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Vice Blog

London – Babble capital

Gone are the days when boozed-up Britain piled out of the pub at last orders and started scrapping with each other. These days they're queuing outside loos, killing their beer buzz on bad blow, and earnestly jabbering bollocks until they collapse into a twitching puddle of self-loathing. It's been one year since 24-hour drinking was introduced to the UK and police are saying incidences of alcohol-fuelled violence have dropped. But new statistics show that cocaine consumption has exploded and London has become the coke capital of Europe

So what's changed? Well, Brits still booze. The only difference now is that people have figured out they can drink more with charlie. Also, it's cheap and easily available (harder to find fish'n'chips), there's nothing wrong with it (aka Tony Blair's 'softening' on drugs), and it's cooler than Ecstasy (the 'Kate Moss effect')…

But most blathering, binge-drinking cokeheads in this country are oblivious to the serious damage caused by mixing alcohol and cocaine. Drug charities are predicting a generational epidemic of premature cardiac complications, chronic liver damage and psychosis.

The head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has warned against the "staggering" rise in the number of Brits on gak or, as he romantically called it, the "white lady". "Either Europe snaps out of its state of denial or it should brace itself for the consequences."

According to the UN report, the British are more addicted to drugs than anyone else on the continent - 50 per cent more than the French, 66 per cent more than the Dutch and 75 per more than the Germans. Only the Spanish go nearly as hard.