Some Questions About 'The Sun's' Big List of Cocaine Dealers

Good news, fans of important revelatory journalism: The Sun continues to do good work "exposing" the fact that cocaine is popular among workers in the City of London. This morning, the paper published a document given to them by a "whistle-blower" that lists a number of dealers working in the "BEAK ZONE", i.e. south London, central London, Greenwich, Brixton and Barnes, ostensibly "to highlight the scale of the cocaine problem in the City of London".

Next to their aliases – "Party Chris", "Aaron Gak", "Nigel or Steve" – are prices per gram, ratings, delivery areas and other information, such as "expensive but good" or "also pingers, strong MD". The whistle-blower told The Sun: "It's an A to Z for anyone wishing to buy cocaine. A lot of effort has gone into it. It's shared in City offices through encrypted social media like WhatsApp."

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Couple of questions:

– Why is this a story? The UK has the highest rate of cocaine use in Europe, and City boys famously love cocaine. Nobody needed a "whistle-blower" to remind us of that.

– Is this really highlighting the "scale of the problem"? A list of 16 dealers in a city the size of London seems fairly small fry.

– Has "a lot of effort" gone into it? Really? Is this not just an collection of responses to "anyone got a number" cobbled together into an Excel sheet?

– Did The Sun come up with "BEAK ZONE", or was that the work of whoever made the list? Either way, you only call cocaine "beak" if you've definitely done it before.

– Who's the fucking narc ratting out Gee Mann and Jamal to The Sun?

– Also what did they think would come of this? Surely if you're not into the fact all your colleagues are doing blow you go to HR? Or your line manager? Not a national newspaper?

A City worker, who wanted to remain anonymous, told me he hadn't seen this particular list, but that he's not surprised it exists. "City workers are into bugle – everyone knows that," he said. "But our office doesn't talk about it at work – are you fucking kidding me? All that chat happens at the pub."

He also pointed out that, while some City workers might use cocaine, so do a lot of other people. "The advertising agency, recruiters, basically every industry – everyone's at it," he said. "Actually, the media! Journalists. They get on it just as much as anyone."

And therein lies the issue: everyone's at it. Publishing a list of alleged drug dealers isn't going to stop that, or affect it in any tangible way whatsoever, bar whichever office is responsible for this list getting a laugh out of the whole situation.

More on VICE:

The Truth About Britain's 'Flesh-Eating' Cocaine

London, This Is What's Actually in Your Cocaine

How Unethical Is Buying Cocaine?