the drug is increasingly showing up in waterways.

The salmon aren’t doing lines off a dock. They’re swimming through water that’s contaminated with human waste that contains traces of the drug. Which is a legitimate issue for biodiversity and waterway health and all of that.

Let’s be honest about what’s really happening here.

These “studies” are just an elaborate excuse for scientists to give a bunch of cocaine to sea creatures and see what happens. That’s the whole play. You write a grant proposal, you get the funding, you fly to Sweden, and you spend a few weeks feeding cocaine to fish in a beautiful lake while calling it research.

That is the greatest scam in academia and I respect the hell out of it.

A separate study from last month found that sharks in the Bahamas are consuming caffeine, painkillers, and cocaine. Another study from 2024 found that sharks off the coast of Brazil tested positive for cocaine. So the sharks are coked up too. The fish are coked up. The entire ocean is apparently on stimulants and the scientists studying it are having the time of their lives.

If someone handed me a bag of mushrooms and told me to go study the effects on the groundhog living in my backyard, I would be out there straight chillin for days.

Possibly weeks… conducting my “study” with the utmost scientific rigor.

Taking meticulous notes. Watching that groundhog do groundhog things while I contemplate the universe. I completely understand why these studies happen. The scientists aren’t stupid. They figured out how to get paid to do drugs with animals and publish a paper about it. That’s not science. That’s a lifestyle.

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