A fatality in a teenage drug courier who swallowed multiple packages o
f a controlled drug for concealment in the gastrointestinal tract is d
escribed. There were a couple of burst-open short cylindrical packages
of cocaine and several with damaged external latex wrapping. A hazard
ous breakage or leakage has been considered unlikely with similar type
of cocaine packages otherwise. The deceased succumbed to a remarkably
high fatal postmortem blood cocaine concentration of 104 mg/l, having
curiously survived the usual lethal range for cocaine toxicity. The p
henomenon of postmortem release and redistribution of drugs and sponta
neous biodegradation of cocaine which may confound the postmortem toxi
cology is briefly discussed. There is a comparable forensic problem in
estimating the time of drug ingestion from the rate of gastric emptyi
ng or transit in the gut as a crude guide to deduce the time of death.