Coke and Young People

Today Drugscope released a new drugs trends survey, here in the UK.

The report suggests that coke is being sold in a two-tier way- i) expensive and purer and ii) cheaper and more cut; and that this £30 a gram cocaine puts it in reach of a new younger "market".

Drugscope's work concurs with what we have been seeing here in Surrey at Respond (adult drugs service): more young people have access to cocaine and it is becoming an ever-increasing serious problem.

In the last two years I have seen a big increase in the number of people under 25 who have come into treatment with very serious mental and physical health issues: as a result of their use of coke- for relatively short periods.

We are seeing an escalation in the use of powder and also crack- which seems to be losing it "loser" label and gaining more currency as just another drug that a poly drug user may partake of.

This is very worrying.

All people who present for treatment with addictions are not in a great place- people don't tend to ask for help until the damages to self and others are starting to stack up.

Young people witha coke addiction often experience these damages in a much shorter time-span.

The drug seems to speed things up in a micro (the high) and macro sense: it can make the progression of the addiction happen in a much shorter time frame.

I really hope that the British gov take note of this report and put some money behind Frank's new cocaine campaign. It is much needed.

Although the official stats may suggest the numbers are relatively small, I believe that stats miss the cultural dimension- the shift in perception of cocaine.

It takes a little while for those new users who are going to become dependent to move out of party-time and the denial process and into the..Oh sh** phase.

Plus, I'm always very wary of stats- I would never have admitted to a stranger that i had a coke problem (it took years to admit it to myself).

Some time ago Murray Lachlan Young wrote a poem called Simply Everyone's Taking Cocaine.

Maybe this was true, at EMI and the media back in the early 90s, but most everyone else simply couldn't afford it.

Now they can.

We really need to do some education work here and get stimulant treatment services ready for the snow-induced avalanche of desperate need that is growing.

Because the clients I am seeing turn-up in droves, week in week out need long-term, and so expensive, help.

There is no quick fix to the problem, so let's work to limit the scale of it.

Meanwhile, there is hope.

People can recover.

Families are reunited.

The mind and body can heal.

But- and this is an irony- it's a long, slow, process.