Cocaine production is at an all-time high after lockdown: Here’s how drug use is affecting Millennial women

“I mean, massively so, yes!” she tells me, whilst also adding that despite his “major deals” she was not using during lockdown; “It’s ok at a party, sure, but in a pandemic it just seemed super reckless and unnecessary.”

Well, let’s look at those drug dealers. After all, as illegal operators, they couldn’t exactly get furloughed. Whilst UK police say that drug crime has reduced dramatically; going down from 509 incidents in March 2019 to 381 in March 2020 in the West Midlands alone, actual arrests of drug dealers have gone way up.

Because, according to Interpol, drug dealers are coming up with more and more inventive ways to deliver – from dressing up as joggers to posing as food delivery drivers. One friend of mine, said she witnessed a socially-distanced drug drop off happening in the park near where she lives.

“We have also heard countless stories of drug dealers pretending to be joggers and food delivery men,” confirms Harry Shapiro from DrugWise, an evidence-based information portal for drugs and alcohol. “Social media – like Instagram direct messages – are being used to organise pick-ups in more creative and less obvious ways.”

GLAMOUR spoke to a young professional who was concerned that lockdown set them on a path from recreational drug use towards addiction.

Tracee*, 31, from South London, has had a longstanding penchant for cocaine and weed. It started in her uni days and her fast-paced job as a Sales Director in London only further fuelled it.

“I’ve always done coke. I wouldn’t class myself as an addict, I just enjoy to use socially – and so do most of my friends and colleagues,” she says, “Pre-Corona, I worked long, stressful hours so would spend my Thursday and Friday night coked up at bars. I often travelled for sales conferences and everyone would use coke in the evenings as we entertained clients and use it again at the conference to power us through.”

“I never deemed it to be a problem; I classed myself as ‘high-functioning’,” she explains, “When Coronavirus hit, a week before the furlough scheme was announced, I was made redundant with a healthy pay-off. It seemed like the dream at the time but then, months into lockdown, I was literally sitting at home alone, bored out of my mind the entire time.”

The stresses associated with lockdown took a toll on Tracee…

“Alcohol doesn’t do it for me anymore. I turned to sporadic cocaine use,” she says, telling me her dealer dropped off through her front window, “I couldn’t find a new job – no one was hiring, especially not in my industry – so I was relying on winnings from online poker ( which used to be a hobby of mine) to bolster my bank balance. In order to stay alert and stay awake late into the night, cocaine was a saviour. It only dawned on me that it might be getting out of hand when I didn’t sleep for three days and drunk dialled my ex who was so worried he came round and started shouting through my letterbox to check I was alive. I laughed it off but deep down I knew it wasnt cool. I needed a sense of structure back in my life.”