14 DAY TRIAL // Britain's Drinking Water Inspectorate has revealed that traces of cocaine were found in the country's water supply, along with several other substances, including ibuprofen, caffeine and an anti-epileptic drug.
Experts at the agency have conducted a series of tests as part of a study to assess the danger of pharmaceutical compounds appearing in the water we drink and rhave evealed that the drinking water contains a metabolized form of the class A drug, which results after the illegal substance has passed through the human body.
Despite the fact that the water had gone through several purification treatments, specialists confirmed that the metabolized form of the drug was found in samples at four sites. Benzoylecgonine is the same compound that is searched for in urine-based drug tests for cocaine.
According to Steve Rolles from the Transform research institute, the discovery of cocaine in Britain's water supply is an indication of how widespread drug use has become in the United Kingdom today.
“We have the near highest level of cocaine use in western Europe,” Mr. Rolles said, according to the Independent. “It has also been getting cheaper and cheaper at the same time as its use has been going up.”
Health officials reassure the country's population that the cocaine levels found in the drinking water were very low and unlikely to pose any danger to public health. A recent report from Public Health England says that the quantities of cocaine found in tap water were at 4 nanograms per liter, around one-quarter of what was found before the water passed through the intense purification processes.
“Estimated exposures for most of the detected compounds are at least thousands of times below doses seen to produce adverse effects in animals and hundreds of thousands below human therapeutic doses,” the report states.
Statistics show that cocaine is the only major drug for which consumption has increased overall since 1996, and its widespread availability and falling price are believed to be the major reason for its appeal and prevalence.
Currently, the drug costs around £40 ($67.6 or €49.11) per gram in Britain, while in the U.S. for instance, users have to pay as much as £115 ($194.2 or €141) for the same quantity.
According to figures provided by the charity DrugScope, nearly 700,000 people aged 16-59 are regular cocaine users and take drugs every day in Britain, and there are around 180,000 addicted users of crack cocaine. In 2012, the controlled substance killed 115 people in UK alone.