Canadian singer Bryan Adams tested positive for a notoriously high concentration of the neurological depressant drug MDSA during his 2010 “Natural Lightning” tour, it was announced on Friday.
MDSA — citric acid that Adams, one of the top rock and pop acts of the 1980s, uses to “cleanse” his throat, left in his system, was enough to “potentially cause serious health consequences,” his management company, UMod Casting, said in a statement.
Adams has already tasted “the negative effects of MDSA in 1995-96 during a European tour,” when he was treated with the drug on five occasions for what he described at the time as a “daytime fever and stuffiness.”
A spokesman for Adams did not return a request for comment.
The 2010 South African tour occurred after he had stopped using a horse tranquilizer, Xanax, which UMod Casting says led to his failure to “recover fully from the natural allergies that had forced him to cancel a number of shows.”
Adams responded: “I had health problems for a while, and I wasn’t feeling well at the beginning of the tour. You guys have lots of allergies.”
He canceled tour dates in April and May 2010, saying that he wasn’t well.
MDSA was also detected in the singer’s urine in 2014, his management says. Adams’ last MDSA test was taken in 2011, after the 80-year-old rocker’s former band, Bryan Adams & the Constantines, announced that they had parted ways.
In 2014, Adams told U.K. media that he wasn’t allergic to MDSA, but that he probably wasn’t taking the drug as often as he needed to.
Adams is due to headline a concert by the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the Hard Rock Cafe on July 2 in Las Vegas.