The increasing demand from users - and the huge profits to be made in this booming marketplace - is reshaping the international drug trafficking trade on both sides of the Atlantic and its widespread availability is leaving a trail of addiction, organised crime and human rights abuses in its wake.
What is cocaine and how is it made? Cocaine is a highly addictive stimulant made from the leaves of the coca plant, native to Andean countries in South America, especially Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.
Usually manufactured in makeshift labs, cocaine is often cut with a variety of substances before it is sold and then distributed as a white, crystalline powder that can be snorted or injected. It can also be combined with baking soda to create a rock-like product called "crack" cocaine, which is usually smoked.
How much cocaine is coming to Europe? According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), people in Europe accounted for 21% of all global users of cocaine in 2021.
Denne historien er fra June 14, 2024-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
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Denne historien er fra June 14, 2024-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
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Finn family murals
The optimism that runs through Finnish artist Tove Jansson's Moomin stories also appears in her public works, now on show in a Helsinki exhibition
I hoped Finland would be a progressive dream.I've had to think again Mike Watson
Oulu is five hours north from Helsinki by train and a good deal colder and darker each winter than the Finnish capital. From November to March its 220,000 residents are lucky to see daylight for a couple of hours a day and temperatures can reach the minus 30s. However, this is not the reason I sense a darkening of the Finnish dream that brought me here six years ago.
A surplus of billionaires is destabilising our democracies Zoe Williams
The concept of \"elite overproduction\" was developed by social scientist Peter Turchin around the turn of this century to describe something specific: too many rich people for not enough rich-person jobs.
'What will people think? I don't care any more'
At 90, Alan Bennett has written a sex-fuelled novella set in a home for the elderly. He talks about mourning Maggie Smith, turning down a knighthood and what he makes of the new UK prime minister
I see you
What happens when people with acute psychosis meet the voices in their heads? A new clinical trial reveals some surprising results
Rumbled How Ali ran rings around apartheid, 50 years ago
Fifty years ago, in a corner of white South Africa, Muhammad Ali already seemed a miracle-maker.
Trudeau faces 'iceberg revolt'as calls grow for PM to quit
Justin Trudeau, who promised “sunny ways” as he won an election on a wave of public fatigue with an incumbent Conservative government, is now facing his darkest and most uncertain political moment as he attempts to defy the odds to win a rare fourth term.
Lost Maya city revealed through laser mapping
After swapping machetes and binoculars for computer screens and laser mapping, a team of researchers have discovered a lost Maya city containing temple pyramids, enclosed plazas and a reservoir which had been hidden for centuries by the Mexican jungle.
'A civil war' Gangs step up assault on capital
Armed fighters advance into neighbourhoods at the heart of Port-au-Prince as authorities try to restore order
Reality bites in the Himalayan 'kingdom of happiness'
High emigration and youth unemployment levels belie the mountain nation's global reputation for cheeriness
