Coco Loko, a new product containing chocolate and energy-drink ingredients all ground into a powder, was made to be snorted. According to the website, doing so gives the user a “steady rush of euphoric energy and motivation that is great for party goers to dance the night away without a crash.”
Not surprisingly, doctors are warning against using the product—which is not regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration because it is marketed as a supplement, not as a food or drug—because they don’t know how the human body will respond to snorting the ingredients in the powder. “It sounds like a terrible idea,” says Dr. Richard Lebowitz, an associate professor at New York University’s Department of Otolaryngology.
But chocolate powder isn’t the only potentially dangerous thing to snort. According to Lebowitz, any type of powder can cause adverse reactions to a person’s nasal passage. “You have to really look at effects on the nose itself, not just the effect of the medication.”
