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Cocaine prices around the world
- dtf 17y agoWhat, no data for Colombia?! This map shows the street price of a gram of "cocaine", as advertised, but it doesn't tell us anything about the purity of that gram. A recent police report in the UK suggested street purity had dropped from 30% to around 9%, compared to the 70% of stuff hot out of the factory. A recent government sponsored report on drugs misuse in Britain found the supply chain to be completely flexible: big busts higher up the chain would simply result in more cutting agents added lower down, with customers seemingly willing to pay standard street price for whatever purity they could get. Demand is rising, if anything. It's interesting that police have now turned their attention to the supply chain of the cutting agents. We're fighting a war on laxatives.
- demosthenes 17y agoMore detailed figures and trends here, with both wholesale and retail prices: http://www.unodc.org/pdf/WDR_2006/wdr2006_chap5_cocaine.pdf http://www.unodc.org/pdf/WDR_2006/wdr2006_chap5_cocaine.pdf With those price differences, it's no wonder the illegal drugs trade is so tough to shut down.. you can lose 9/10 shipments and still be profitable.
- eru 17y agoI see an opportunity for arbitrage.
- joubert 17y agoPrices seem to be in $ instead of purchasing power. So not really meaningful, except insofar as it indicates where someone buying with $ would find the cheapest.
- froo 17y ago"Prices seem to be in $ instead of purchasing power. So not really meaningful, except insofar as it indicates where someone buying with $ would find the cheapest." I decided to use the Big Mac Index to satisfy your hunger for knowledge (pardon the pun) to figure out purchasing power. Appropriate Links at the end of the comment. As with my above comment regarding street prices here in AU - it is assumed that the prices are in the local currency, so these figures represent local currencies. US - 27.17 big macs Canada - 23.71 big macs New Zealand - 63.67 big macs Australia - 82.61 big macs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/displayStory.cfm?story_id=11793125 http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/displayStory.cfm?st...
- joubert 17y agoAre you using the straight Big Mac Index, or the Working-time Big Mac Index?
- eru 17y agoI guess the straight one. Otherwise he would have given the figure in hours not Big Macs.
- pyropenguin 17y agoWith those figures, I think cocaine is a healthier option
- froo 17y agoInteresting article. From having a friend who has an addiction to cocaine here in Perth, I can confirm the $285 figure is pretty close to correct, although it is in Australian dollars, not USD, so with that in mind I decided to run some of the figures in the article through a currency converter (against the US dollar) to get a more normalised view. USD - $97/g USD CAD - $83.47/g USD AUD - $227.18/g USD NZD - $198.87/g USD So umm, yay us for having the most expensive cocaine in the world?
- colinprince 17y agoInteresting. The chart says "$ per gram" so I had assumed the prices were already represented in US dollars. Anyone else got info on local prices? Esp Canada, NZ.
- mikeyur 17y agoHere in Canada (west coast) it's usually around $80/g (cdn). This number obviously fluctuates based on quality, dealer, etc.
- samlittlewood 17y agoSomewhat related - measuring consumption by looking for metabolic byproducts in waste water: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/aug/05/highereducation.research http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/aug/05/highereducation.... Given some more data points, and the above map - one could get some idea of the amount of money involved.
- Alex3917 17y agoYou used to be able to buy real Mate de Coca on Amazon. I have no idea how they never got caught for that until recently. They are working on bringing back a version without the cocaine now, last I checked.
- mikeyur 17y agoCoca leaves != Cocaine You don't get 'high' from drinking Maté de coca, it actually has less of an effect than coffee. There are a lot of chemicals and processing that go into making cocaine - it's not just coca leaves. http://www.cocaine.org/process.html http://www.cocaine.org/process.html
- Alex3917 17y agoI wasn't claiming it gets high. I just think it's funny that Amazon got away with selling it.
- nickmolnar2 17y agoThe chart doesn't specify what their data sources are. There are a number of conflicting agendas that go into the reporting of illegal markets. The police want to make the criminals appear wealthier, to justify more police enforcement, so they tend to inflate statistics. Caught criminals want to be able to hide some of their cash so they tend to deflate their prices. Some of these differences likely reflect the reporting methods, and not the underlying markets.
- zackattack 17y agoCocaine is God's way of telling you that you have too much money, except in Peru.
- Mistone 17y agothe reporter however never made it back from columbia, where she is now seeking permanent residence
- csomar 17y agofrom $2 to $80 or $90 is a big business when it's with tonnes, this explain why it's a dangerous work!