Tough line on middle-class drug users

It is seen as the height of fashion (or normality) among dinner-party guests in London. From Islington to Notting Hill, from Clapham to the Docklands, once the coffee and handmade chocolates have been cleared away it's time for the cocaine course.

The new Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police insisted this month that cocaine abuse among the middle classes was increasingly commonplace - and that he intended to do something about it.

Sir Ian Blair, speaking on his first day as Britain's top cop, said: "People are having dinner parties where they drink less wine and snort more cocaine."

He criticised people who he said wrongly believed it was "socially acceptable" to enjoy a "wrap of charlie" at the weekend. And he had a warning for such users: his officers may have tended to concentrate on inner-city estates and drug dens in run-down areas, but more affluent cocaine users could be arrested.

Those who took cocaine on a weekend night out in Britain's bars and clubs would not escape the law, he said. "The tests on the toilet seats of various clubs will tell you an awful lot of cocaine is going on in the centre of London that people think is exempt from policing.

"People think it is okay but I do not think it is okay to use cocaine. We will have to do something about it by making a few examples of people so that they understand. I am concerned that it is becoming socially acceptable."

One national drugs agency questioned whether raiding dinner parties and up-market clubs was the right way of tackling the country's growing drugs menace.

Gary Sutton, head of drug services at national drugs advice agency Release, said: "I don't see how people sitting in their front rooms having a line of coke after a dinner party pose a great social harm. The people most at risk are probably homeless injectors of class A drugs.

"I wonder whether this is more about a senior police officer feeling uncomfortable about something which has become normal for many people."

One cocaine user and frequenter of London dinner parties and clubs, agreed. "The places I go, especially the posh clubs, are awash with it. I was at one dinner party the other day and a bowl of it was out on the table.

"One of the contradictions of having cocaine at dinner parties is that if you have it at the start of the meal you lose your appetite."

A number of public figures, including television presenter Angus Deayton, have been the subject of stories linking them with cocaine use. Deayton lost his BBC job after a News of the World story about his alleged drug taking.

James Hewitt, the former lover of Princess Diana, also fell foul of the law after he was found in possession of cocaine at a bar in London last July. Sir Ian said this week that though Hewitt was cautioned he would have been in favour of a much tougher sentence.

"Drugs, particularly opiates and cocaine, are a curse for us," he said. "There is a sense that people think that in certain fashionable clubs, restaurants and dinner parties it is okay to do drugs. All I will say is that people may find out that it is not."

Figures released by the Office of National Statistics estimate that approximately 475,000 people in Britain take powder cocaine in addition to the 200,000 crack cocaine users. Home Office research shows that one person in 20, aged 16 to 24, has used cocaine or crack.

Evidence of the widespread use and ready availability of cocaine is provided by figures from the Independent Drug Monitoring Unit which show that the price of the drug has been dropping. On average it costs about 46 ($121) a gram, down from about 57 ($150) a gram 10 years ago. A gram is enough for about 12 lines, or hits, of the drug.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke also appeared to back Sir Ian's pledge to crackdown on middle-class drug users. He said the law on drugs applied to everyone "whatever their social class".

Philip Hodson, a fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, warned that the possible consequences of even occasional cocaine use could be serious.

"My line with most drugs is there's no free high - you pay afterwards for the elevation of mood," he said. "The ill effects are that you may become addicted and do more and more. It would make them slightly paranoid, slightly hard-wired and if they have a susceptibility to mental illness it may tip them over.

"Cocaine is a drug that has damaging psychological effects in a percentage of users but if you really want a drug that has a damaging effect psychologically, emotionally, mentally and socially it wouldn't be the first one on your list - that would be alcohol."

- Independent