Germany: Record cocaine haul worth billions of euros seized – DW – 06/14/2024
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"Dozens of tons of cocaine have been taken out of circulation," German authorities said. The drugs were first uncovered in Hamburg last year.

“Dozens of tons of cocaine have been taken out of circulation,” German authorities said. The drugs were first uncovered in Hamburg last year.

Investigators in Germany have discovered a record amount of cocaine worth several billion euros, authorities reported on Friday.

“Dozens of tons of cocaine worth several billion euros have been taken out of circulation,” the Baden-Württemberg State Office of Criminal Investigation and the Customs Investigation Office in Stuttgart, as well as the Düsseldorf public prosecutor’s office announced.

The huge quantity of drugs was first discovered in the port of Hamburg last year, and, according to the German news agency DPA, originated in South America.

  • Flying SquidMEnglish
    1•6 months ago

    Why? What harm does cocaine cause that’s any worse than legal alcohol?

    • @saddlebagEnglish
      5•6 months ago

      I knew-jerk downvoted but then thought about your comment. I wish we had better research on the relative addiction of alcohol vs cocaine.

      My immediate thought was “I know someone whose life was destroyed by cocaine” and then I realised the same is true of alcohol. If only the effort that went into illegally producing all this cocaine combined with the effort to seize and destroy it could be used to research and ultimately reduce harm from all drugs and stop fighting over legal vs illicit.

      Anyway, time to ride my unicorn while I live in dreamland

      • Flying SquidMEnglish
        3•6 months ago

        I don’t know of any studies, but I would suggest that even when cocaine was legal in the 19th century in much of Europe and the U.S., people were talking about the evils of alcohol a lot more. The massive temperance movements were mostly about alcohol, not drugs like cocaine.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperance_movement

        That implies, to me, that alcohol has always been a bigger problem.