Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Report: As Economy Slows, So Does Cocaine Use

U.S. Coast Guard crew members from the Cutter Oak offload some of the 15,000 pounds of cocaine confiscated and worth more than $180 million. The picture was was taken in Miami Beach, Florida in August.
Joe Raedle
/
Getty Images
U.S. Coast Guard crew members from the Cutter Oak offload some of the 15,000 pounds of cocaine confiscated and worth more than $180 million. The picture was was taken in Miami Beach, Florida in August.

People make changes during a bad economy. Some change less diapers, while others eat out less often. The New York Post reportsthat in a cost-councious world even vices suffer:

Cocaine-related emergency-room admissions, overdoses and requests for rehab have declined since the economy started its 2008 decline, according to data obtained by The Post.

"It is sort of on a slight but steady downward trend," said Dr. Stephen Ross, director of NYU's Langone Center of Excellence on Addiction. "I treat patients in private practice. Many cocaine addicts tell me stories they don't have enough money to buy it anymore."

There were 478 "accidental" deaths in which cocaine was a factor, typically overdoses, in New York City in 2006, according to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

That number plunged to just 274 in 2010.

Earlier this month, The Miami Herald reportedthat cocaine use was down in Miami. The decline started in 2007, when 281 people suffered cocaine-related deaths. Last year, that number was down to 198. The paper reports:

"It's kind of ironic, given Miami's historic role in the cocaine industry — Miami Vice was part of the culture," said Paul Gootenberg, a State University of New York professor who wrote Andean Cocaine: The Making of a Global Drug. "The main thing to happen with cocaine in the past 10 years is not a dramatic decline in supply, but a globalization of cocaine: It's gone from Miami, Colombia and New York to Argentina, Spain and Britain."

...

The declines, Gootenberg said, are more likely a result of the market and simple economics. "Florida is going through an enormous economic crisis," he said. "People don't have money to spend on drugs."

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Eyder Peralta is NPR's East Africa correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya.