'It’s so prevalent now and it’s so easy to get hold of'
Cocaine is wrecking lives in one part of the UK, a new investigation has found. Police in Wales accept that there is "significantly widespread" easy access to the Class A drug, particularly in cities and larger towns.
The biggest rise in Wales was seen in deaths from cocaine. The number of annual deaths involving the narcotic were in single figures until as recently as 2014 but rocketed to hit 47 between 2021 and 2022. Rob Trevelyan is a recovered cocaine addict who now works as a peer mentor at Cyfle Cymru. Through his work he helps people affected by substance misuse and mental health conditions to gain the skills necessary to enter the world of work. He said the rise in cocaine deaths isn’t surprising to him considering how wide the demographic of users is today.
Although he struggled to afford it at the time it led to a surprisingly unsociable addiction once he left university to work as a project manager in London. He said it very nearly ruined his life. “One of the psychological side effects is it makes you really paranoid. I could get quite paranoid at night doing things like going and checking the front door locks or thinking the police were going to turn up. You feel pretty grim because you're not sleeping properly as well. And there was a guilty aspect that I was spending all this money and I knew I shouldn't be doing it. I got myself in £10,000-worth of debt pretty quickly.
“We have had a few examples of people coming in who have had cardiac events,” he said. “They have normal coronary arteries but use of the drug causes spasms in these arteries which reduces blood flow to the muscle in a similar way that happens in a heart attack. The inquest heard how Kier had gone out with a friend in Swansea on Saturday, September 18, 2021, before attending a house party in Merthyr Tydfil on Sunday. Evidence from those present at the party described how Kier and others there – just like many people do – had been playing drinking games and using cocaine. In the early hours of Monday morning the 24-year-old was found unconscious before he was later pronounced dead by paramedics at the scene.
“Deaths have been reported with as little as 0.029mg of cocaine per litre of blood. Just having cocaine in the blood can be enough to cause a cardiac arrhythmia. There’s no safe level of cocaine at all. One day it could be okay and the next it’s not okay – and that’s the problem with cocaine.” “We’ve seen a number of these cases over the years, which we can directly link to cocaine use, where people have been lying unconscious on their backs and not able to protect their airways. It can cause pneumonitis which can cause very bad pneumonia. We’ve had to send a few patients to London for ECMO because it’s not available everywhere.”
Low mood, comedowns, and suicide Tom Smerdon was a normal and happy 22-year-old man who loved sport and looked forward to his future. But heartbreakingly in March 2019 he took his own life during a comedown after he took cocaine on a night out with friends. At Tom’s inquest Ms Smerdon said a regulation 28 report was suggested. This is a report issued to an individual, organisation, local authority, or government when the coroner believes action should be taken to prevent further deaths. She said if enough information was gathered to build the report she hoped for public health warnings – similar to those associated with cigarettes – to educate people about the potential danger of cocaine and alcohol on mental health.
She said the aim of the group is not necessarily to stop people taking cocaine as that would be an impossible task. Instead they aim to provide advice and information to help keep people safe if cocaine is something they choose to do since illegal drugs are not regulated and do not come with safety labels.
She said the issue is exacerbated by the lack of stigma associated with cocaine compared to other drugs such as heroin or spice, adding: “Cocaine just seems to be becoming more normalised year on year. Years ago you would have just gone to the pub for a drink. Now people go for a drink and cocaine and nobody blinks an eyelid.”
Crack cocaine is a popular step up from the white powdered form of cocaine. It’s easy to make from cocaine and results in a crystal substance which is usually smoked or injected. It’s known for giving a very quick and intense high and has a “dirty” reputation compared to powder cocaine. His mum, Nicola Causero, told WalesOnline for the purpose of this article that her son wasn’t a textbook cocaine user but when he tried it “he went as extreme as he could”. Ms Causero said she believed her son used drugs to self-medicate because of trauma and undiagnosed ADHD – for which he had a long-awaited assessment booked two days after his death.
“He was seeing things, hearing things, and was very paranoid,” she said. “He would talk about taking his life. We tried taking him down to the crisis team many times but they couldn’t give him a full assessment because he took drugs X number of days ago. He had to be clean for a certain amount of time to get help but then he would be okay and wouldn’t need help anymore.
‘Our children are being turned into criminals’ If you’re someone who enjoys the odd line of coke on a night out in Cardiff, Swansea, or your local pub, have you ever wondered how it ended up in your hands? The disturbing truth is that there are three known methods of supplying drugs across Wales and they all involve the exploitation of children and vulnerable adults.
Under this umbrella also comes casual drug dealing – where someone purchases cocaine and distributes it amongst friends for a price. For example in February 2023 we reported how a woman from Cydach was jailed for 16 months for selling cocaine to her friends. All three models are driven by an ongoing demand for drugs from a market which includes existing users, weekend users, and students who buy a range of substances from cannabis to cocaine, ecstasy, ketamine, MDMA, and spice.
At the age of 12 Emily described how she was “washing coke” – a method of turning cocaine into crack cocaine. “These children can be as young as 11 or 12 years old and they have these drugs inside of them. Just imagine if they burst,” she said. “Even if you pick the drug up from an adult a kid will have been involved somewhere along the chain. County lines is county lines because of the kids. The kids are at the forefront of it.
“If [a percentage] of the prison population are there for drug-related crime they are not coming out as nurses,” he said. “They are spending time inside gathering contacts. They’re coming out as drug dealers.” “Prohibition has done nothing but exacerbate problematic drug use,” he said. “It's brought on new drugs – things like crack and methamphetamine. There is also a massive issue with county lines. With things as they are there will always be someone to arrest.
Tarian is an organised crime unit team of police officers and staff seconded from South Wales, Gwent, and Dyfed-Powys forces. Its role is to tackle serious and organised crime across south Wales while managing the threat posed from firearms supply, county drugs lines, child sexual exploitation, cybercrime, and modern slavery.
“We can’t arrest our way out of this.” he said. “We recognise that if we can try and limit the demand for drugs in communities organised crime groups are less likely to want to supply the drugs here. He said grooming methods vary but often it includes cash rewards and gifts. It is understood that addiction is also sometimes an incentive in itself while sexual exploitation is sometimes an element too.
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