To think people are naive re cocaine

While cocaine use is common, it’s extremely patronising to suggest that anyone who says people in their social circle doesn’t do coke is wrong or naive. There absolutely are plenty of people who don’t use coke. I don’t, none of my family does. I know people who do or who have done, but that doesn’t mean that because I say I know that the people I mix with don’t do it that I’m wrong.

It’s the same as the “all men watch porn” argument, all men absolutely “don’t” watch porn, even if many do.

I think if you read back on some of @EmeraldShamrock000 ’s posts you’ll find that she does have experience of it.

How many sexual assaults are fueled by coke?

I thought ket was more common these days? I do think people are naive and dont realise how often or how differently it effects different people. There are 3 addicts between mine and DH's family, 2 siblings and a cousin. 1 sibling and the cousin both started out as social users down the pub on nights out

You know this isn’t typical though, right? Most coke users just buy a small bag for a night out and pay for it from their wages. No granny robbing or blow jobs involved.

I would imagine very quiet people who never really done clubbing when young, who never go to gigs and nightclubs would not do it. Like you said - they live very closed and quiet life. But I'm not talking about my actual friends, a lot of whom are now would not even drink much - I'm taking about wider demographic - and the % of people who lead more or less "normal" life during the week do it.

I would also not bet on the husbands of your quiet friends not doing it. Especially if they go out on their own...

Casual use or not - anyone who buys cocaine is funding and perpetuating
major crime that causes misery. https://www.reuters.com/article/world/wealthy-cocaine-users-funding-slavery-says-former-uk-drug-chief-idUSKCN1B919C/

@Knockonw00d first off it looks as if it is around 10% of the adult population not a majority by any means but a scary increase from 5% when I was young.

and by all means take it just don’t try to downplay both the personal and societal impacts of it

it is you who seems naive

But you will still be propping up a murderous industry that makes people’s lives a misery in central and South America,

Just to add, local sports clubs are also rife with cocaine use. As are the schools. In my sons year, it was estimated that at age 15, 70% of the year group had tried “soft drugs” like weed. 50% were smoking weed regularly and 30% had tried harder drugs like cocaine and ecstasy, with around 20% using them regularly. This is in a high performing school, in a lovely suburban town, with a extremely low reported crime rate. In 25 years of living here, I literally know of 1 unprovoked attack, and very few “fights”, no gangs, I don’t even lock my house doors, and wouldn’t hesitate to walk home alone at 3am.

Oh come on. There's a bit between the extremes you"re suggesting.

Nobody said that either. What was said is that crack affects your lifestyle in a very different way to cocaine. I really think you don't have any experience of this at all, do you?

Yes, so many people use drugs and not just youngsters at nightclubs. Most aim to use 'sensibly' and feel they can handle occasional use but for some it backfires and becomes a full addiction with all the social consequences along with it. I've known people from both groups.

Well you seem to think that it only impacts professional so no need for extreme measures to make money.
I don't think you're very well informed.

It's so widespread. Nights out in my 20s, waiting for a toilet cubicle, you'd get 4 people squeeze out of one sniffing and wiping noses. I think most of the people I worked with did coke at the weekends. Someone I used to work with was a raging coke head and he's now a Lib Dem councillor with a squeaky clean persona.

I think there are a lot of people who genuinely don’t go out on the weekends, especially in the Mumsnet demographic. I am 42 and haven’t been clubbing for a long time. If I go out it’s with my close friends and none of us do coke. My friends who are school parents don’t go out, some don’t even go for lunch with old friends as they don’t travel outside of the local area.

I agree that loads of people do coke, but there are also loads of people who don’t. When my daughter did Young Voices at the NEC there were parents worried about driving there because of the ‘gun problem’ in Birmingham. Some people have very small lives.

Nobody is disbelieving anything. Those of us who are more educated about the drug are trying to explain that the usual "druggie" behavioural stereotypes arent typically relevant to cocaine, and that is why people have no idea that their husbands and daughters indulge.

Believe me many steal, beg and borrow for their cocaine habit including from their granny, as for prostitution, drug dealers are never short in offers for sexual favours.
When the debt rises, you need to find cash.

I admit I was/am very naive about how many people use it. I met a whole group of people via my best friend (bf is very good friends with them) and it was a normal Friday night for them. I was shocked. I don’t want to be around people on coke so I stay home which is a bit dull but I can’t bear it.

If there has been a 12% increase each year for 5 year of cocaine related deaths, imagine in the next decade.
That's not counting the violent deaths influenced by cocaine.

I think people who say "not in my circle of friends" are just oblivious. There may not be a lot of people who do it regularly and for whom it became a serious issue, but A LOT of people who go out on weekend do it - "normal" people, in my case teachers, for example. No one thinks twice about it, its like drinking to them. Even to the point one of people I know got very surprised when he got arrested for possession - he was not even thinking he is doing anything wrong.

I dont do anything as I dont go out and have health issues, but I'm not blind/ deaf.

Er, I never said anyone who touches coke will be "robbing grannies" or prostituting themselves. I SAID that coke affects your brain in highly negative and damaging ways, which it does.

Just because you dont want to believe it doesnt make it untrue.

It can also cause heart issues/strokes if your habit is chronic and long enough, even if you are functional and holding down a job.

MN alerted me to how widely used it is as I've never seen or known a user.

And of course watching or reading about the huge volume of drugs entering the country, highlights that many a nostril and elsewhere is being powdered. Supply and demand.

What sickens me is not the naivety though, but the sheer hypocrisy surrounding using. The same fuckers using, will be the ones bleating about all the crime a trade they support casually breeds.
They also be among those demanding the police is tough on crime, when the criminals are feeding their filthy appetites.
And of course, we all know the exploitation involved in this awful trade these respectable professionals support.

Yeah I drink 10 pints at the weekend, that doesn’t affect me or my long term health either 😏. (That was sarcasm in case the drugs have addled your brain).
Just shows how dim a lot of the British public are.

Not remotely common or indeed ever witnessed in my mid-40s/Oxbridge/London/professional circles. A couple of people have said they tried it once or twice in their 20s (not me) but it’s just not a thing. We like cocktails, beers and single malt (not me these days now I have a baby). A lot of people have cut down drinking too for health reasons. My drug of choice is tea 😆

I’d judge someone who said they were a coke user due to the harm it causes and the funding of organised crime. Would never touch it myself!