You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

Maybe you've heard of the movie Cocaine Bear, which came out in 2023.

It features a black bear going on a murderous rampage after eating 75 pounds of cocaine.

It's like cocaine Christmas. Oh my God. He's going to die. It's like cocaine Christmas.

And I couldn't help but think about it when I read a recent study asking.

Whether sort of trace amounts of these really potent neuroactive drugs that are in our environment

can actually affect the movement and behavior of fish in the wild.

That's Jack Brand, an aquatic ecologist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

And to answer that question, Jack and his team gave a bunch of salmon, cocaine.

For science.

Now, researchers know that prescription drugs pollute aquatic environments when people use the bathroom.

Past studies have shown even anti-anxiety drugs can change how fish act.

The fish become, as you'd expect, on anti-anxiety drugs, sort of more relaxed.

And that's not very good for a small fish.

A chill pill is not ideal when you have a lot of predators to worry about.

Beyond that, drugs people use can change how fish forage, how they mate and reproduce.

And Jack says these drugs are everywhere.

But scientists are just starting to understand the consequences for wildlife.

It's definitely present in most ecosystems on Earth now, unfortunately, these sorts of

issues of chemical pollution and pharmaceutical pollution. But we're only sort of really starting

to scratch the surface into understanding the potential consequences of that.

Yeah. to understanding the potential consequences of that. Today on the show, cocaine salmon.

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