Spice is more than a deadly drug – it's a window on our society

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Soaring use of the ‘zombie drug’ is an inevitable response to a systemic failure in social care and drugs laws

You can tell a lot about a society by the drugs it depends on. In the UK right now, the main drug of choice is booze. Despite 338,000 hospital admissions in 2017-18 and at least 6,000 deaths (not to mention 900 fatalities at the hands of drunk drivers), alcohol brings in £12bn in tax revenue, which makes it far easier to swallow.

Cocaine is another recession-proof perennial. London alone snorts a reported 23kg a day, with more than 600 deaths last year, as purity soars and the price falls due to rising Colombian output. Yet cocaine still has the brand identity of a luxury good, conferring on its users the association of being in an elite class of substance abuser.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2MX2hMi

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