Last Updated on July 4, 2025 by Karl Thompson
Cocaine use in the UK has surged in recent years, making Britain the largest consumer of the drug in Europe. While the drug is often associated with the wealthy elite, it has become increasingly popular among a wide range of social groups, including young people, football fans, and construction workers. One survey even found that England, Scotland and Wales may consume up to a fifth of all European cocaine annually. This post explores Britain’s cocaine habit through different sociological perspectives and links this trend to broader issues in crime and deviance.
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A Snapshot of Britain’s Cocaine Problem
Recent reports show that around 2.4% of UK adults aged 16-59 have used cocaine in the past year, with usage among 16-24 year olds even higher at 8.3%. Cocaine is now the second most commonly used drug in the UK after cannabis. Its affordability, accessibility via social media, and increasing purity have all contributed to its widespread popularity. A gram of cocaine can now cost as little as £50, and it can be delivered faster than a takeaway pizza. Dealers even advertise with emojis on platforms like Snapchat.
Wastewater analysis shows usage has increased by 7% in just one year between 2023 and 2024. Cocaine is increasingly available due to a boom in global supply, particularly from Colombia where coca cultivation has more than doubled since 2014. In Europe, British street dealers are the final step in a supply chain that runs through Ecuadorian ports and is controlled by transnational gangs including the Sinaloa Cartel and Albanian mafias.
This increased consumption has serious consequences. Cocaine is linked to rising deaths, with over 1,100 cocaine-related fatalities recorded in England and Wales in 2022. It is also associated with domestic abuse, with one police force reporting 56% of perpetrators tested positive for cocaine and/or opiates. There are also links to violent crime—50% of the 3,148 recorded homicides in 2023 were drug-related.
UNODC – World Drug Report 2024 (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
This authoritative global report provides up-to-date statistics and insight into international drug production, trafficking, and consumption trends—ideal for further contextualising the UK’s cocaine use within global patterns.
Functionalist Explanations: Cocaine Use as a Social Function
From a functionalist perspective, deviant behaviour like drug use can serve a purpose in society. According to Durkheim, crime is inevitable and even necessary for social stability. Cocaine use may reflect the strain placed on individuals by modern society. Merton’s strain theory suggests that when individuals cannot achieve socially approved goals through legitimate means, they may turn to deviant behaviours.
The high levels of cocaine consumption among working-class individuals could be seen as a response to blocked opportunities and alienation. For example, builders, plumbers, and match-going football fans are now regular users, turning to cocaine as a way to escape the boredom and insecurity of working life. Meanwhile, white-collar professionals are also drawn to the drug—not only for its stimulant effects but for its association with power and status, particularly in high-pressure environments like the City or Parliament.
Marxist Theory: Capitalism, Inequality and Cocaine
Marxist criminologists argue that crime is a result of the inequalities built into the capitalist system. Cocaine use can be interpreted as a product of consumer culture, where people are encouraged to pursue hedonistic lifestyles without the means to do so legally. The drug market itself is an extension of capitalist enterprise—profit-driven, exploitative, and global in scale.
Meanwhile, the criminal justice system tends to focus on street-level users rather than the elite who facilitate or consume cocaine behind closed doors. Despite widespread use among the middle classes and in elite institutions like Parliament, enforcement is often concentrated on working-class users, reinforcing class-based inequalities. In fact, the cocaine supply chain illustrates capitalist dynamics perfectly: poor farmers in Colombia grow coca for cartels who pay them in advance, and the product is sold for £35,000 per kilo in Europe, with massive profits made at each stage.
Postmodern and Late Modern Criminology: Identity and Risk
Postmodern perspectives see crime and deviance as expressions of identity in a fragmented society. For many, especially younger users, cocaine is not just a drug but part of a lifestyle and identity linked to status, partying, and risk-taking. The symbolic appeal of cocaine—seen as a high-status drug—adds to its allure.
Late modern theorists like Jock Young suggest we now live in a ‘bulimic society’ where individuals are constantly exposed to material success but denied the means to achieve it. Cocaine use becomes a way of coping with these contradictions, a form of escapism from insecurity, anxiety, and boredom. This can be seen in how cocaine is marketed online—with social media emojis creating a coded language that turns drug use into a casual, trendy, and almost banal activity.
Globalisation and the Cocaine Trade
Globalisation has made it easier for drugs to move across borders. Cocaine is typically smuggled from South America into Europe via ports in Ecuador, with criminal networks extending through Europe and the UK. The rise of encrypted messaging, anonymous delivery networks, and international gangs has made the cocaine supply chain more efficient and harder to police.
The journey from Colombia to the UK illustrates this perfectly. Cocaine is moved through ports like Antwerp and Rotterdam, hidden in banana or flower shipments, then trucked or ferried to British ports. Organised crime groups from Albania, Italy and Latin America all play a role. This reflects the idea of transnational crime as a byproduct of globalisation. British users are linked to a global web of exploitation, environmental damage, and violence. In Ecuador alone, homicides rose to 8,000 in 2023, eight times higher than in 2018, largely due to gang-related conflict over cocaine exports.
The Problems of Controlling Global Crime
Controlling the cocaine trade is incredibly difficult. Law enforcement agencies may seize record amounts of the drug—such as the 26.5 tonnes intercepted by the UK Border Force in 2023—but supply chains adapt quickly. Port officials in Antwerp report they are now confiscating more drugs than they can destroy. Traffickers innovate constantly, using encrypted tech, “narco-subs”, bribery and intimidation of customs officials to bypass detection.
This illustrates one of the key problems of global crime: it is decentralised, constantly evolving, and increasingly technologically advanced. Efforts to control drug trafficking often result in further violence, state corruption, and displacement of the problem rather than its resolution. This highlights the limitations of traditional policing and the need for international cooperation and more nuanced, socially informed strategies.
Conclusion: Cocaine Use and Sociological Insight
Britain’s growing cocaine habit can be analysed through multiple sociological lenses. Functionalists point to the social strains and functions of drug use; Marxists highlight capitalism’s role in generating inequality and crime; postmodernists focus on identity, lifestyle and risk; while globalisation theorists link local use to transnational harm.
Understanding cocaine use in this way reveals that it is not just a personal vice or isolated criminal act, but a deeply social issue embedded in broader structures of inequality, culture, and global networks.
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