Love them or loathe them, there’s one thing for sure. The war on drugs is over… and drugs won.

Despite best efforts from conservative governments, worldwide drug use is at an all time high (ay.). Not that it wasn’t always a thing – quick history lesson – Ben Franklin (O.G and ironically the face of the $100 bill) used to snort opium and smoke doobs like it was going outta style, Hitler used to smoke a shizload of meth (I kid you not) and Van Gough used to sniff turps like a lad.

But it’s been a while since our stoned ancestors smacked around – the world of drugs is now a whole different kettle of crack. This has been demonstrated perfectly in the recent Global Drug Survey – which surveyed over 78,000 people from around the globe to bring us what’s drug-trending in the nightclubs and party circuits around the world.

So what did it find exactly? How does it affect you? What does it suggest we do to permit safer drug use around the world?

Gurn in intrigue no longer, let us break it down for you;

ALCOHOL: Hooch, juice, moonshine, hard stuff

• Australian’s had the highest rate of people who think that their drinking is not causing risks or harm to their health. Face palm.
• The survey estimates that approximately 6.3% of Aussies are dependent on alcohol – the third highest out of surveyed countries. Belgian was the worst. Beer so tasty I guess.
• Germany and Switzerland had the worst knowledge of their country’s recommended drinking levels. Although I can say I really know mine – longnecks all just turn into one after a little while right…right?
• This is a good example of Australia’s levels of ‘normative misperception’ – people who are heavier drinkers underestimate what they drink due to the large number of peers getting equally as splooged. STRAYA’.

Cannabis: Wacky tobacky, weed, bud, goofy boots, puff, devil’s lettuce

• Unbelievably, more UK clubbers had smoked cannabis than had ever drunk an energy drink.
• USA cannabis smokers are amongst the smartest in the world – only 10% smoke weed with tobacco, followed by 20% in NZ.
• Australian drug users were found to be less often exposed to violence when purchasing cannabis, cocaine and MDMA. Sometimes up to 60% less likely to experience violence then their French, Swiss and Spanish pothead brethren. We put this down to a ‘mates to mates’ industry.

MDMA & Ecstasy: Molly, beans, candy, disco biscuits, scooby snacks, egg rolls

• 81% of UK clubbers who took the survey had ever taken MDMA – compared to 43.9% of clubbers from rest of world. Rage Britannia style!
• 57% of MDMA users that had to seek medical treatment after using the drug had taken MDMA powder. 34.6% had taken pills, 7.7% had taken both.
• NZ seems to be having a beating in terms of affordable narcotics – for MDMA it had the highest price and the worst quality…
• …which is a kiwi bummer because MDMA was voted the best value for money drug in the world.
• It appears that mixing your poisons might not always be the best idea – with 66% of ecstasy users who sought emergency medical attention after using the drug had been hella boozed at the same time.
• Despite this, MDMA was rated the highest on the ‘pleasure scale’ for users, leaps and bounds above tobacco, alcohol and cocaine.

Cocaine: Snow, rack, Bernie’s flakes, pearl, haven dust, expensive shit.

• The survey found that cocaine prices vary across the world from 40 euros in parts of Europe to $400 per gram in Australia.
• This means that cocaine is the least value-for-money drug on the market – unless you’re in South America – where that shit is concurrently economically sound and OFF THA BLOODY CHAIN… we’ve heard.
• Adjacent from the survey  – the UK was also found to have traces of cocaine in their drinking water. :|.

Other: Perscription drugs, psychadelic shrubs and ‘legal highs’. 

• Looks like someone’s been giving their GP guilt gobbies. Prescribed and non-prescribed psychoactive medications were frequently in the top 10 drugs used by GDS populations in the last year. Surprise surprise, a huge amount of use was non-medical – with prescription partying particularly prevalent in the USA and New Zealand.
• 30% of UK clubbers had tried the potent South American psychedelic shrub Salvia divinorum, Known to be the world’s most powerful hallucinogenic plant – I’ve heard more than one recount of limb failure, crazy animals crashing your brain party and my mate one tried to jump out a window on it. How you’d go taking this in a dirty basement house club in London I dare to think. You’d see some weird ass shit.

• New Zealand also had the highest rate of ‘legal high’ use. Recently banned at Glastonbury, legal highs are synthetic drugs which foreign markets fill with dangerous ingredients – constantly changing them to avoid the list of ‘banned’. There has been a casual 400% jump in legal high related deaths and injuries in the past 5 years – das some nasty sheet! And the kiwis fucking love it.

So what can we conclude from the findings of this report? Well, apart from the fact that heaps of people are hitting the pingerZ, is that MDMA=good, cocaine=$$$ (unless it’s in yo drankin’ water) and legal highs=cats that will haunt your dreams forevermore.

But realistically, the report talks about the importance of harm reduction in drug use and signifies that a de-criminalized drug world would be a safer and happier drug world. All of those surveyed believed that safe drug use was preferred – most peeps wanna just get on it and have fun. The issue is that as long as the authorities are making recreational drug use a punishable offence – punters and munters are going to be risking exposure to violence, risks to their travel and career potentials and encouraged to turn to legal highs – something that won’t land them in jail but might land them in a coffin.

Knowing the statistics on the issue, what do you think about it?

But much more importantly…what do famous people think about it? Here’s some stuff our mates have told us about drugz.

T. WILLIAMS:

I s’pose it’s [drugs] got a massive place in dance music to be fair, I mean i’ve never taken drugs in my life so I don’t know how it affects people in terms of how the enjoyment of music goes down, but if i’d play somewhere where there were no alcohol, drugs not nothing, the atmosphere is a little different, do you know what I mean? They receive the music a little differently, not that that is a bad thing!

 

A1 BASSLINE: 

Dance music has always been drug orientated, not that I condone it; but house music in general goes hand in hand with ecstasy. From having a beer on a terrace listening to Move D or listening to Marcell Dettmann at Berghain on Ecstasy, it has it’s place.

 

DAVID AUGUST:

I don’t think about drugs that much, I don’t do them. I think drugs are such a big part of the scene because the repetitive structure of the music fits perfectly with the reaction you get with these drugs. It’s like a perfect match. If people need to do that, then go ahead. But I think if you really get into the music or go to the right places, you can get the same trips and have your own experiences without taking anything.

DISCLOSURE:

We’re not for it or against it really, we don’t find it an important part of what we do, we just make the music.

[via Global Drugs Survey]