The Sad Story of Cocaine Bear

This is a sad American tale. 

It seems back in 1985, a privileged little turd from Kentucky by the name of Andrew Thornton became a big-time drug smuggler. He died parachuting to his death over Tennessee with cocaine strapped to his body. It seems a black bear ate another 75 pounds of the cocaine that Thornton dropped in Georgia’s Chattahoochee National Forest, and a young 175-pound bear expired from that experience. Noted the medical examiner:

Its stomach was literally packed to the brim with cocaine. There isn’t a mammal on the planet that could survive that. Cerebral hemorrhaging, respiratory failure, hyperthermia, renal failure, heart failure, stroke. You name it, that bear had it.

Never once to waste a dead bear, the overdosed animal was taxidermied and given to Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, where it was displayed in the visitor center behind a plaque. It was eventually moved from there, put in storage, and then it was stolen. It was later found to have been sold, by a pawn shop, to Waylon Jennings, who sent the bear as a gift to a friend in Nevada. When that friend died, “Pablo EskoBear,” as he is it now known, was sold to another pawn shop which sold it to a Chinese herbal shop, which donated it to the Kentucky Fun Mall where it is now located on the back of a pickup.  True story.