Traces of cocaine in U.S. currency? It’s more likely than you think.

The legend has been around a long time. Now, scientists have proven that there are indeed minute amounts of the drug lurking within the fibers of our paper money. In fact, up to 90 percent of United States currency contains measurable amounts of the fine white powder. And hot on the heels of this revelation comes a small, illicit cottage industry: people extracting the coke from the currency and selling it on the street.

These opportunistic “drug recovery experts” typically buy large amounts of small bills from banks - twenties are in hottest demand as they usually yield the most cocaine - then extract the drug by soaking the bills in common solvents like denatured alcohol. After completion of the process, the bills are allowed to dry, then they are sold back to banks where more are purchased. The refinement yields a fine brownish powder that contains roughly 70 percent cocaine.

While only a handful of enterprising individuals are known to be engaged in this tedious process, the payoff can be quite lucrative: a typical 2-person extraction lab with minimal equipment can recover up to 1kg per day of refined cocaine. The so-called “Jackson brown” is already hitting the streets in Miami, Los Angeles and Houston, selling for about $60 a gram.

The DEA is alarmed at the new “micro market” of Jackson brown, and is developing plans to locate the extraction labs. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve appears unfazed by this development, even supportive.

“If people want to clean up our paper money and get a little coke out of the deal, we’re cool with that,” said Monica Schneiders, spokesperson for the Federal Reserve. “You know how many germs are in those banknotes? Well…a lot, lemme tell you. Those druggies are actually doing a service here, and our paper money lasts longer when it’s kept clean.”

Meanwhile the DEA is issuing warnings to potential users of the drug.

“The stuff is seventy percent cocaine,” said a DEA field agent in south Florida. “Which means another thirty percent is something else. Bits of paper fibers and all the nasty, grungy stuff rubbed off of everybody’s fingers. You know where all those fingers have been? Eeeeewwwww!”

Meanwhile, no extraction labs have been uncovered yet by drug enforcement agents.