“I can still get a gram quicker than a pizza.” That was a former cocaine user’s response to hearing the drug was in every pub we tested.
Many readers were also unsurprised. It’s an endemic societal problem that has seeped into the country’s bloodstream – realistically how much more can pubs do? Follow people to toilets? Get sniffer dogs? Maybe they could make Brexit work while they’re at it.
Police insist there is “significant countywide focus” to tackle it and with good reason. Cocaine doesn’t just destroy the user’s life, the money also feeds an underworld of feuding gangs and collateral damage. We routinely cover court and cocaine is regularly in the cocktail of issues.
So how will it ever be solved?
Police, pubs and others do their best. But you’d think part of the answer involves creating a society where disillusioned people – particularly young adults – don’t feel they have nothing to lose in trying it.
Better education, wider access to opportunities, well-funded mental health services. Less food banks and more youth centres.
But that utopia doesn’t come free, which raises another crucial question: who should pay for it?
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