Belgium's ascent to the cocaine capital of Europe has been largely down to the fact that big-time smugglers now see Antwerp mega-port as a chink in Europe's customs armour.
Coupled with the fact that 60% of EU purchasing power is within a 500km radius, Belgium has become the transit hub for continental distribution (not dissimilar to how Belgium is the nexus of Russian LNG imports).
Despite news stories showing ingenious methods to conceal the valuable contraband, the essential tactic of traffickers is to hide such enormous quantities of fine powder among the billions of tonnes of goods that it couldn't possibly all be located. With 7.5 million containers passing through the port each year, officials estimate that 11% of cocaine is intercepted. As long as this remains below 20%, the trade is lucrative enough to make up for loss along the way.
But although Belgium serves simply as the first port of call for drugs that will then be sold elsewhere, it's no surprise to find that cocaine use is also rising here – last year the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs registered a 10% rise in cocaine use in Antwerp over 10 years; in Brussels it was 28%. Latest figures show that from 2013 to 2018, the share of the population that had consumed cocaine in the past 12 months tripled.
The logistics of the trade are fascinating by themselves, as is the spread of an ostensibly nondescript white powder through society. Yet the effects are no less noteworthy and tell a lot about public opinion and media attitudes. If drug coverage is awash with hypocrisy and moralising, it might be because drug policy also aims at some users whilst turning a blind eye to others.
To explain the class distinctions within drug consumption in Brussels, a specialist from Project Lama, which manages therapeutic drug addiction centres across the capital, called out the focus on a recent spike in crack use within the city that has obscured a surge in middle-class cocaine use.
Though both drugs are the same chemical compound, the habits of consumption, politics and perception towards them are worlds apart. Whereas one is the stuff of back allies and metro stations the other is more common in the "Horeca context" (bars, restaurants, nightclubs).
This might seem obvious, but the difference is rarely remarked. Perhaps that should change. Let @Orlando_tbt know.
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