London is 'cocaine capital of Europe'
Miranda Bryant - London Evening Standard
London is the cocaine capital of Europe with highest use of the drug of any other city on the continent.
New research published today, which analysed traces of drugs in the sewage systems of 42 cities, found that the capital had the highest cocaine use of any tested.
In London 711mg of cocaine were detected in waste water per day per 1,000 people by the EU drugs monitoring agency study.
The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction in Lisbon, which took population into account in its analysis, also found that the capital had among the highest consumption of ecstasy.
The samples, which were tested during a week last year, found that while in most cities cocaine and ecstasy intake increased sharply at weekends, in London cocaine use reached its peak on a Tuesday.
The research, which is considered a more forensic snapshot of drug habits than other methods such as surveys, found that cocaine and ecstasy are most used in western and some southern cities while in eastern Europe crystal meth is most common with Prague showing the highest consumption of the drug.
The agency warned that the sale of drugs online had increased availability.
It said: “The open sale of ‘legal highs’ on the internet appears to have increased their availability to distributors and consumers.
“In addition, purchasing new and ‘old’ drugs via ‘darknets’ - underground, online networks permitting anonymous communication - represents a new challenge to law enforcement.”
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