More cocaine is snorted in London than Barcelona, Amsterdam and Berlin combined

London’s cocaine market is now worth an estimated £1 billion a year, with people in the UK capital taking more than Barcelona, Amsterdam and Berlin combined.

More than half a million doses of cocaine, with an estimated street value of £2.75 million, are consumed in London on average every 24 hours, which is twice the amount of any other European city.

When forensic scientists at King College London University tested waste water for benzoylecgonine (BE) – the compound produced when the body breaks down cocaine – they found Londoners consumed an average of 23kg per day, according to a study obtained by Sky News.

While Bristol was named the cocaine capital of Europe last year, with more users of the Class A drug per head of population, people in London take more per day than Europe’s next three biggest cocaine-taking cities combined.

Barcelona averages 12.74kg, Amsterdam residents take 4.62kg and people in Berlin consume 4.62kg, although it must be noted that London has a far bigger population compared to these cities.

This means London’s annual pure cocaine use now equates to more than eight tonnes, which has an estimated street value of more than £1 billion.

Dr Leon Barron, a forensic scientist at King’s College London, said that cocaine was an ‘everyday drug’ in London, with the study finding ‘sustained cocaine usage across the week’ in the capital, with only ‘a slight rise at the weekend’.

He said: ‘That is in contrast to other cities where you see a very marked recreational use at the weekend, and so cocaine is an everyday drug in London.’

The average daily amount of cocaine calculated (23kg) by researchers represents pure cocaine and doesn’t include substances which the Class A drug is cut with such as lidocaine and benzocaine.

London’s consumption of the drug doubled from 2011 to 2015 but is now slightly reduced, suggesting the market may have saturated and potentially led dealers to county lines operations.

However, the wholesale price of cocaine has come down, which could be one reason why it is still being used so often.

Furthermore, more international crime networks have entered the market and it has become more competitive.

In March, Bristol was exposed as Europe’s cocaine capital in a sewage study by European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug addiction.

Researchers found that 969.2mg per 1,000 people were contaminated by the substance in 2018.

Bristol was the only UK city participating in last year’s research and London’s wastewater – which has taken the European cocaine crown in other studies – was not included.

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