Cocaine Consumption: New York Blows Away the Competition - Der Spiegel

David Seaton's News Links

I hope there is more success in the "war on terrorism" than on the "war on drugs", although I think they are both excuses for other agendas. The stuff the gringos want to put up their nose brings nothing but misery, corruption and violence to the producing countries. The USA should clean up its own house before dreaming of intervening in others. There should be more education and treatment than punishment. Cocaine is terrible for the brain and nervous system. I know somebody brilliant, successful and rich that became a bi-polar, manic-depressive who suffers horrible depressions all because of the nose candy. It should be legal, which would end the criminality and its quality tightly controlled and addicts should be treated humanely and young people should be aware of what they are getting into. DS

Abstract: Researchers have been scouring rivers in Europe and the US for traces of cocaine consumption. The result: Cocaine use is probably much greater than previously assumed -- and New Yorkers are the biggest coke-heads of all. Last year, a study instigated by SPIEGEL ONLINE made big headlines: Experts had foraged Germany's rivers for a substance produced by the human body during cocaine consumption, and the results were bountiful. The extrapolated numbers revealed, among other things, that residents around the river Rhine's drainage basin near Düsseldorf consume roughly 11 tons of cocaine each year. The street value: around €1.64 billion. Now the experts at Nuremberg's Institute for Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Research (IBMP) have expanded their method to other EU countries and the US. The results are similar to those of 2005: Previous official estimates for cocaine use, which rely heavily on police statistics, are apparently way too low. For example in New York, IBMP teams searched the Hudson River and found the by-products of a projected cocaine consumption totaling 16.4 tons per year. There are approximately 3.4 million people aged 15 to 65 living in the Hudson's watershed. According to the United Nations "World Drug Report," 2.8 percent of Americans in this age group use cocaine at least once a year. That would mean that about 95,000 people are responsible for an annual consumption of 16.4 tons of pure cocaine -- a per capita rate of 172 grams per year. READ IT ALL