Cocaine Careers in a Sample of Scottish Users

Abstract

People who had used cocaine within the past three years were interviewed in Scotland. Most of the 133 also used other drugs and endorsed more positive than negative cocaine effects. Some 59 of them had at some time used cocaine more than once a week for a period of some months, when as much as 30 “lines” of cocaine were used per day of cocaine use. A sub-group of 28 of the 59 were polydrug users who used opiates, these polydrug users used the largest quantities of cocaine, most often, during their heavy use period and reported most problems with cocaine use. They were also most likely to be unemployed or have low incomes. Nonetheless, both polydrug and heavy users had reduced their cocaine use to relatively low current levels. The implications of these findings for the nature of cocaine dependence and cocaine problems are discussed.

Key Words:

• Cocaine
• natural recovery
• Scotland