Something sinister going on about Cocaine in the UK

[EasterBun23]

Something sinister is going on.

We all know people on Cocaine, it's very very popular, every time i go in the toilets in my local bars on the weekend there's lads in there doing and dealing it.

Recenly it was reported that the UK is the second most popular country for cocaine..

We are an Island country. (excluding NI).

How the hell is so much getting in our borders? There are sniffer dogs and checks at airports and sea ports. You can very well imagine some is getting in..

But enough to feed a population of 67million? nah

Zero interest in it. I liked partying in ky 20's but never tried it. What I did not like was hangovers, feeling low and out of control of my emotions. My career was rubbish too because of partying.

These days I get high on exercise and hard work, I don't get ill, wake up early, feel in control and generally happy each days. No real highs but no lows either. I feel on top of my life. Also, I wouldn't be able to afford it and the kids come first.

Do I judge anyone for taking drugs? No and I couldn't care less if they do. Not my job to police other people. So I do know people I know for a fact take them but I don't ask and they don't tell. I made a decision to be a sensible mum and never once regretted it.

Comes in mostly on boats I reckon, same as heroin.

It's also cut to heck and most of powdered coke found with end user in the UK isn't even as much as 10% pure when the police analyse it. That's why freebase / crack became 'invented'.

I'm clean and sober and think the tide will only turn against the drug trade when people realise that life is so hard already that using a toxic substance is a mug's game.

I think people are talking about different things here - I’m more than happy to believe that none of your friends or family use coke. I’m dubious that nobody you know uses coke - because you just have no way of knowing whether your window cleaner, your kid’s schoolfriend’s dad, your GP receptionist, or that couple down the road who take in parcels for you sometimes, do coke. They might, they might not. They aren’t going to tell you.

edited for typo

I do wonder why the pearl clutching only around drugs. You knowthose batteries in the phones you all have? Which use cobalt? Guess what?
Ditto many, many other products. Sadly every one of us uses products that have caused misery for someone somewhere.

OK I have had it with this thread.
Drug taking is not normal.
The majority of people don't do it.
If you think it is you have the problem and you need new friends.
You sound like a bunch of teenage boys claiming to have slept with multiple women but are really virgins. Utterly pathetic.

I’m dubious that nobody you know uses coke - because you just have no way of knowing whether your window cleaner, your kid’s schoolfriend’s dad, your GP receptionist, or that couple down the road who take in parcels for you sometimes, do coke. They might, they might not. They aren’t going to tell you.

You may well be right. But those are people I class as random strangers, not people I really know.

When I say that I don't know anyone who takes it I mean friends and family, not people I might have a passing aquaintance with.

I used to have neighbours who were open about taking cocaine, but I've moved elsewhere now to a street where the neighbours might take cocaine, but they'll be discreet about their Class A drug possession.

I'm not touching the stuff. Quite apart from the moral dimension of funding organised crime and its human rights abuses, people high on cocaine are really boring to talk to.

I got into daily drug use and drinking in my early teens. I can honestly say that until I got clean and sober, I didn't know a single person who also didn't drink, smoke weed, and use a variety of drugs. Most people I worked with did in a variety of professions (as I couldn't stick to a job)

Now I don't know anyone who does drugs and I don't judge but I wouldn't be friends with someone who does. It's weird how it suddenly polarises when you step out of that world. I used to think literally everyone used drugs and now I don't believe that at all. But the stigma has gone nowadays and youngsters openly discuss drug use whereas when I was younger you'd not dare for fear of being busted by the police.

In terms of what is the truth of the matter, I wouldn't have a clue. How to know?

Alright Mrs Bucket keep your wig on.

Better yet have a spliff and chill out a bit, could do you some good.

Yep I understand that, but I think a lot of the people insisting that everyone knows somebody who takes coke, are thinking of that sort of wider acquaintance/friend of a friend/Chris in marketing who you see in whole-office meetings once a quarter, ie they are saying it is outwardly normal-looking people not just obvious druggies. I think only one person has tried to claim that your immediate family are all on coke and you just haven’t realised.

People are talking at cross-purposes.

We have creeks in the UK! Deptford Creek springs to mind. A bit of googling tells me there is also Greatham Creek on Teesside. Perhaps the PP lives next to one of those two.

Totally agree and feel exactly the same

booze is a drug, abet a legal one.

Alcohol is also a really destructive drug. Go and visit any liver ward to see plenty of normal folks whose lifestyle has caught up with them. Horrendous horrendous things happen to you when your liver and kidneys go kaput, things you wouldn’t even imagine.

I've never taken drugs but it is all around us. It's not normalised in society in that people don't do it or talk about it openly but is happening and I still think that people who think it isn't and that they don't know anyone who takes drugs would be very surprised. They almost certainly do.

I live in (a small house) in an expensive part of town and I can spot the drug dealers car parked up late at night. It's across all levels of society.

It's a scourge on our society and if I had a teenager one of the biggest things I'd be worried about is them being targeted by county lines gangs. It's a growing problem.

The drugs trade has always been sinister. Has this realisation just hit you where you had previously been conveniently ignoring that as a user?

Yeah this is probably Cornwall's second biggest industry after tourism tbh. The people I know in south coast villages and towns are fully aware it is rife.

We have a problem with county lines as we live near the border of two counties.

I would like to know if coke was legalised and freely available would we have the same problems with it that we do with alcohol? Wouldn't there still be a black market as well?

and I still think that people who think it isn't and that they don't know anyone who takes drugs would be very surprised

As someone has pointed out, I think we are talking at cross purposes. I don't know whether random strangers that I walk past in the street or see in our local pub take it, but they are people I don't know. I know that none of my close friends and family do because we have discussed it.

I don't socialise with people who party until 5 am. Our demographic are more likely to enjoy a bottle of red wine before and with dinner and are then tucked up in bed by 11.00 (none of my friends will see 50 again, and most won't see 60 again).

DD works in a pharmacy and sees daily the damage that drug addiction causes. She has tried weed, but nothing else.

“We all know people on cocaine” no I actually don’t. Think you may be extrapolating incorrectly from your own social bubble.

"Everyone does it" Thinking back over the past few years both Angus Dayton and John Leslie have probably regretted doing it and neither of their careers have recovered although Jl also had Sa charges. Kate Moss on the other hand is doing really wellJust pointing out that it isn't necessarily great for the career. I know a high ranking Police Officer who said they have dirt on everyone. With phones being everywhere you can never know that you aren't being recorded and that it might be used against you.

Where I live the demographic is quite elderly. I would be shocked if it was being used much in nursing homes. But I do come across "baggies" at times when litter picking, and we do spot lone cars in car parks late at night - who can be spooked if you park near them.
Where I used to live it was more prolific in the private schools than the state ones. And use decreased down the wealth scale.
But when I was at school the poor sniffed solvents, the rich smoked cannabis, and the very rich took cocaine.

I see used nitrous oxide cans dropped behind the station platform in our village.

I could easily say I don't know anyone who does drugs. But, thanks to my old life in London around media/fashion/music and clubbing, I recognise the bright-eyed, chatty enthusiasm of cocaine and I do see it everywhere. If I tried, I could probably identify many other substances in use and those on 'maintenance' coke after a lively night out.

I know that two of my siblings are nearly always a bit high (coke) or a bit stoned, but I only know this because they've told me - they don't talk about it with people they aren't close to, for obvious reasons.

I've got a theory that much of what's going wrong in our society & government is due to prolific substance abuse - and that it won't be addressed because [a] those who should address it are users, and [b] our economy depends on dirty money.

It's true that humans, and even other animals, have always used psychoactive substances. Life can be hard, highs are fun, why not?! Also true that substance abuse is now more commonplace, frequent and varied than it's ever been. I'm in favour of legalisation & regulation, but only because it could reduce the associated harms. I don't think anything can stop people wanting to soften the edges of their lives.