Unfortunately for filmgoers hoping for an ursine
Scarface, the part of the true story of the cocaine bear that involves a bear doing cocaine is extremely brief. Sometime in November of 1985, a black bear living in the Chattahoochee National Forest in north Georgia stumbled upon a duffel bag containing about 75 pounds of 95 percent pure cocaine. The bear, which only weighed about 175 pounds itself, ate some of the cocaine and died within about 20 minutes—scarcely enough time to make any grandiose bear plans, never mind hitting the clubs with Michelle Pfeiffer. The chief medical examiner at the Georgia State Crime Lab later estimated the bear had absorbed about 3 or 4 grams of cocaine into its bloodstream at the time of its death. After about a week, a local hunter, never identified, found the bear and told his friends about it, but didn’t report it to the authorities. It took three weeks for the story to trickle down to a game and fish agent through word-of-mouth. That agent handed the story off to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and they discovered the bear’s body on Dec. 20. At some point between the time the hunter found the bear and the GBI’s arrival, all of the cocaine disappeared, although, as a GBI agent noted, “the bear obviously didn’t eat 75 pounds of cocaine.” Another agent was similarly suspicious of the empty, cocaine-residue-free wrappers found in the duffel bag, telling reporters, “Something ain’t right, I’ll tell you that.”