To think people are naive re cocaine

Really? You do know where crack comes from? County line 'kids' as you put it are very much coerced, abused and threatened into being a key part of the cocaine supply throughout England and further! Those 'harmless' lines of cocaine that are so commonly snorted in pub/ club bathrooms, may very well be from the same batch of cocaine that has been distributed by a scared child to a 'crack house' down the road, for them to 'cook up' into crack! Every person that does a 'odd line' on a Friday night is contributing to the abuse, and horror that those poor children are caught up in! People really need to open their eyes, or at least don't comment and minimise things you really don't know enough about!

Clearly common with the type of people you hang around with… not everyone!

Yep your naivety shows

Great to see you engaging with the really meaningful posts 😅

Depends on the drug, but cocaine mixed with alcohol is a lethal mix and creates a stronger substance in the body and that's the main way people do coke, so even if they knew the coke wasn't mixed with anything they're then going and mixing it up with something themselves which makes it more dangerous.

My social background is the same as yours, and I know/know of plenty highly ambitious and successful professionals that recreationally use cocaine. It’s no less common in white collar circles than it is in blue collar.

Actually, if anything it’s still more widely associated with white collar despite usage of it spanning the across the class spectrum.

Thank you-I have noticed the gurning in my friends who have used it. Someone took a photo of me and a male friend in my local recently, it was a celebration and everyone was happy-he made them delete it, said he hated it-I asked why and he told me that his ex would see if it it were posted anywhere online, and they were going through a court battle for their children and she'd see his pupils. I honestly wouldn't have thought about that.

I never saw any of this type of behaviours or changes to appearance in the woman I dated but I do remember once, we'd gone to an all day event. We were drinking, but just a cider every hour or so, both pacing ourselves and at the end of the event I was only very slightly tipsy. She all of a sudden got very upset and annoyed and stormed outside the venue we were in, saying she was mad with herself for 'getting too drunk' (she did not appear drunk, at all whatever) and saying she'd let me down and she hated herself and wanted to drive home. I Calmed her down and said 'you aren't drunk but you are definitely over the limit for driving home!' and she seemed to be okay then although she didn't haev another drink. I took her back to mine shortly afterwards but I did feel that that whole episode was weird. It was a very happy event and I saw no reason for her to 'turn' like that. I think now perhaps that was cocaine?

This. Alcohol holds an important role in our society and has for thousands of years. If it had been discovered or developed 20 years ago it would very likely also be illegal.

whats legal or illegal doesn’t always have black and white logic behind it. Thats why the discussion needs to be more nuanced to have value.

I think it could be if drugs were legal and regulated. Right now no one really knows exactly what they are taking or how much it's been cut. Yes, they're addictive but so is alcohol. Legalising and regulating will make it safer for users and remove a lot of crime and exploitation that is a result of illegal drug trade.

In my 20s I used to go to a popular music festival. I never understood how 90% of people I was with could stay up all night where as I was done by 11pm after walking 30,000 steps!

In all honesty is it possible to use drugs "responsibly". Like how one can drink responsibly?

Last year The Guardian did a series, Bloodlines, on the cocaine trade and associated crime. It makes sobering reading, I'd hope particularly for anyone who likes a recreational toot.

A particularly brutal read many more in the series if you have the stomach for it.

Beaten and tortured: the north African children paying a bloody price for Europe’s insatiable appetite for cocaine https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/ng-interactive/2024/jun/11/north-african-children-beaten-tortured-europe-cocaine-gangs?CMP=share_btn_url

Not everyone in their 20's take cocaine, neither will all teenage parents focus on their family.

NOT defending cocaine use or pro cocaine in any way but I find your perspective really interesting, can I ask if how you feel it compares in these terms to alcohol use? Obviously not in terms of county lines and dealing etc., but in terms of crimes committed by those under the influence of.

I’m just into my 40s and had a number of male associates from university days who liked the nose beers. I know no less than 4 men who were fit, happy, great careers who have keeled over from heart attacks leaving young families behind.

I now assume most male heart attacks in 30s and 40s are down to historic coke use.

@Samsonsund , if someone had slagged me off for having a baby at 16 (and going on to be a responsible adult) while wrecking their finances/nose/life with cocaine etc, I wouldn't be fond of them either.

Well good on me that I've never taken it. Glad my DS has been scared to take these. He told me at uni he saw so many people doing bumps/lines/pills but he thankfully resisted the temptation

I’m not gloating. I’m just saying people have a lot to say about teen parents being irresponsible and wasting their lives while they spend their 20s taking drugs. While teen parents focus on their families

Ideally one should neither use illegal drugs nor be a teen parent. Neither of you ought to be lecturing. And gloating about infertility is awful, please stop.

I completely agree (as a veggie animal lover!).

But the particular irony that I notice is the people I know who get on their high horses about slavery and imperialism (not good things, obvs) are happily using cocaine and failing to see the irony…just like the people they would criticise in the past.

I swear one of the guys who did our extension( in London) was going drugs on site. He’d go in the toilet, not even bother flushing ( because he hadn’t used it) and walk out with bloodshot eyes.

I just looked up the ONS stats and around 18% of young adults report using drugs, 10% if you include everyone age 16-59 years. Probably doesn’t include people who denied it, though.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/drugmisuseinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2023

Well it depends on how much cocaine you have taken, your septum won't grow back or the structure of your noise, cocaine impacts the lungs and digestive track, pretty rough on the bowels too, likewise not everyone who does ket has bladder issues.

Ketamine destroys your bladder do you not think it might damage other organs anyway not saying it was 100% drug related probably more just leaving it too late if anything.

I know I sound bitter on here but I think she’s the bitter one really apparently I was a waste of her tax money for having children young while she did the responsible thing and spent years getting drunk and high. I know many people that think that way. I’m happy, you don’t need drugs to be happy