It’s estimated that seventy were built in 2009 alone. ibid.
Cocaine HCL – or Cocaine hydrochloride – is another name for powdered cocaine. ibid.
It’s Britain’s favourite Class A drug. Cocaine: once exclusively a drug for the rich and famous has never been so popular. How Drugs Work: Cocaine, BBC 2011
Dopamine travels across the gap from one nerve cell to receptors on its neighbour, triggering a chain reaction which makes you feel good. ibid.
Feelings of excitement and sexual desire are caused by the release of dopamine and adrenaline, another messenger in the brain. ibid.
People have always been drawn to the stimulating powers of the coca plant. ibid.
Soon it was discovered that cocaine is an anaesthetic. ibid.
It is estimated that the police only seize about 1.3% of the cocaine seized in Britain. ibid.
The biggest drug lord of them all – Pablo Escobar – was said to be one of the richest men in the world. ibid.
A new form of the drug appeared – Crack. ibid.
Dealers cut cocaine with bulking agents to increase their profit margin. Most of the white powder sold as cocaine is likely made of something else that looks like it. ibid.
Although still rare, the number of cocaine-related deaths in Britain has increased five times in the last decade as cocaine becomes more common. ibid.
61% of people who take cocaine drink at the same time. ibid.
Cocaine is powerfully addictive; but the need to use is psychological, not physical. ibid.
If you took ten notes off the street, the likeliness is you’d come back with cocaine on nine of them. PC Adrian Parsons, Kent police
The first hour after taking cocaine the risk of heart attack increases by twenty-fold. Dr John Marsden, research psychologist
About one person in twenty who takes the drug for the first time becomes addicted in the first year. And about a fifth of users become addicted in their own lifetime. Dr John Marsden
According to a recent study over 95% of the toilets in London’s bars and clubs have cocaine residue. In fact Europe is now consuming more cocaine than anywhere else in the world. Nowhere is Europe’s consumption more prevalent than the UK. European Coke Trail s/a Vanguard: Cocaine Mafia, Current TV 2009
In recent years they have found an easier route via western Africa. ibid.
The Nigerian Mafia installed their own control. ibid.
Philadelphia the 1980s: for the yuppie generation one drug rules them all: cocaine. This is the world of Larry Lavin. The drug dealing dentist. From a quiet dental practice Lavin draws friends and colleagues into a secret drug empire. King of Coke: Living the High Life, National Geographic 2013
Larry still found time for his dental studies while dealing. ibid.
A country that’s now replaced Colombia as the world’s #1 coca producer. Cocaine Capital of the World: Peru, BBC 2013
The Shining Path are a leftish guerrilla group who provide the muscle for the drugs cartels. ibid.
This new strain of coca leaf has transformed this Amazonia region close to the Colombian border. ibid.
Communities at the mercy of the drugs cartels. ibid.
Everywhere you look – coca, coca, coca. ibid.
Happiness lies within one’s self, and the way to dig it out is cocaine. Aleister Crowley, Diary of a Drug Fiend
‘It is cocaine,’ he said, ‘a seven-per-cent solution. Would you care to try it?’
‘No, indeed,’ I answered brusquely. ‘My constitution has not got over the Afghan campaign yet. I cannot afford to throw any extra strain upon it.’
He smiled at my vehemence. ‘Perhaps you are right, Watson,’ he said. ‘I suppose that its influence is physically a bad one. I find it, however, so transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind that its secondary action is a matter of small moment.’ Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four
‘The division seems rather unfair,’ I remarked. ‘You have done all the work in this business. I get a wife out of it, Jones gets the credit, pray what remains for you?’
‘For me,’ said Sherlock Holmes, ‘there still remains the cocaine-bottle.’ And he stretched his long white hand up for it.' Arthur Conan Doyle
Cocaine is like really evil coffee. Courtney Love
Bob Dole admitted he used cocaine when he was in college. But then Coca-Cola changed its formula. Bill Maher
In 1992 a German forensic team made an extraordinary discovery: inside seven three-thousand year-old Egyptian mummies they found evidence of what appeared to be a drug not present in Egypt until the late nineteenth century – cocaine. A shocking hoax or is the impossible true? Weird or What? Cocaine Mummies, Channel 5 2010
Did the cultures interact? Could the Egyptians have travelled to Peru? ibid.
There is no trace of the ancient Egyptians in South America at that time. ibid.
By the late 1800s cocaine was introduced into Europe commonly used as a medicine. Was it possible these mummies somehow became contaminated? ... Brief contact couldn’t produce the same results ... so the mystery lives on. ibid.
In a land of lush jungles and fertile soil an ancient crop became a booming business. The deadly underworld was spawned. They grew rich selling escape to the world. And powerful sowing terror at home. With violence and corruption one man hijacked his homeland and became the best known face of organised crime. Organised Crime – A World History: Colombia, 2001
The cartels emerged in the late 1970s. From the jungle to the cities they quickly established themselves as a new kind of underworld. ibid.
[Pablo] Escobar’s cocaine business boomed in the early 1980s. ibid.
The world’s most dangerous drug boss had moved into America’s back yard, and that’s when the war began. ibid.
The most wanted man in the world was finally dead. ibid.
The new cartels have quietly gone international. ibid.
‘Very few women have risen to the levels of Griselda Blanco.’ Gangsters: America’s Most Evil s1e3: The Godmother s1e3, expert, Bio 2012
‘If anybody deserves to be on death row it is Griselda Blanco.’ ibid. rozzer
Conspiring to import and distribute literally tons of cocaine into the United States. She’s accused of ordering dozens of murders. ibid.
She had been wanted in New York for more than a decade since Operation Banshee. ibid.
They carved up Harlem for themselves selling four to five kilos of cocaine a day broken down into ten dollar bottles. Gangsters: America’s Most Evil s1e4: The Mayor of Harlem: Alberto Alpo Martinez s1e4
Sandra Avika Beltran: indicted and charged with trying to import one hundred kilograms of cocaine. Gangsters: America's Most Evil s1e9: Wanted Lethal Beauties
‘Two options – death or jail.’ Gangsters: America’s Most Evil: Thelma Wright s2e5, Thelma
1986: Jackie Wright – ten years her senior ... Heroin. In weight. By the kilo. ibid.
Auntie supplied Thelma with kilos of heroin; Thelma in turn supplied her crew. ibid.
‘I dealt strictly in weight. And you had to have the money.’ ibid. Thelma
Cocaine was the now drug ... ‘So now we’re doing the cocaine and the heroin.’ ibid.
Alejandro Corredor led a double life. In the end his own gangster rap, a confession to conspiracy charges, running drugs, laundering money and ordering murders would land him in the Big House. Gangsters: America’s Most Evil s3e2: Kansas City Kingpin Alejandro Carredor
A direct connection to the Sinaloa cartel. ibid.
At the time of his arrest he was on the verge of a new life. ibid.
He had already found his calling as a cocaine kingpin. ibid.
His wife fled the house and never came back. ibid.
Fifty kilos into Kansas every two weeks. ibid.