The Sydney Morning Herald
Australia (AAP)
The state's top crime expert says [the state of New South Wales] NSW is in the grip of a cocaine epidemic.
The latest NSW crime statistics, obtained by The Sun-Herald, show the use of cocaine across the state has increased by more than 50 per cent in the past two years.
Experts say the boom in the drug is the result of a shortage of ecstasy in Australia due to a recent crackdown by authorities in Cambodia and an earthquake in China.
NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research data show that from April 2008 to March this year cases of possessing and using cocaine rose 55.5 per cent.
"There is no doubt that the use of cocaine and the use of ecstasy have increased," bureau director Don Weatherburn said. "The market for cocaine is growing at an exponential rate, and if the price of the drug is staying the same, then this is the sign of a thriving market It is safe to say we are in a cocaine epidemic."
Evidence of use started to accelerate from August 2003, when there were only three arrests, increasing in September 2007 to 19 arrests a month, to last September, when there were 80 arrests a month, Dr Weatherburn said.
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