A new study which analysed the cocaine intake of 75 European cities, has found that Bristol and London are the biggest coke consumers in Europe. Bristol has the most users of cocaine “per head of population per day”, according to Sky News, while London has the largest amount of cocaine being consumed per day – 23kg, or 23,000 grams.
Totted up over the course of a year, this means that London now consumes eight tons of coke per annum, with an annual cocaine market worth £1 billion (£2.75 million a day). This is more than the amount consumed in Barcelona, Amsterdam and Berlin combined, which is obviously both a fairly striking and worrying fact. The Europe-wide study, carried out by King’s College London, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) and a group of forensic laboratories called SCORE, also showed that London’s coke use continues throughout the week, rather than being only a weekend drug.
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In terms of amounts of users, London follows Bristol, Amsterdam and Zurich, with 2.8 grams of coke consumed per 1,000 people daily. For Bristol, the figure is 3.5 grams.
Though Bristol and London were the only UK cities tested of the total 75, the high figures are not a huge surprise considering recent Home Office statistics which found drug use in Britain in general is on the rise, with 976,000 people specifically reporting that they’d taken powder cocaine in 2018/2019.
In addition to those stats, the King’s College London figures further underline Britain as a nation of some of the heaviest drug users in Europe. And with cocaine use becoming more casual than ever in the capital and beyond, it doesn’t look like Bristol, London or the many other UK cities that love getting on it will be toppled from their positions as the cocaine capitals of Europe any time soon.
