Pubdate: Thu, 03 Feb 2005
Source: Guardian, The (UK)
Copyright: 2005 Guardian Newspapers Limited
Contact:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/175
Author: Leo Benedictus

COCAINE, ANYONE?

Is There Anything Wrong With Recreational Drugs? the New Head Of
Scotland Yard Says There Is. But, Says Leo Benedictus, the Rise of The
Middle Class User Will Be Difficult to Stop

Rarely is the appointment of a new Metropolitan police commissioner so
interesting. On his first day as Britain's most powerful policeman,
Sir Ian Blair decided to let the nation in on a little secret: "People
are having dinner parties where they drink less wine and snort more
cocaine," he said. (How he knows this he didn't explain.) "I'm not
interested in what harm it is doing to them personally," he continued,
"but the price of that cocaine is misery on the streets of London's
estates and blood on the roads to Colombia and Afghanistan." In other
words: boycott cocaine. Just say "no thanks". Skip the charlie like
you would pass the cheeseboard. A hundred years ago, cocaine was not a
moral issue. Ernest Shackleton was propelled on his Antarctic
adventures by Forced March, a product largely composed of cocaine, and
we now know that Queen Victoria could have given Jimi Hendrix a run
for his money. It was only during the first world war that the drug
began to be imagined as a social problem.

In fact, the legislation that first made possession of cocaine or
opium illegal in this country was an ad hoc wartime gesture to prevent
soldiers on leave in the West End from having too much to distract
them. With its reputation and its legal status confirmed, the idea of
cocaine itself as a morally degenerative substance took hold. The
Catholic church even weighed in, pronouncing in the catechism that the
use of drugs "except on strictly therapeutic grounds" is "a grave
offence". Ninety years later, now that powder cocaine has become more
widely used, the argument that it leads inevitably to ruin has become
difficult to maintain. "It is wrong-headed for a government to tell
the entire population that they cannot be trusted to drink after
11pm," said the culture secretary, Tessa Jowell, in the Commons last
week, speaking of another piece of outdated wartime
legislation.

Until Blair's remarks on Tuesday, there seemed to be just one argument
left: because cocaine is potentially addictive and can be harmful,
even the most sensible members of society - those who go to dinner
parties, indeed - cannot be trusted to use it.

The problem, again, is that drug users know better. And even non-drug
users, especially those who have to deal with the drug laws'
consequences, may question the sense in devoting vast resources to
catching and punishing people for having a joint or a line. Might
being caught not do more harm to a user than the drug he or she was
taking?

Here's a certain Sir Ian Blair in a letter to the Times from January
2004, expressing his support for the reclassification of cannabis:
"During the 30 years of my police service, the policing of possession
of small amounts of cannabis has become increasingly pointless. It was
grossly inefficient for officers to spend hours processing individuals
for the possession of cannabis in amounts about which neither the
courts nor therefore the CPS were prepared to take any action."

Now, with cannabis so widely tolerated that the government has been
forced to place advertisements reminding us all that it's not legal,
the focus has switched to cocaine - and with good reason. Despite its
price, cocaine is now the second most popular illegal drug in Britain,
with the Office for National Statistics estimating that 475,000 people
in the UK use it. And the number of users has nearly tripled since
1997, according to the Independent Drugs Monitoring Unit. These people
cannot all be destroying their lives, so by saying, "I'm not
interested in what harm it is doing to them personally," Blair seems,
for the first time, to be withdrawing the "save them from themselves"
argument. A sensible decision.

Most tellingly of all, though, the price of a gram - from which you'd
get about a dozen lines - is now around UKP40 in London, down from about
UKP60 a decade ago, when a number of Colombian cartels are said to have
first moved their attention away from the saturated US market to
concentrate on Europe. "What chance do we have of keeping drugs out of
Britain," Billy Connolly once asked, "if we can't keep them out of
prisons?"

Cocaine's success - and thus society's increasingly relaxed attitude
to it - should come as no surprise. From a business perspective, it is
by far the most attractive drug to deal in. As a concentrated white
powder, it is much easier to smuggle than bulky, smelly goods such as
cannabis. It is also easy to adulterate with another neutral
substance, which means retailers can double their profits at a stroke.

It is an effective product, too, that produces a number of pleasurable
effects in the short term, such as self-confidence, sexual arousal and
chattiness.

The drug also, frankly, enjoys a strong prestige positioning, thanks
to decades of countless, usually inadvertent, celebrity endorsements.
As a result, people are prepared to pay more for it than for any other
drug. And, as if all this wasn't enough, it can always be purified
into crack with bicarbonate of soda and sold in to the less affluent,
but unfailingly loyal, junkie market.

What Blair seems to have realised is that this country's coke problem
- - if it is a problem - is economic. Suppliers have found that they can
sell cocaine for huge profits without getting caught, and consumers
have responded with a steady increase in demand for a product they
evidently feel free to enjoy, whether or not it is wise to do so. The
only argument left is an appeal to the consumer. And don't
middle-class people at dinner parties, people who buy Fairtrade coffee
and drink organic wine, just love to be ethical?

It may be a clever idea, but it is based on a myth. Where are all
these cocaine dinner parties he talks about? The passing round of the
silver tray to appreciative noises - "It's Peruvian flake. I bought it
in an alleyway behind Borough Market" - is a fantasy. And if the
powers that be feel so strongly about unethical business practices,
why are battery chickens still legal? How about a lecture on where our
chocolate comes from? This is, at last, the first intelligent excuse
since the war on drugs started. But soon it will be time to consider
an exit strategy.

The line on cocaine 'So rife it's boring'

Sarah, 31, writer

I don't use cocaine any more, as I became an addict in my mid-20s. But
I still know lots of middle-class people who use it and think it's not
dangerous. I think they are in denial.

My cocaine use was entirely a social thing at the beginning. I would
use it with friends from college or people I met. We would all
disappear to the loo together in a bar to do a line, or people would
come to my house and we'd take it. I would go out and buy five or six
grams, which at the time cost about UKP300, and invite my mates to come
and get it. It was all terribly middle-class; we thought we were doing
something hip, decadent, pseudo-60s. Certainly nobody was watching the
money.

Janine, 30, mental health worker

In certain circles of friends it's so rife that it's got boring. Some
parties you just know people will be huddled in the loos or snorting
off mirrors in bedrooms. I dabble, but have only taken it twice in the
past 18 months.

I don't think, in general, users think about the broader implications
of cocaine use; neither did I until I read an article describing a
dinner party where the entire menu was organic and for dessert they
served coke, which probably involved people shooting each other
somewhere along the production process. I've not actually bought it
since.

Part of what makes it attractive is the fact that it's illegal and you
have to do it in the loos. But the law needs to be clarified because
coke has become so accessible that people forget it's class A. To me
it's as common as spliff.

Despite all this, I agree with Ian Blair. I'm sick and tired of
feeling unsafe walking down my street. I'd rather get drugs off the
streets.

Martin, 37, cartoonist

I think I see less of it around now than I did a few years ago, but
that's probably because of my age. But I know people who will always
have some on them on a Friday night, and if I'm with them I may have a
line or two, but I hardly ever buy it. These people can just call
someone and it will be there in half an hour or so. It's like a
courier service.

It could happen at a dinner party, but not necessarily - sometimes
it's just round at someone's house, with a few drinks. And sometimes
in the pub, and we'll just go into the loo to do it, maybe before
going on somewhere.

Do I ever worry about where it comes from? Well, yes, more so now than
I used to. You don't know what you're putting into your body. Oh, I
see, worry about what's happened to get it to me, wars and things? Oh,
God no. It's that old thing of whether you'd be prepared to kill a
chicken to eat it. I wouldn't, but I still eat chicken.

Cheryl, 41, a manager

Ian Blair's comments are so draconian. I imagine those comments will
have lost him a lot of support from a lot of middle-class recreational
drug users, and at the end of the day we're a powerful group of
people. I would rather not fund organised crime to buy my cocaine, and
I'm not proud of going to find it that way. I know people have been
killed and threatened along the way to get illegal drugs on to the
streets and that's why it's so important to start looking at
alternatives to keeping drugs illegal and alternatives to clamping
down on those who use them.

Jimmy, 28, lobbyist

In my experience, if there are eight people sitting around a table and
someone pulls out a gram of coke, six people will have a bit. Within
that you've got different grades: some people will look forward to it;
others feign surprise.

It always seems to be the same person who makes the trip to the pub,
or on to the estate to meet the dealer. I used to be that man and I
found it kind of intimidating. If you don't actually buy the stuff you
don't really acknowledge the downside. As for the fact that there are
private armies carving up South America to provide this stuff, forget
about it.

Bryony, 30, senior civil servant

I've been taking coke for 15 years and I must admit I've never really
thought about where it came from and where my money's going to end up.
Thinking about it now, I can see there are pushers making money, but
then lots of people are doing it. You can't stop it. I don't feel like
I'm personally harming anyone by taking coke. Although I'll probably
consider the implications more now that the issue has been raised.

I fear getting caught now I have a responsible, grown-up job. Even
though lots of middle-class people are doing it, I think being caught
would have a huge impact on my career. My fear is more about my
reputation than breaking the law. 
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