Such is the prevalence of drug usage in our druggie society, that Londoners consumed over 8 tons of cocaine last year ....
.... the cost of this to its inhabitants is over £1 billion per annum.
Forensic scientists have tested waste water in the UK's capital of drugs, for traces of Benzoylecgonine (the compound left over when a human body breaks down cocaine), and found levels equivalent to more than 500,000 doses of cocaine (street value £2.75m), being consumed every day, with a weight of approx 23kg.
This is more than twice as much as any other European city, with Barcelona in a distant second spot at just 12.4kg per day. For real context, inhabitants of Berlin and Amsterdam in third place, consume just 4.62 kg per day. Perhaps most disturbing in this bad set of figures is that it was noted that London, unlike any other European city shows sustained usage every day of the week, with just slight increases at the weekends. All the other cities looked at, showed a marked drop in the week, with big spikes at the weekend.
This wasn't the only bad news .... Bristol, the other UK city tested in the study, has the most users of cocaine "per head of population per day," in Europe, with a figure of 3.5 grams, with London at 2.8 grams of coke consumed per 1,000 people daily. Considering that Bristol and London were the only UK cities in the study, one suspects that this is just the tip of the iceberg, and that many UK cities would be able to match or exceed these reported figures.
So unlike the recreational usage of other countries, the UK is developing a permanent hardcore habit of cocaine usage and dependency. Recent Home Office statistics have shown that drug use in Britain in general is on the rise, with 976,000 people specifically reporting that they'd taken powder cocaine in 2018/2019, partly as the drug is fairly cheap, with an average price point sitting at around £40 to £50 a gram.
Time for our politicians to have a rethink on the penalties for both dealing and using cocaine. Compulsory random workplace drug tests, for both public and private sector workers, with no compensation dismissal for fails, would certainly make the non dependent but regular user think a bit ... we don't want to become like a South American state.
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| Casual Cocaine Usage Is On The Rise In The UK ..... Even On First Dates. |
.... the cost of this to its inhabitants is over £1 billion per annum.
Forensic scientists have tested waste water in the UK's capital of drugs, for traces of Benzoylecgonine (the compound left over when a human body breaks down cocaine), and found levels equivalent to more than 500,000 doses of cocaine (street value £2.75m), being consumed every day, with a weight of approx 23kg.
This is more than twice as much as any other European city, with Barcelona in a distant second spot at just 12.4kg per day. For real context, inhabitants of Berlin and Amsterdam in third place, consume just 4.62 kg per day. Perhaps most disturbing in this bad set of figures is that it was noted that London, unlike any other European city shows sustained usage every day of the week, with just slight increases at the weekends. All the other cities looked at, showed a marked drop in the week, with big spikes at the weekend.
This wasn't the only bad news .... Bristol, the other UK city tested in the study, has the most users of cocaine "per head of population per day," in Europe, with a figure of 3.5 grams, with London at 2.8 grams of coke consumed per 1,000 people daily. Considering that Bristol and London were the only UK cities in the study, one suspects that this is just the tip of the iceberg, and that many UK cities would be able to match or exceed these reported figures.
So unlike the recreational usage of other countries, the UK is developing a permanent hardcore habit of cocaine usage and dependency. Recent Home Office statistics have shown that drug use in Britain in general is on the rise, with 976,000 people specifically reporting that they'd taken powder cocaine in 2018/2019, partly as the drug is fairly cheap, with an average price point sitting at around £40 to £50 a gram.
Time for our politicians to have a rethink on the penalties for both dealing and using cocaine. Compulsory random workplace drug tests, for both public and private sector workers, with no compensation dismissal for fails, would certainly make the non dependent but regular user think a bit ... we don't want to become like a South American state.
What are the figures now after 2 years of lock-downs?
ReplyDeleteI really don't know. I do know that London first topped the league table in 2014 and has held it ever since. I can't find figures more recent than 2019 ..... I guess scientists have been busy on testing for Covid since then. Thanks for the comment.
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