Police chief: Cocaine seen as acceptable and harmless

A RECORD number of cocaine seizures shows how middle-class drug users treat it as "harmless and socially acceptable", a police chief blasted.

- BY MICHAEL KNOWLES Home Affairs Editor

Small cocaine seizures have surged

Officers confiscated powder cocaine 23,706 times last year the highest annual number since records began in 1973. But more than 60% of the seizures were less than a gram, which indicates the “consistent and widespread demand” for drugs.

It comes after a Daily Express special report on illegal drugs revealed Border Force impounded a staggering 148 tons of narcotics worth almost £3billion last year.

Critics warned Britain’s drug shame has been fuelled by soft approaches to crime despite the public “crying out” for “zero tolerance” policing.