Tim Worstall

Drugs Frenzy!

So, some academics use an intruiging method to estimate cocaine usage in London.

The Thames is awash with cocaine as Londoners snort more than 150,000 lines of the class A drug every day.

The
figure is 15 times higher than official Home Office statistics and
equates to four out of every 100 people regularly taking cocaine, or up
to 250,000 of the capital’s six million residents.

OK, so drugs usage is much higher than official figures.

Anti-drug campaigners said last night that the findings showed that
cocaine use was a ticking "health-care time bomb" and called for the
Government to take drastic action.

One thought is, if usage really is 15 times previous estimates then the drug isn’t actually as dangerous as all that then, is it? Like, perhaps, in its effects on the general health of the population, 15 times less than previously reported?

The other is "drastic action". Like what? Banging up drug dealers? Confiscating the property and money of anyone we think, but can’t prove, might be a drug dealer? Don’t we already do these things?

Drastic action would be to accept that people are going to do these things, even in the face of these serious penalties, and work to reduce the effects rather than bluster about "getting serious".

Legalize the damn stuff and then tax it.

In

6 responses

  1. Anoneumouse Avatar
    Anoneumouse

    “The Thames is awash with cocaine as Londoners snort more than 150,000 lines of the class A drug every day”.
    Is that for the whole of the Thames water course, or just the flow of the river after the Houses of Parliament?

    Reply
  2. Rub-a-dub Avatar
    Rub-a-dub

    My initial thoughts were it was a ‘Get Cameron’ piece. Perhaps we’ll think that about every drugs-related story from now on?

    Reply
  3. Phil Hunt Avatar
    Phil Hunt

    Tim: “””The other is “drastic action”. Like what? Banging up drug dealers? Confiscating the property and money of anyone we think, but can’t prove, might be a drug dealer? Don’t we already do these things?”””
    I predict ‘drastic action’ in the form of another of Blair’s attacks on civil liberties.

    Reply
  4. David B. Wildgoose Avatar
    David B. Wildgoose

    As recommended by Lemmy:
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,16518,1627431,00.html

    Reply
  5. Remittance Man Avatar
    Remittance Man

    So we have 2kg of coke per day in a river flowing at how many litres per hour? We’re talking trace values here so an error of 100% in measurement could easily be made and thus double the estimated daily use. Of course no one mentioned this which makes me start to suspect the Telegraph might be the victim of Quango Maths.
    But there’s another problem with the report. The trial seems to assume that all coke in the Thames gets there by the nose-human body-lavatory-sewage system route. But there are a couple more ways coke can end up in the river.
    Example 1: The “flush it down the bog, the pigs are coming!” route. The traditional method of evidence disposal in the case of a friendly visit by Plod.
    Example 2: The “clean up the lab so the pigs don’t nail us” route. While cutting pure coke with such harmless substances as Harpic and rat poison, our freindly dealers are likely to have some spillage problems. Naturally they are unlikely to be keen on leaving traces of cocaine around their kitchens so they would, in all likelyhood, clean up after themselves. Since we can assume that your average coke baron cares very little about the environment the cleaned up residue would, in all likelyhood, be poured down the drain.
    Thus we have two more, beleivable and abuse related methods by which large quantities (relative to the 2kg stated anyway) could end up in the Thames via the London sewage system.
    Methinks my suspicions of Quango Maths are almost confirmed. The answers to two questions are all we need to get damning proof. Who put the Telegraph up to this? When is their state funded budget up for reassessment?
    Yours, every in cynicism,
    The Remittance Man

    Reply
  6. Remittance Man Avatar
    Remittance Man

    And with some more digging we find more evdence of Quango maths. The article does, very quietly state that the coke traces remain after water treatment. Now my geography ain’t 100%, but I seem to remember that the Thames flows through the Thames Valley, Oxfordshire and points west. Surely the population figures for those areas should be included in the accounting.
    RM

    Reply

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