As if another example were needed that reality is always stranger than fiction, now comes the story of a bear under the influence of cocaine. What Cocaine Bear shows is the result of fiction, but the idea is inspired by a fact as real as that water is wet. In December 1985, a short piece appeared in The New York Times with the headline: “Cocaine and a Dead Bear.” The note referred to the discovery of a black bear that had apparently died of an overdose. In the final part, it was remarked that the substance was cocaine that had been thrown from a plane by a well-known trafficker who had also died trying to complete a parachute jump from the same plane.

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