Health

Cocaine is Cheaper than Beer

by Jordan Yerman | February 13, 2009 at 09:27 am

609 views | 16 Recommendations | 9 comments

Not only is cocaine easier to find late at night in the UK than beer, it's also cheaper. Indeed, a Home Office report finds that, serving for serving, a line of coke is less expensive than a pint of lager.

A gram of the devil's dandruff sells for an average of £20 ($US40), which is pretty much the street price in the US.

This can be caused by two things: increase in supply or slackening demand. The reality is likely somewhere in the middle. So, while blow is more widely available than before, people aren't going out and cutting fat rails like in Scarface.

Also contributing to the issue is competition: back in the day, Ecstasy was relatively expensive in the UK, but the price plunged around 2003 or so. Dealers were selling value-added packages, with multivitamins, Prozac, condoms, and other such complimentary items for a drug that forces your brain to puke its serotonin.

Since E was cheaper than speed, folks were just doing multiple pills as a matter of course for the sustained amphetamine effect, which is like driving your brain without tires, as the user's serotonin levels remain near zero for sustained periods of time, and the next day is like turning rabid porcupines loose inside your skull. But enough about that- back to the white t-shirt:

The Home Office - using data collected by police forces and the Serious Organised Crime Agency - reckons that while in 1998 a gram of charlie cost an average £77, that's now down to £40, with some areas enjoying nose ajax for as little as 20 quid a gram.

Accordingly, and with a little mathematical jiggery-pokery, it can be calculated that if a gram contains 10 to 20 lines, users can get a hit for as little as £1, with the average price lying between £2 and £4.

"As little as £1(US$2)" should raise some eyebrows, actually... that's not cheap coke, that's expensive laxative.

Don't do coke. It's bad for you and makes you boring.

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generaldecay

at 09:49 on February 13th, 2009

Um, I can see where they get these figures but, realistically, if you're weighing up the 'high' effects, I think you get a lot more bang for your buck with £20 of beer than £20 of coke. Or at least, I would.

Accordingly, and with a little mathematical jiggery-pokery, it can be calculated that if a gram contains 10 to 20 lines, users can get a hit for as little as £1, with the average price lying between £2 and £4. The average price of a pint of lager is £2.75, with a glass of plonk costing around £3.50.

That's A LOT of mathematical jiggery-dancy. It would be a small line of coke if you split a gram into 20 lines. I don't think anyone does that!

Also, in my experience of out and about here, coke is not that as easy to come by as this research makes out. (Not that I look, of course.)

All in all, I can't help but think that this is more about scare than fact.

Edit to add: £20 is the lowest you would pay, and you wouldn't get that everywhere, and I would be wary of how much a gram of coke for that much is cut. That makes me think again about bang for your £20 etc. All of this is the worst case scenario, I'm convinced.

Jordan Yerman

at 09:50 on February 13th, 2009

Those £1 lines would be really easy to find.

At Boots.

In a container marked "Talcum Powder".

I agree with you about bang-for-buck, considering how short the cocaine high is: you'd need to do quite a few of those tiny, tiny lines, which would be the equivalent of Halloween-sized candy bars.

generaldecay

at 09:53 on February 13th, 2009

You're on my way of thinking, Jordan. And, yes, you can buy talcum powder for about £1 a kilo, so you have a few million lines right there! :)

tosatori

at 11:00 on February 13th, 2009

tosatori has contributed a photo to this story.

Guerilla Skrilla

at 11:36 on February 13th, 2009

Guerilla Skrilla has contributed a photo to this story.

eastvanray

at 18:26 on February 13th, 2009

This is what one expects when one item is both tightly regulated and highly taxed and the other is traded rather freely and remains untaxed by governments. Cocaine consumers benefit from a freer market and "servers" who do not expect a tip for delivering the product.