Cocaine Bear: Fact or Cap?

Dannika Fulling, Editor

If you keep up with social media or the movies, you’ve surely heard of the latest hit Cocaine Bear. Produced and directed by Elizabeth Banks, the movie is based on the true story of “Pablo Escobear,” a bear that ingested possibly 70 lbs. of cocaine in 1985. While the movie does have the general plot, many scenes are dramatized, and I’m here to tell you if it’s fact or cap (a lie).

It all started with lawyer turned drug smuggler, Andrew Thornton II. He threw out duffel bags of cocaine over Fannin County, Georgia, before crashing his plane in North Carolina, and dying via a faulty landing in Tennessee. While the movie shows that the bear went on a cracked-out killing spree, he actually just died of acute cocaine overdose. He was then taxidermized once they found his body 4 weeks later. His body then went from place to place in various museums, and even to Waylon Jennings’ home for a while. To this day, no one is entirely sure how much cocaine the bear ingested, but his legend lives on in this crazy and entertaining movie.