The wines and lines mums

Once only associated with glamorous A-listers, cocaine is now prevalent with the soccer-mum set - as likely to be imbibed at a school fundraiser as a nightclub. The Weekly looks inside this illegal, addictive, rising trend.

- GENEVIEVE GANNON

The kitchen bench is strewn with the remnants of the day's barbecue, but the kids are finally in bed. The salads are wilting, and assorted sippy cups and squeezed-out tubes of sweetened yoghurt have been left next to the sink. Clean-up can wait until tomorrow. For now, the assembled parents are free to enjoy some fun. Husbands and wives move onto the deck to drink more wine, continuing their discussion of house prices, TikTok and the recent head-lice outbreak. The doorbell rings and one of the mothers leaps to her feet in eager anticipation. That will be the cocaine.

The creep of cocaine into suburban homes is well known, but not well understood. Articles occasionally surface describing school fundraisers fuelled by white powder or a sneaky line of coke on a child-free Sunday with friends. All identifying details have usually been stripped from the stories including, often, the author's name.

This is, of course, because possessing a class A drug carries a potential penalty of six months' imprisonment. However, cocaine is flooding into Australia and New Zealand at record levels, and the data backs up the anecdotal evidence that plenty of the customers are middle-class mums.

Mid-forties professional and motherof-three Anna" agreed to speak about her experience and observations on the condition of anonymity. She first tried cocaine a few years ago and now looks forward to an occasional "fun weekend" instead of drinks at the pub.

"It's now almost acceptable," Anna tells The Weekly. "If I tell people I don't drink, there's an assumption among some that I do cocaine. I don't advertise it, but I don't deny it."

Other women in her social circles are open about their cocaine use too. "It is happening and it's happening more regularly," Anna says. For her, it's preferable to booze. She likes that she can get a high "without being doped from the alcohol, without slowing down".