A study commissioned by the Spanish government to monitor that country's air quality has reported what most European travelers already knew: Their entire country is just one enormous coke den. Like, you can breathe it!

Reports MSNBC:

A new study has found the air in Madrid and Barcelona is laced with at least five drugs - most prominently cocaine.

The Superior Council of Scientific Investigations, a government institute, said on its Web site Thursday that in addition to cocaine, they found trace amounts of amphetamines, opiates, cannabinoids and lysergic acid - a relative of LSD - in two air-quality control stations, one in each city.

The study also revealed that levels of narcotics in the Spanish air seemed to increase on the weekends and near college campuses. Shocking! Further, it found that at peak times, such as those infamous Spanish weekends (Anyone ever been to Ibiza? YEEHAW!), cocaine concentrations in the air reached levels of 850 picograms per cubic air meter. What's a picogram? Beats the shit out of me! But Rome only registered 100 picograms of cocaine per cubic air meter in a 2007 study.

Reading this reminded me of a girl I dated about four years ago who went to live in Madrid for a year for a graduate program. The girl who left the U.S. to study in Spain was fun, she liked to drink a bit, but she was, by all accounts, quite normal as a partier for someone living in New York. But the girl who came back to the country a year later had transformed into a damn aardvark for cocaine! Now it's all beginning to make sense!

Spanish Study Shows Cocaine in the Air in Madrid and Barcelona [MSNBC]