Thieves Steal Dog And Human Ashes, Snort Them. You got it. This is yet another, in a long line of absurd stories, from the Great Absurd State of Florida. This seems to be a regular occurrence. I am not even remotely surprised anymore. As a matter of fact, as the old saying goes, I used to be disgusted, now I’m just amused.So, these three balloon heads break into a home and steal various items, including the three urns containing the cremated ashes of a human, and two dogs. Except for stealing the urns of ashes, this was a pretty typical home burglary.  That is until, these idiots were caught, as is often the case, once the Police are hot on the trail.The Police quickly solved the case and recovered all the stolen items taken, except for the urns of cremated remains. The Police interrogated the three desperado’s as to the location of the three urns of cremated remains. Of course, all three cracked under the pressure. You will never, ever, guess what happened to the ashes of the woman’s father, and two dogs.

Give up yet? Well, It turns the Police would not be able to recover all of the cremated remains of the woman’s father, as well as her two beloved dogs, because these three bizarro crooks, SNORTED THE CREMATED REMAINS, Yes, like up their nose’s. You heard me correctly. Yes, they actually snorted the ashes. I could’nt have made this stuff up, no matter how hard I tried. I would have figured that this was so far into left field, that virtually no one would have believed me.

Even though, I haven’t personally done any drugs since the days of my youth, I still have an opinion as to why this was totally, and absolutely absurd. Snorting cremated remains, Seriously? This is something anybody would actually consider? Is this some new fad that I am totally unaware of?  Thank God, I didn’t know about this when I was growing up.

As I understand it, here’s how things played out. These three boneheads opened the urns, and discovered the cremated remains. Most people believe that cremated remains are just ashes. Well, cremated remains are not ashes in the truest sense of the word. Cremated remains are mostly dry calcium phosphates with some minor minerals, such as salts of sodium and potassium. Sulfur and most carbon, are driven off as oxidized gases during the process, although a relatively small amount of carbon may remain as carbonate. The color is often described as that of dry bone.

I bet you are really impressed that I know so much about cremated remains. Your probably thinking to yourself right now, that; Tom Dye, The Safety Guy, is a pretty frigging smart man. Yes it’s true, I am, But, in this case, I looked up cremation. on Wikipedia. I was actually trying to determine the chemical composition, more on that later.There are several issues that deserve further analysis, so I am breaking them down piece by piece.

So, these three boneheads, opened the containers, and seriously thought that the cremated remains within, were actually ground up prescription pills, cocaine or heroin, and certainly not, actually cremated remains. Here’s an experiment you can try at home. Take any pill, an aspirin, vitamin, anything at all. Now grind it up. OK, How big is the pile of powder after the pill is all ground up? Pretty f–king small isn’t it?  How many ground up prescription pills would it take to make four or five ounces of fine powder?  I have no idea either, but it would take a lot, I’m sure of that. So why would anyone leave four or five ounces of ground up prescription pills sitting around on their fireplace mantle anyway? Maybe the homeowner was using Edgar Allen Poe’s theory, as described in “The Purloined Letter” where we found out, the best place to hide anything is right out in the open.

Next, these half wits tasted the contents. You know, everybody’s seen this done on those TV crime dramas where someone sticks their finger in some supposed narcotic, and tastes it, so they can somehow determine exactly what it is.  OK, using this premise, (By the way, this is why I looked up the chemical constituents of cremated remains). I work in chemical safety, and I can assure with 100% certainty, that there are no constituents whatsoever, that could even remotely be construed, or perceived as being prescription drugs, narcotics to be more specific.

Furthermore, cyanide, birth control pills, aspirin, laundry detergent, roach powder, mortar and grout mix, and a multitude of other substances, many of them harmful or fatal, are also described as a white powder. So why would anyone in their right f–king mind taste some quantity of unknown white powder from an unmarked container? As if this wasn’t enough, then decide this would be a great idea to snort it? Once again as with many of these stories, these guys obviously do not suffer from the ravages of intelligence.

Finally, after snorting a small amount, one would assume that after not feeling some sort of narcotic effect, or even more importantly, not dying,  that you would immediately determine that this unknown white powder was in fact, not actually ground up prescription pills. I would have thought that even the most desperate, determined, hardcore drug addict, would not have to snort the contents of all three containers of these cremated remains to figure this out.

I got to hand it to the Police for taking these guys off the street before they were able to graduate to more serious crimes, like smoking cow pies to get high, or stealing the white lines in the middle of the road.

As always,

I am…

Tom Dye, The Safety Guy

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