London Is The 'Cocaine Capital' Of Europe, Drugs Study Finds
London Is The 'Cocaine Capital' Of Europe, Drugs Study Finds
Sara C Nelson— Huffington Post UK
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London could be the “cocaine capital” of Europe, according to a new study.
The findings are based on analysis of the sewage of 42 cities over the course of a week in 2013.
Britain’s capital had 711mg of the benzoylecgonine – the main chemical in cocaine - per 1,000 people, almost double of that of its closest rival Amsterdam, which had 393mg, and 233mg in Milan.
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London is the 'cocaine capital' of Europe, according to the European Drug Report
Usage in London is apparently highest on Tuesdays.
In total, wastewater from approximately 8 million people was analysed for traces of the drug, as well as amphetamine, cannabis, ecstasy and methamphetamine.
The data, published in the European Drug Report 2014, aims to give a broad view of drug flow across the continent.
Cocaine and ecstasy were more popular in western Europe, with crystal meth more prevalent in eastern Europe.
The Home Office has appeared to downplay the figures, with Crime Prevention Minister Norman Baker saying:“Waste water analysis is an emerging and as such unproven technique for measuring the prevalence of drugs.
High-Profile Crack And Cocaine Admissions
Pete Doherty(01 of09)
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The front man for The Libertines and Babyshambles and ex-boyfriend of Kate Moss said in an interview in July that he is still addicted to crack. When asked what would make him stop, he replied: "Probably my sex drive will have to go. Or I'll have to lose a hand." (credit:AP)
Lawrence Taylor(02 of09)
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The former NFL star wrote in an autobiography that he was high on crack cocaine during games and borrowed urine from his New York Giants teammates to fool NFL drug testers. (credit:CP)
Elton John(03 of09)
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The singer admitted in a book that he wasted much of his life being an addict, saying "I was consumed by cocaine, booze, and who knows what else." (credit:CP)
Marion Barry(04 of09)
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The former mayor of Washington, D.C was arrested for possession of cocaine in 1991 and re-elected in 1994. An 83-minute video of Barry smoking crack was watched by jurors in Barry's trial and featured the mayor yelling "bitch set me up!" about a woman he was with. (credit:CP)
Robert Downey Jr. (05 of09)
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The reformed actor admitted to drug addiction throughout the 1980s and also owned up to using crack. "The guy I was seeing didn't know I was smokin' crack in his bathroom. You can't make a diagnosis until somebody's sober," he told Esquire magazine in 2007. (credit:AP)
Barack Obama(06 of09)
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The President of the United States wrote in his first book "Dreams From My Father" that before entering politics he had used marijuana and cocaine ("maybe a little blow," he wrote). (credit:AP)
Sigmund Freud(07 of09)
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The founder of modern psychology extolled the virtues of cocaine use and self-experimented with the drug, finding it useful in fighting depression and anxiety. (credit:AFP)
Oprah Winfrey(08 of09)
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One of the most idolized women in America said she did cocaine in the 1970s when she was an anchorwoman in Nashville. "I did your drug. This is probably one of the hardest things I have ever said. ... I had a perfect, round, little afro, I went to church on Sunday and I went to Wednesday prayer meetings when I could ... and I did drugs," she said on her show in 1995. (credit:Getty)
Angelina Jolie(09 of09)
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The megastar admitted to doing "just about every drug possible," including cocaine and heroin in a 1996 interview with The Mirror. In a later 60 Minutes interview she said her drug use is “nothing I want to go into a lot of detail about, but I think people can imagine that I did the most dangerous and I did the worst. For many reasons I shouldn’t be here." (credit:Gerry)
"Studies in the UK, including figures from the independent Crime Survey for England and Wales, show that drug usage remains at its lowest level since records began in 1996. We will however continue to review new ideas and techniques as they are developed to ensure the UK has robust systems in place to measure and track drug prevalence.
“The approach towards data collection varies considerably from country to country and as such, it is hard to make meaningful comparisons between different countries' drug prevalence levels.”
Home Office statistics from 2012 say 8.2% of 16-59 year olds had used any drug in the last year compared with 11.1% in 1996.
The Drinking Water Inspectorate data said the levels were not high enough to present a danger to the public.
The report said: "Estimated exposures for most of the detected compounds are at least thousands of times below doses seen to produce adverse effects in animals and hundreds of thousands below human therapeutic doses."
Steve Rolles of Transform told the Sunday Times: "We have the near highest level of cocaine use in western Europe. It has also been getting cheaper and cheaper at the same time as its use has been going up."
The charity DrugScope estimate 700,000 people aged 16-59 in the UK use cocaine every year with 180,000 addicted to crack-cocaine.
The report was highlighted by Labour MP, Jim Dobbin, who has called for closer monitoring to minimise the effects on consumers.