Has the cocaine epidemic arrived in the UK?

National surveys of the UK drug situation in 2000 found that cocaine was the most frequently seized Class A drug, with 25-40 tonnes of cocaine being smuggled into the UK each year. In the light of these findings, an audit of the analytical monitoring for cocaine abuse has been performed covering the period from 1996 to 2002. It was found that there has been a consistent upward trend in the percentage of requests found to be positive for cocaine over this 7-year study period, rising from 9.7% in 1996 to 22% in 2002. This data would suggest that the use of cocaine has increased dramatically over the past few years, indicating that the arrival of the "cocaine epidemic" has now started to become a reality in the UK.