UK dealers offering "2 for 1" drug deals due to recession

[cannabis-sam]

http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/news...l/article.html

[top]EXCLUSIVE: 'Buy 2, get 1 free' drug deals

Monday, January 19, 2009, 10:00


PUSHERS are offering cut-price deals on class A drugs in the South West – because of the recession.
As the credit crunch starts to affect the criminal underworld in the Westcountry, pushers are offering increasingly attractive deals on drugs including cocaine – becoming more and more popular as a recreational party drug – because cash-conscious users are buying less.
Police believe they are also offering "economy" versions of drugs, selling less potent cuts at a lower price to try to keep users buying their products.
There is also a warning from drug treatment charities that dealers could extend their "turf" into new areas to try to snare more users and that more people will try to seek help for their problems, putting pressure on resources at a time when budgets are being cut.
Det Con Mike Bradley, Devon and Cornwall Police's drugs intelligence officer, said: "It is a two-tier market – it is the difference between say Lidl's bread and Sainsbury's finest. For cocaine, you can pay around £50 (per gram) for the best stuff or £35 for less good.


"It has been happening certainly in the past six months, for two reasons. One is that people do have less money, cocaine is a party drug and people are being more careful financially. Secondly, dealers are realising that if they cut it with a cheap cutting agent, they can make more money at a difficult time."
The WMN understands that deals like "buy two grams, get one free" are being offered at street level as pushers see fewer people coming to them.
And higher up the criminal chain, wholesale suppliers are believed to be offering street-level dealers themselves increasingly generous terms in a bid to increase the amount of drugs they are selling.
Drug treatment charity Addaction (www.addaction. org.uk) warned that while the faltering economy could lead to drug-users cutting back on their intake, it could also see dealers widening the area they operated in to more fringe areas.
"If someone uses drugs recreationally, they may cut back on the amount they spend on drugs and therefore cut back on the amount they're using each week," said a spokesman.
"Some regular cocaine-users, for example, may even experience slight withdrawal symptoms or recognise that they are dependent on drugs.
"We suspect that there may be a rise in the amount of 'small' drug deals taking place – with dealers offering smaller quantities at a reduced price. To keep their profits up, dealers may look at increasing their number of 'clients' by dealing to a wider geographical area or in different locations."
The charity also warned that the increasing number of people seeking help to end their addiction could put pressure on services at a time when they too were facing funding issues.
"Many of our services are used to their funding being cut, but as we often stick to 'fixed funding' each year, it's April that we expect to see an impact of the recession."
In Devon and Cornwall, there was an 11 per cent rise in drug offences between March 2007 and March last year, the last period for which statistics are available.
This was attributed to the increased use of warnings for cannabis possession.

SWIM wishes he could find those sorts of bargains

[chillinwill]

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[Waffa]

Ehhee, this kind of sad news brings smile to Pinocchio face

Well, if Pinocchio sees similar deals for acid maybe he will buy some :P

[cannabis-sam]

Please note that the way we post news has changed, because of our main news page. You can find the full instructions here.

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• The introduction of the article should be in bold.
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• Make sure you include all the text from the original article. Don't just post the URL because web pages often disappear or get moved over time. Remove all unnecessary formatting from the text before posting. One easy way to do this is to paste the text into notepad or another text editor first, which will remove any formatting. Also try to remove picture captions, advertisement links and other text that doesn't belong to the body of the article.

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sorry author wasn't included. Put all the information I could.

[Expat98]

Originally Posted by cannabis-sam

sorry author wasn't included. Put all the information I could.

Please put the link at the end of the post instead of the beginning.

[KomodoMK]

Interesting article. Little fishy can't say he has found in his own experience that this is true. Mostly everyone he knows uses drugs of various types and everyone's use has remained fairly constant, and in some cases increased. It's not as if any of these people are rich exactly either. He has also not heard of any such bargain deals on drugs from any dealer.

Note: When posting news articles you need to put the title in bold at the top of the post, do not use the header tags such as [.h2][/h2]. After this the article should follow including any picture which may be in it. At the bottom you should have a link to the source, and if available, the author and date of original article plus any other miscellaneous info. Every article should be formatted this way for the purpose of the news portal page and continuity. Good effort none the less!

[cannabis-sam]

Funny the drinks industry does this all the time and I don't see those pushers mentioned in the article.

[Sven99]

Nice to see how they're taking complete guesses as to what effect the recession might have on drug use. Drug policy experts have predicted a RISE in drug use and crime as a result of the recession, not a fall.

[KomodoMK]

Originally Posted by Sven99

Drug policy experts have predicted a RISE in drug use and crime as a result of the recession, not a fall.

Little fishy has found this to hold true in his experience so far. His friends have either kept a stable usage or increased in some cases. It's practically impossible to monitor a black market like drugs with a high level of accuracy, much less make associations/observations in comparison with the general economy.

[porchy]

What the fuck? Oh god how I hate the media - full of BULLSHIT PROPAGANDA. Dealers lowering their prices because of the credit crunch? I think not. Does this author lack basic principles?

[Scrubbs]

Yea, the dealers will take one gram of coke, add another gram of Tylenol, mix them together and sell it to you as TWO GRAMS OF COKE FOR THE PRICE OF ONE. lol