'Drug Loo' Automates Rectal Drug Removal, Grossly

By Rosie Gray Sun., May 29 2011 at 11:35 AM

Categories: 'damn.', Drugs, Ew, Rosie Gray, Trains, Planes, and Automobiles

Think of the grossest thing you can come up with. No, not that. Not that either! Ew, dude. Yes, the grossest thing is reaching up into a drug mule's rectum and removing drugs they've stored there in an attempt to smuggle them hassle-free through airports. Thanks to modern technology, the good people at JFK no longer have to do this. There is a high-tech contraption known as the "Drug Loo" which, and there's really no polite way of saying it, but I guess basically drug mules take a shit in it (or does it suck everything OUT of them?) and it separates the fecal matter from the drugs.

"It is very much an automated system," a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol official told the Daily News. Apparently more "internal couriers" go to the JFK drug loo than at all of the other ports monitored by Customs combined. That's a lot of drug-littered excrement.

This article didn't really go into detail about how exactly the drug loo functions, but I suppose we can all just imagine it and be okay with that, right? Apparently, once "nature calls," the automated system sanitizes the evidence. This year, 47 suspects have been sent to the drug loo. What if you don't need to go? Do they give you laxatives? Oh, how I wish I'd never clicked on the article about the drug loo!

Interesting tidbit: officers are starting to see older drug mules in their 60s and 70s, it seems.

A 63-year-old grandmother from Nigeria made the trip to the drug loo on Mother's Day and passed 80 pellets of heroin.
Swallowers have been known to carry between 70 and 200 pellets, for a total haul of anywhere from 1 to 4 pounds, Humphrey said.

The thought of a 63-year-old grandma being sent to the drug loo on Mother's Day is so saddening that we should all stop thinking about this story right away. Everyone go outside now.

[rgray@villagevoice.com] [@_rosiegray]

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