It's all true. Mind, this was back in the 80's, when I bought USP-grade coke (legally) for 28 bucks an ounce. The story may have made msmemory giggle, but when I told a certain Martian commando who lived nearby at the time, it darn near made him cry %^). I doubt any ENT guys use coke solution any more; it's appreciated many orders of magnitude since then due to the "war on drugs" and the Afghanistan situation.

A sidebar to the story is that while he's shoving coke-bombs up my nose he's commenting to his residents that the patient is a pharmacist and asking me my opinions on the efficacy of the anesthetic. "Yeah, doc, my professional assessment is that...this is, like...awesome!"