A new survey by the National Treatment Agency as revealed that there has been a three fold increase in the number of people admitting to having used cocaine at some point in their lives. The figure hs gone from 3% in 96 to 9.2% of the population now.

Another interesting figure is that the number of people using the drug in the last month has gone from 0.2% to 1.5% over the same period. That would indicate that not only are more people using the drug but it is being used a lot more frequently too.

As with most surveys, this is probably telling a lot of people what they already know. Cocaine has changed it’s profile radically over the last decade or so from being a very expensive party drug to being pretty much a street drug within the reach and scope of all of the population.

I am reminded of a teacher at a top London private school who called in the parents of one of his pupils to report that the school was concerned that the boy might have a drug problem. The parents replied that they were really shocked to hear this.

They said they knew he took cocaine at parties with them sometimes but had no idea he might have a problem! I think this story speaks volumes about the change in the perception of cocaine in recent years.

Another interesting feature of this report is the apparent explosion in use by the 18-24 year olds. In just a few years since 2005 use by this group has risen from 9% to 18%. I think this aspect of the report seems to have been under reported. If that growth rate continues we are really dealing with an explosion of use.

At least there was one ray of sunshine in this report. It has shown that this group can be very successfully treated with 7/10 presenting for treatment being successfully treated in a six month follow up study.