News, views and top stories in your inbox. Don't miss our must-read newsletter Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Every so often one crazy local folk tale raises itself above all others and immediately catches the eye.

So it is with Kentucky's legendary "Cocaine Bear", affectionately known as Pablo EskoBear.

He's the 175-pound black bear that died after consuming 40 kilos of pure cocaine and became the state's most unlikely tourist attraction.

The full story is brilliantly told by local business Kentucky by Kentucky , which now own the bear itself.

It begins in an era of the 1980s known as the "Bluegrass Conspiracy" days thanks to a book of the same name by Sally Denton.

Back then, a former narcotics-officer-turned-drug-kingpin called Andrew Thornton abandoned an aeroplane mid-flight across the USA.

Thornton had been flying a drug route from Colombia and had dropped off 40 plastic containers full of cocaine in Chattahoochee National Forest.

Unfortunately for Thornton, he became tangled up in his parachute and fell to his death in Knoxville, Tennessee.

When police traced his route back through the forest, they expected to find a cache of drugs worth $15 million (£11 million).

Instead, they found 40 open containers and one very dead black bear .

The as-yet-unnamed black bear had suffered possibly the worst overdose in drugs history.

(Image: Kentucky by Kentucky)

“Its stomach was literally packed to the brim with cocaine. There isn’t a mammal on the planet that could survive that,” explained the medical examiner who performed the bear’s necropsy.

“Cerebral hemorrhaging, respiratory failure, hyperthermia, renal failure, heart failure, stroke. You name it, that bear had it,” he told Kentucky for Kentucky .

After the autopsy it was taxidermied and began a journey through various different owners including, reportedly, the country and western signer Waylon Jennings.

Kentucky for Kentucky (which was set up by two friends who want to promote the state) tracked down the bear across the country through a string of previous owners.

The pair set it up in the Kentucky Fun Mall in north Lexington where 2016's tourists are flocking to see it.

We can't explain the popularity of the poor bear - but we have to admire its story.