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It\u2019s an early weekday morning in east London. The city around him is slowly waking up, but Danny* has yet to go to sleep. When he finished his shift working front of house at a popular Borough Market restaurant last night, he bought a gram of cocaine<\/a> and finished it in his flat, alone.<\/p>\n He opens his banking app, the balance reads zero. Next, he flicks through his credit cards; the debt his lifestyle has amassed totals \u00a310,000. \u201cThis was rock bottom,\u201d the 31-year-old recalls of this point in December 2024. For nearly four months he used the class-A drug around five times a week, typically during and after work. \u201cI numbed myself to the point where I didn\u2019t feel anything.\u201d<\/p>\n Maybe you\u2019ve spotted the dilated pupils and clenched jaws that dart all over the Square Mile. Perhaps it\u2019s the buzz you can sense in the pub \u2014 loud, animated conversations, sniffs coming from the toilet cubicles. Whether you\u2019ve noticed it or not, it\u2019s hardly a secret that Londoners love cocaine.<\/p>\n Back to humans, and the media has historically painted the UK\u2019s typical coke user<\/a> as one of three: the supermodel or pop star with a partying problem, the football-loving Tommy Robinson sympathiser foaming at the mouth for a brawl, or the \u201cwoke coke\u201d snorting, high-flying businessman who lives by the motto \u201clive fast, die young\u201d (series four of Industry<\/a> is currently airing, in unrelated news).<\/p>\n These personas may very well exist, but the reality is that in 2026, cocaine is no longer a drug ruled by class or background. \u201cCompared with years ago, use is less concentrated in a narrow socio-economic group and spread across communities,\u201d Robin Pollard, head of policy at drug and mental health charity We Are With You, tells me. \u201cCocaine is a far more diverse drug than people realise.\u201d<\/p>\n All-time high: The rise of marching powder<\/p>\n Why? It\u2019s more accessible than before, available at an instant via social media and WhatsApp. It\u2019s cheaper, thanks to higher production and yield (according to a United Nations World Drug Report<\/a>, production increased by 34 per cent between 2022 and 2023). It\u2019s also stronger \u2014 that same report details that cocaine in Europe had an average purity of 60 per cent in 2023, compared to 35 per cent in 2009. Consequently, demand has risen.<\/p>\n But how we consume it has also switched a gear. \u201cA key message we hear from staff and clients is that cocaine has become increasingly normalised across society,\u201d Pollard says. \u201cMore and more, it\u2019s seen as a normal part of a night out, going hand in hand with drinking<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n The charity\u2019s support service has seen an uptick in the number of clients from all backgrounds seeking help for their use. Often, they claim their weekend use has become daily, or their work-life patterns normalise its use in the week \u2014 especially in industries like construction, hospitality and sales.<\/p>\n Cameron* very quickly realised that cocaine was just \u201cpart and parcel\u201d of his recruitment job in the city. \u201cYou have to be strong-willed for it not to. It\u2019s so egged on and normalised by senior members of the team,\u201d he explains. He tried it for the first time at university and takes it occasionally at the weekend with friends, but says his use has soared since joining the industry. <\/p>\n \u201cMy work involves a lot of networking, and lines eventually get racked up\u201d<\/p>\n Baggies left on desks, colleagues sleeping in the office after coke-fuelled benders, it\u2019s all a part of the \u201cwork hard, play hard\u201d culture of the job, the 27-year-old says. \u201cMy week involves a lot of networking \u2014 socials, lunch clubs, events \u2014 where drinking is heavy and lines eventually get racked up. It\u2019s just the done, regular thing.\u201d <\/p>\n Danny\u2019s addiction started when he worked in a famous pub in north London, where he labels the top-down cocaine culture as \u201ccult-like\u201d. \u201cEveryone knew it was going on, but nobody ever had a discussion,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n Dealers were regularly present around the establishment, while staff would take it together in blind spots and toilet cubicles: \u201cIt was like our way of showing camaraderie.\u201d As well as eye-watering debt, Danny\u2019s addiction strained relations with family and friends, caused romantic relationships to end, and took a toll on his mental and physical health, leaving him unable to leave his bed on days off. <\/p>\n Employers \u2014 especially in industries where long hours, high-pressure and demanding work create a culture where cocaine can thrive \u2014 have a responsibility to support their employees, and specific charities and initiatives like Hospitality Action do exist. But alongside their work cultures, both Cameron and Danny have something else in common: their gender.<\/p>\n In the UK, men are twice as likely to report using cocaine as women. They also made up nearly 80 per cent of the deaths involving the drug in 2024<\/a> (a figure which has increased consecutively each year for the past 13, attributed to the rise in cocaine\u2019s purity, making it easier to overdose). In both men\u2019s experiences, inside and outside of work, it\u2019s men who do cocaine the most. Studies have shown that men are more likely to engage in high-risk behaviours, but surely there must be more to why blokes love coke so much? <\/p>\n Journalist David Hillier has been writing about drugs<\/a> for over a decade, and sought to answer this question via his drug culture newsletter, WHAT ARE YOU ON. After speaking to nine men, he found most use cocaine because of the perception that it \u201csobers\u201d them up and helps them drink more, for longer. It explains why coke has bumped pork scratchings and pool tables as a pub staple in the past decade. \u201cAs a guy in his late twenties, it\u2019s quite rare to have a night of drinking where you don\u2019t get a bag in,\u201d Cameron admits.<\/p>\n Referencing Fiona Measham\u2019s Swimming with Crocodiles, which outlines the history of the UK\u2019s heavy episodic drinking culture<\/a>, Hillier explains that drinking became the reason why people went out in the 2000s. \u201cCoke is such a big part of pub culture because pub culture is such a big part of British culture,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n It\u2019s impossible to have a conversation about trends in drug use without discussing the climate it takes place in. A cost-of-living crisis plagues life in the UK. Society is fractured politically, socially and economically. Life can be hard. \u201cPeople are looking for escape routes from reality \u2014 and for many, alcohol<\/a> is the key,\u201d Hillier explains. \u201cThen cocaine is enabling them to drink for longer.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cOne of the main reasons I use cocaine is because it lets me chat openly. I definitely go deeper when I\u2019m on gear, even with friends I\u2019ve had for years\u201d<\/p>\n