by Mayor Michael Bloomberg suffers from cultural ignorance.
Late last week, he attributed the two glassine packets of a white powder in the purse of Tennessee med student Meredith Graves to cocaine. He didn’t say they were alleged to be cocaine but that they were cocaine.
When asked whether the woman deserved any leniency, Mayor Michael Bloomberg indicated to reporters at a press conference in Brooklyn today that she had other problems.
“Let’s assume she didn’t get arrested for carrying a gun,” he said. “She probably would have gotten arrested for the cocaine that was in her pocket.”
Chemical tests proved the “alleged cocaine” was nothing of the sort according to the Manhattan D.A.’s office. If I had to make a guess, it was either a Goody’s Headache Powder or a BC Powder. Both products were developed by pharmacists in North Carolina early in the 20th century and consist of aspirin, caffeine, and, in the case of Goody’s, acetaminophen. Both powders are now made and sold by pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline.
Anyone raised in the South would know what a headache powder was because we’ve seen it since we were infants. However, I guess if you run in certain New York City high society circles like Mayor Bloomberg, white powder in a glassine packet always translates into cocaine.
To encourage cultural literacy in the Office of the Mayor of the City of New York, I would make the following suggestion. Go down to your local pharmacy, get yourself a small package of either BC Powders or Goody’s and mail it to Mayor Bloomberg. If you live in an area that doesn’t sell it, no problem. You can order both Goody’s and BC Powders from Amazon.com and have it shipped directly to Hizzoner.
The mailing address is: