To ask: if you are an occasional cocaine user, are you aware how you appear to others?

[mixandmatch]

I've been thinking about this a lot over the last few weeks so am interested in views.

I don't take any drugs myself and drink very little but am not personally that judgemental about those who indulge more than I do. I have a few friends who smoke weed occasionally, and likewise a few who on a 'big night out' will have some coke. I'm often the least drunk person on a big night out and am fine with that: everyone makes different life choices.

But increasingly I find the cocaine use absolutely unbearable and it made me wonder... do people who occasionally use coke realise how boring, selfish, cold and weird it makes them appear to others? For me, it is a whole different ballgame to drunkenness or even other drug-taking: alcohol makes you slur your words a bit and be more emotional/giggly/free of inhibitions, weed makes you a bit dopey, but I just find coke does something absolutely horrific to people. Plus there is the whole 'sneaking off into the bathroom/shared private joke' thing that I just find incredibly rude and excluding to those who aren't involved. If it's so socially acceptable why not just do it off the dining room table, in the same way you'd happily enjoy a glass of wine alongside teetotallers?

I know that occasional coke use isn't uncommon so I'm just curious: if you either do it or once did it, did you realise it made you like this and just not care, or would you have thought I was the boring party pooper?

Yes, I've seen similar. I only have one or 2 acquaintances over the years who have done it, and the brittle, dead eyes are familiar.

Think of the deaths that probably occurred in Venezuela overnight. The many deaths from gangs in Honduras. And other examples.

If people did not take illegal drugs, this would not have happened.

It’s absolutely rife at football matches and has been for years. The first time I ever saw anyone doing coke, was at a football match about 35 years ago. My 20 year old son see’s it regularly at away games (in the toilets). We can both usually tell when someone has done coke. Definitely gobbier, a bit more cocky and they talk a load of shite.

It was noted by the journalist Rod Liddle and condemned, at a match he went to at Wembley in 2003.

Yes to all of this. I feel quite strongly that drug abuse - especially cocaine, but not exclusively - is a massive white elephant in the UK. It affects everything. The problem's rarely acknowledged, let alone addressed ... because the people responsible for doing that are also doing coke!

This is so accurate. Dead behind the eyes, can’t bear it.

I don't use it, I've been around people on it and in my experience they're much more bearable than drunk people or stoned people

They’re not really kind or caring or decent, Jemim. The appalling violence and social destruction caused by the cocaine trade is very well known.

It’s worst in the source countries, where entire neighbourhoods are ruled by drug gangs and the murder rate is sky high. Bodies are left beheaded or hanging from bridges to show the drug lords’ total power.

Cultivation of the coca plant has also caused massive environmental harm, including widespread deforestation.

The violence and oppression is increasing over here too, including children being forced to carry drug packages inside their bodies. Its use is also linked with domestic violence and child abuse.

No kind or decent person would support this trade. And no user should pretend they don’t know. It took me roughly 10 seconds to find a string of articles online such as this one:
https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/rethinking-cocaine-question-drug-harms-and-policy-failures

Completely agree with you OP. Have a group of friends we go out with sometimes who are still weirdly into their party drugs despite being 50+ grown men with families. It turns them into sweaty, boring, red faces narcissists who talk at you for hours convinced you must be having the best conversation of your life. No idea what enjoyment they get out of it.

Yeah I think people taking it think they are being incredibly cool and edgy but in fact they just turn into unpleasant boring arseholes.

Certain groups within my social circles do this. Maybe 2-3 times per year. All middle class professionals.

We don't do it in the way you're describing. I would never take it out in public, or in groups where some people aren't aware and ok with being around it.

We have a dinner party and it comes out after dessert, indeed, openly at the table as you've said. So not antisocial for the group. People partake in different measures - some don't, some will have a couple, some will carry on all night.
I don't think it's much different to alcohol - some people can handle it fine, some people get a bit loud and silly, some get a bit difficult sometimes. Those ones tend to get quietly dropped from any invitations to that kind of party.
And maybe we are all talking shit, but I believe we all view it in basically the same way as people talk shit when they're drunk, we're just under the influence of something else. Certainly avoids hangovers the next day. Also chills ADHD people out, interestingly. Like the amphetamines they are prescribed, stimulants tend to have the opposite effect on an ADHD person.

Personally I find stoners tiresomely dull and weed incredibly smelly, and although I do drink, I quite often don't when others are, so I find people who are drunk when I'm sober pretty tedious and annoying. I find my friends a bit more hyper but not particularly obnoxious even when I stop several hours before they do, so I don't recognise what you're describing. I do find it sometimes annoying that certain friends can't stop once they've started for the night though, so sometimes I leave when the rest of them are still working through whatever they bought. None of them do it more frequently than a few times a year though, so there's plenty of scope for use without addiction, just as there is with alcohol.

So to answer the question, I think maybe that's how it is in your social circle, but we don't have that experience of it, or of each other on it.

And can't imagine dancing on it either, never found it to be that kind of experience.

Coke heads are tedious, but like most drugs the enjoyment is for you, not the people around you. Just like stoners are boring, but being stoned can be really fun. I used to do coke maybe once or twice a month in my 20s and now mid 30s only once a year or so. BUT I only take it when im with my mates who do it too, usually at a festival, house party or a ravey night out like warehouse project. I wouldn't take it in the pub or with my mates who just drink as it does change the vibe and it's bloody expensive. In normal life I tend to go to bed very early 🤣 so I take a bit of coke if Im staying up late dancing, as gives a good buzz. With booze the absolute latest I can manage is midnight.

Dunno about coke
But I went to uni as a mature student amd some girls had weed.
It was ridiculous
One was very hungry suddenly and then on the bus she wanted to know why everyone was staring at her
She kept asking really loudly too
No one was
Very distasteful

No idea what you're talking about, I used to take it and I was sparkly and witty and intelligent, and I had the most fascinating, deep conversations where I really connected with sometimes perfect strangers.

I suppose there might be the tiniest possibility that I did not appear quite so charming from the outside as I felt on the inside...

I think it is very unlikely your friends either know or care how they really appear, at least when they're taking it. You could talk to them when they're sober though, but they might just try to include you more, which would probably be worse. I think the best bet is to not be near them when they're on it. Or just not be near them full stop. It's one thing taking it when you're 22 in the 00s and pretty oblivious to where it comes from. Unless they are spectacularly dense, they can't really cry ignorance nowadays. I would never take it now in large part because I don't want to part of the horrors involved in the supply.

I think I’ve seen too many of these reality police/customs programmes, I just don’t think I could do any drug that has potentially been either through someone’s digestive system or up their bum at some point 😂

This is like a poem!

I have taken a lot of different drugs in my long ago younger years. Never cared for coke, expensive given the short time it lasts and I did not like the high. I have no idea what it costs now or how prevelant its use is. I was a drugs worker for years, and I always remember this about the different types of cocaine use:

Users: people for use it in a work setting, such as bankers, chefs, musicians and politicians. Obviously, I am not suggesting that everyone in these roles takes coke
Cruisers: People who sometimes do the odd line on social occasions
Boozers: People who take coke while out in the pubs and clubs, using coke while drinking creates a substance called cocaethylene which doubles the half-life of the cocaine
Losers: Crack smokers, with all the attendant stigma that this method of cocaine use has. The other three groups do not think they are in any way like the crack smokers, but in essence they are all chasing the same high. Crack was a big problem where I live, it then lost ground to spice which was visibly everywhere but lately crack has made a comeback. I have seen poeople smoking it in the daytime round the back of our local Asda

Yep this was my experience too. I feel like it’s a thing to be left in your early 20s. I know people who do it in their 50s! Pff no thanks. I agree with other posters that alcohol is just as bad if not worse sometimes. To the OP who I presume is a journalist. If I remember correctly if you can just do one line it could be fun, exhilarating. But one line was never enough. I’d suggest yoga these days.

I’ve never found anyone I know becomes cold or selfish on it… I’m teetotal so I have had some experience of watching my mates become sloppy, emotional, belligerent, stupid and rude on alcohol. I always find those on coke just talk my ear off but seem much more present/sober.

I usually have gone home by 11pm though nowadays so maybe I’m just not there late enough.

My sisters ex became violent on coke though so I’m not saying it’s not a crappy drug. I’d rather everyone left booze and snow alone and had a nice cup of tea :)

I don't like being around drunk people,I find them absolutely annoying and they can actually more obnoxious than some who do drugs.

I did used to go out with a lad who smoked dope. I did have a couple of drags but didn’t like it so never tried it again. The Leah Betts case was enough to put me off trying any other drugs for life.

Nobody in my circle of friends have taken it that I know of. A friend of mine has raised her grandson whose mother was using during pregnancy. He was born 3 months premature social services were pushing for adoption. But as soon as they knew he had brain damage they were literally begging her to be his guardian.

i've always thought that this would make a great drugs education campaign.Something along the lines (ha) of "Do you know how that snow white powder going up your nose arrived in this country" while cutting to a film of someone swallowing or inserting condoms stuffed with coke so that it can be smuggled into the country. Of course this is not the only way ti arrives here but it might be a revelation to some

i've always thought that this would make a great drugs education campaign.Something along the lines (ha) of "Do you know how that snow white powder going up your nose arrived in this country" while cutting to a film of someone swallowing or inserting condoms stuffed with coke so that it can be smuggled into the country. Of course this is not the only way ti arrives here but it might be a revelation to some

Agree, jabbering relentlessly with flat, dead, shark eyes. Impossible to interact with because they’re on transmit only. Been around it a lot (it was endemic in the industry I worked in) but only partaken a few times, and yes, I was aware of the disparity between how I felt and how I might be coming across.

I’ll admit it does make you feel like some sparkling social butterfly, full of easy, flowing conversation and great confidence that you’re being witty and charming. Also sobers you up almost instantaneously so you’re then into an endless cycle of top up booze and lines. Probably fun for those doing it, but so fucking tedious for everyone else.

Sadly it gets even worse as people get older still clinging on to that lifestyle, and there are occasions and individuals I definitely swerve now. Nothing as unedifying as raddled old 60-somethings, trying to be too cool for school and gurning away, talking at you a million miles an hour without blinking. No thanks.

I despise people who use drugs. They fund/encourage a hideous, violent industry, and they reward vicious scumbags. I’m also sick of the trendy-left view of ‘gangsta’ drug dealers as freedom fighters opposing ‘da system’. No, they’re not heroes, and being on their side doesn’t make you cool. All they have ever done in their filthy, worthless lives is hurt people, while those who slog away as teachers or nurses or postmen or lorry drivers (and keep society functioning) remain ignored and unrewarded.

If everyone behaved like drug-dealing vermin, we’d have no civilisation at all. Human beings aren’t naturally civilised. We have to work hard to build and maintain civilisation, and it can collapse in a moment. Peel away the surface and you have violent, tribal apes. People who deal, and take, drugs threaten our fragile peace and order. I know those prats who call themselves ‘anarcho-socialists’ think that would be a good thing, but though such gibberish sounds good in the university bar, I doubt they’d like the reality.