Did a man snort ten lines of cocaine during the countdown towards 2019 and was he subsequently taken to hospital with an overdose? No, that's not true: it did not happen in New York and it didn't happen in Santander, Spain either. The story was made up by a Spanish entertainment website and copied for the English version of the site. It is not real.
The story went viral in English via an article published by There Is News on January 1, 2019 titled "Snort 10 lines of cocaine during the new year's countdown and goes to the hospital" (archived here) which opened:
A young man goes to the hospital yesterday in New York after snorting 10 lines of cocaine during the New Year's countdown. A terrible act of immaturity that could have been fatal for him.
It happens at his home in Brooklyn, when A.M.J, 27 years old, was enjoying in a party with his friends and with all kind of drugs and alcohol. So, he think snorting 10 lines, one for each countdown number, was a great idea and decided to work about it. "This is going to be amazing, what could go wrong?", were his last words.
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail so they would not have been aware this wasn't from a real news website (except for the terrible English):
Snort 10 lines of cocaine during the new year's countdown and goes to the hospital
A young man goes to the hospital yesterday in New York after snorting 10 lines of cocaine during the New Year's countdown. A terrible act of immaturity that could have been fatal for him. It happens at his home in Brooklyn, when A.M.J, 27 years old, was enjoying in a party with his friends and with all kind of drugs
However A.M.J. also seems to live in Santander in Spain according to this article in Spanish:
Se mete una raya de coca por cada campanada y acaba en urgencias
Un joven tuvo que ser ingresado de urgencia ayer en Santander después de meterse 12 rayas de cocaína seguidas durante las campanadas de Nochevieja. Un acto de inmadurez, el de sustituir las uvas por cocaína, que pudo costarle muy cara a su salud.
If you look closely the site There Is News carries a "Legal Warging" (archived here) that reads:
Legal Warging
The site "There is news" (http://thereisnews.es) (hereinafter referred to as TIN) is a humor site whose purpose is entertainment.
The content of TIN is fiction and does not correspond to reality.
All references, names, brands or institutions that appear on the site are used as contextual elements, as in any novel or fiction account.
(Note that the site thereisnews.es doesn't exist, only the .com version is live)
The site is the English language version of the Spanish satire site Hay Noticia, which is owned by Spanish humor website/collective La Fabrica de la Comedia S.C.
We wrote about thereisnews.com before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:
- Fake News: Porn Actress Funeral Did NOT End in Cemetary Orgy
- Fake News: Ambulance Driver Did NOT Have a Heart Attack, NO Need For Injured Man To Drive
- Fake News: Man Did NOT Put 70 Fake Weed Plants on Terrace to Taunt Police
- Fake News: In Ghana You Do NOT Need To Dress Like Your Wedding Day To Get Divorced
- Fake News: Two Altar Boys NOT Arrested For Putting Weed In The Censer-Burner In Santiago de Compostela
