How does a package of beef become contaminated with the hallucinogenic drug LSD? Authorities in Florida and in the federal government have been trying to figure that out for the last right months. Last week, local police in Tampa released their report and made the case inactive. They still have no idea how the drug got there.

The family who were drugged consisted of a pregnant woman, her boyfriend, and her 6- and 7-year-old daughters. Everyone ate the contaminated meat, which was a bottom round steak purchased at a nearby Walmart. Investigators with the Food and Drug Administration traced the beef, which came from agricultural giant Cargill, all the way back to the slaughterhouse in Georgia. No one noticed any tampering with the product once it reached Walmart, and it had traveled in a sealed container from the slaughterhouse to a distribution facility.

The best lead was surveillance camera footage from the Walmart store of the meat case where the beef was on display: two men were captured acting strangely near the case, but investigators ultimately cleared them.

At the time they were drugged, the family went to a local hospital. The mother and daughters were hyperventilating, and had breathing tubes placed. The baby was delivered by emergency cesarean section. Tampa police along with USDA and FDA agents interviewed the family and found no evidence that the parents had drugged the meat themselves. There was no sign of it in the oven (which they had not used before making the steak wraps) or elsewhere, but LSD was detected in the uneaten steak.

Tampa police close LSD investigation with no answers about tainted meat [Tampa Bay Times]

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