The UK features prominently.
New research by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has revealed that Albania has the highest consumption rate of cocaine in the world. One of the key tasks of UNODC is to produce and disseminate accurate statistics on drugs, crime and criminal justice at the international level.
These percentages reflect the ratio of people that use cocaine in that country relative to the overall population.
With this in mind, Britain is among the world’s biggest users of the drug. The figure given for the UK of 2.25% refers to the consumption levels in England and Wales by those aged 16-59, as recorded in the 2015/16 Crime Survey for England and Wales.
Scotland has a higher consumption rate of 2.34%, that’s more than the US and Australia. Ireland is also in the top 10 with a figure of 1.5%.
A previous study showed that London was the second-highest European city when it comes to cocaine consumption – 894.9mg per 1,000 people per day.
Widely regarded as one of the biggest exporters of cocaine, Colombia isn’t in the top 20 when it turns to consumption of the drug – the South American country ranks 34th with only 0.7% of its citizens actually using the drug.
Here’s the top 20 in full:
- Albania – 2.5 per cent of the population uses it
- Scotland – 2.34
- United States – 2.3
- England and Wales – 2.25
- Spain – 2.2
- Australia – 2.1
- Uruguay – 1.8
- Chile – 1.73
- Netherlands – 1.6
- Ireland – 1.5
- Canada – 1.46
- Aruba – 1.3
- Bermuda – 1.3
- Ghana – 1.1
- Italy – 1.1
- France – 1.1
- Israel – 1.07
- Iceland – 1.06
- Costa Rica – 1.06
- Luxembourg – 1.04