The majority of the people of Britain are a hard-working bunch who have fully grasped the concept of 'work hard play hard'.
So after long and stressful week in the office, once the booze has nearly evaporated in the pub, it's alright to hoover a few lines of the white stuff, right?
Apparently not. According to experts who spoke to VICE, snorting coke every weekend is actually causing havoc on your insides, far worse than a bit of MDMA it seems.
But who cares, right? It makes users feel pumped and confident, so what's the big deal?
That 'pumped' feeling is actually the heart working overtime. This strain leads to tiny micro-lacerations on your heart muscles, which turn into scar tissue.
Dr Adam Winstock, founder of the Global Drugs Survey, is pretty clear about it all. He says: "Doing a gram of coke every weekend is not healthy, nor can it even really be called casual or average use."
"Obviously, if you're an overweight, 50-year-old smoker, your heart will be under more pressure than if you're a 20-year-old athlete. But even so, the danger here is about prolonged use over years. It's also about how you use the drug."
"On average, 0.5 percent of cocaine users find themselves in hospital with acute reactions to the drug - and users in most countries get, on average, about 10 lines out of a gram."
Here's Dr Winstock discussing the common ingredients found in common cocaine.
Video credit: YouTube/GuardianFilmShow
Did anyone else notice Dr Winstock (left) scratched his nose half way through? #justsayin
Dr Henry Fisher, a chemist and Head of Policy at VolteFace, believes that the social norm of a Friday evening snort could lead users into a false sense of security. "One of the major effects of cocaine is to make people act like dickheads," he says, sugar coating nothing. "Users become reliant on that fake confidence that cocaine can give. So it starts with people doing it every weekend, then gradually they begin to need that bump on a Thursday instead of a Friday. Then it becomes Wednesday, and so on, until you have a really serious problem."
Both Dr Winstock and Dr Fisher both believe that many of the hazards of long-term cocaine use are to do with mental and emotional wellbeing as well. Winstock explains: "Relationships can start to fall apart. The user's bank account drains, performance at work goes downhill, romantic partners get angry and friends begin to distance themselves - so they feel lonely and isolated, often leading them to do even more coke to get that false ego boost."
Sorry to be the party pooper in the room over here, but just think of it this way. If users are willing to put down the white stuff for the heart's sake, then they will save a few extra notes for more booze for the next round. Happy days.
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