London Cocaine Busts Quadruple In A Year

Scotland Yard seized 360kg of cocaine between May 2003 and April 2004, compared to 96kg recovered in the previous 12 months period, they revealed this week.

According to media reports, the London cops believe one of the main reasons for the massive increase is cocaine's increasingly mainstream profile, a trend Pete Tong identified over a year ago.

"I've got an instinctive feeling that the core of the club scene, where everything new starts, is over cocaine already," the Radio 1 tastemaker told Skrufff in April last year.

"When I read stories of bar culture in the suburbs, though, and you see how coke is now the average Saturday night drug for checkout girls, then there's no question that that has a negative effect across the board, it's a completely different drug to ecstasy," he said.

Fellow house pioneer Danny Rampling, who opened a new London club Union recently, also suggested coke is no longer synonymous with clubs, telling Skrufff 'I've noticed on dance floors recently that there isn't a huge amount of drug use going on.'

"Many clubbers were attracted to charlie (cocaine-drugs ed) in recent years and this certainly affected club attendances as clubbers were content to sit at home with friends with a mate DJing while they all talked bollocks," Danny complained.

"Cocaine is actually a far from glamorous drug and people fool themselves into thinking there is no comedown with coke which is far from the truth," he continued.

"In reality it induces apathy, major anxiety, and heavy all week blues, for some users fuelling even greater use.

"Let's hope that cocaine will not be considered fashionable and cool for much longer," he added.

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• coccaine
• danny rampling