BRITONS SNORT WAY TO NEW HIGH IN COCAINE USE

Cocaine Use Is At A Record Level, According To The Research

British drug users take more cocaine than those in any other European
Union country, according to a study released today.

The report, by the European Monitoring Centre on Drugs and Drugs
Addiction, found that use of the narcotic had almost tripled among
adults in the past decade.

Cocaine use has also risen more than four times among 15 -
24-year-olds over the last 12 years. In England and Wales, almost 5%
of young people have tried the drug in the past year.

The research was released by the centre in its annual report, the
state of the drugs problem in Europe.

The study looks at drug problems in the 25 EU member states, as well
as Norway, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics quoted in the report
show that there were more than 54,000 deaths in the UK relating to
drug misuse between 1985 and 2004.

Drug deaths peaked in 2000, when more than 3,500 people died. They
have since been in steady decline.

In Europe as a whole, cocaine is now the second most popular illegal
drug, after cannabis. Ecstasy use has fallen and although many more
people use cannabis, its use has stabilised compared with that of cocaine.

In the UK, as well as Germany, Spain, France and the Netherlands,
cocaine was associated with between 10% and 20% of all drug-related
deaths.

Deaths related to cocaine rose 67%, from 88 deaths in 1999 to 147 in
2004, while deaths from ecstasy rose 85% from 26 to 48. Deaths from
codeine rose 108% in the same period, from 26 to 54.

The report estimates that around 10 million Europeans have used
cocaine and around 3.5 million are likely to have used it in the last
year.

Around 1.5 million Europeans, or 0.5% of adults, said they had taken
cocaine in the last month.