Results of a study undertaken by Spanish scientists have found trace amounts of cocaine in the air of the country’s two largest cities; Madrid and Barcelona. A new technique was used in the study, carried out by the Spanish National Research Council, with scientists able to search for 17 components across five illegal substances. The drugs they had hoped to detect were cocaine, amphetamines, opiates, cannabinoids and lysergic acid.

The most prominent substance identified was cocaine, with between 29 and 850 picograms of the drug found in each cub metre of air. However, before you get carried away and book yourself a one-way ticket to Spain, be aware that one picogram is equal to one trillionth of a gram. “Even if we lived 1000 years we would not consume the equivalent of a dose of cocaine through the air,’’ said Miren Lopez de Alda, one of the scientists involved in the study.

What else did the study uncover? That a higher concentration of cocaine was found on weekends “suggesting higher consumption this time’’. They needed research to find that out? Cocaine wasn’t the only drug detected, with heroin also discovered in measurable amounts in Madrid.