Number of people seeking treatment for use of drug is on the rise, says EU study

The purity of street cocaine across Europe is at its highest level in a decade and the number of people seeking treatment for use of the drug is on the rise, a EU report has found.

In an annual overview of drug trends across the continent, the EU drugs agency, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), found that although the price of cocaine had remained stable, an increase in purity, first seen in 2010, continued in 2016.

That trend was coupled with a marked rise in the number of first-time admissions to specialised treatment relating to cocaine. In 2016, 30,300 people entered treatment for the first time for problems with the drug, more than a fifth more than in 2014.

Cocaine is the most commonly used illicit stimulant in Europe. The report estimated that 17 million European adults (aged 15–64), or 5.1% of this age group, had tried cocaine during their lives. About 2.3 million young adults, aged 15 to 34, (1.9 % of the age group), said they had used the drug in the last year.

The highest rates of cocaine use were in the UK, with 4% of people between the ages of 15 and 34 saying they had used it in the past year. The Netherlands had the second highest rate, with 3.7%, Spain, the third highest (3%) and Ireland, the fourth (2.9%).



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The report pointed to a recent study of drug residues found in municipal wastewater, which revealed that there was an increase in cocaine traces found between 2015 and 2017 in 26 out of the 31 cities examined over that period.

Tests of the water in Bristol in 2017 found 755mg of cocaine residue per 1000 residents per day, the sixth highest amount of the 59 European cities tested that year. Barcelona in Spain had the highest level, with 965mg, and Turku in Finland, the lowest, with 4.7mg.

Alexis Goosdeel, the director of the EMCDDA, said the report’s findings indicated that Europe was experiencing the consequences of increased cocaine production in South America.

“We must be concerned about the health implications of cocaine use as we are beginning to see some worrying developments in this area, including a larger number of people entering treatment for the first time for cocaine problems,” he said.

“These changes underline the growing importance of providing effective prevention, treatment and harm-reduction interventions for cocaine users.”

Niamh Eastwood, executive director of the drug information charity Release, said the rise in cocaine purity was driven by various complex factors.

“As well as increased cocaine production in Latin America, the crackdown on cutting agents by law enforcement in many European countries, including the UK, has seen suppliers limit the risk of detection by removing bulking agents from the supply chain,” she said.

“This is one driver for increased treatment admissions for cocaine and demonstrates the unintended consequences of law enforcement. We need smarter approaches to drugs including ending the criminalisation of people who use illicit substances and law enforcement practices that reduce harms not increase them.”

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More than 92 million, or just over a quarter, of 15- to 64-year-olds in the EU are estimated to have tried illegal drugs in their lives. More men (56 million) report trying illicit substances than women (36.3 million). The most commonly tried drug is cannabis (53.5 million men and 34.3 million women) and the second most common is cocaine (11.8 million men and 5.2 million women).

It is estimated that at least 7,929 overdose deaths, involving one or more illegal drug, occurred in the EU in 2016. The U K (34%) and Germany (15%) together account for around half of the European total.