The situation is dramatic. “More cocaine than ever is being produced in South and Central America,” warns Catherine de Bolle, head of Europol, the European police agency. Besides Hamburg, De Bolle also monitors the other two major European ports for cocaine smuggling: Rotterdam and Antwerp. In 2023, a total of 175 tons were discovered there, much more than in the port of Hamburg. However, the amount seized in Rotterdam and Antwerp increased by just under 10 percent between 2022 and 2023. In Hamburg, the increase was 500 percent, from six tons to thirty-five. For German investigators, this has triggered alarm bells.
Has the situation in Germany worsened because controls have increased in Rotterdam and Antwerp? Do traffickers always seek the least complicated routes, making Hamburg their new preferred path? Investigators like Erdmann are struggling to get a clear picture, as these massive seizures have distorted the landscape. However, the latest narcotics reports from the Federal Criminal Police Office suggest this might be the case: last year in Germany, cases involving “significant amounts of narcotics” increased by 25 percent.
For a long time, politicians and the public ignored the situation. When talking about drugs, cocaine seemed like the lesser evil: illegal, of course, but somehow also exclusive.
Moreover, before its cheaper version, crackβwhich is smoked and highly addictiveβappeared on German streets, cocaine didnβt seem to cause widespread misery. Even deaths were rare. To put it cynically: it was a number that society, and therefore politicians, could tolerate.
Now, two factors have changed the situation: first, the enormous quantities arriving and being consumed. Never before has so much cocaine been sniffed. In forty-nine out of seventy-two examined European cities, traces of cocaine in wastewater have increased, while they have decreased in only ten. Today, students use cocaine, but so do plumbers, construction workers, and police officers. It is no longer the drug of the high society. A line costs six or seven euros: cocaine has become an everyday drug for the masses, for everyone looking to get rid of their anxieties or boost their performance. It will take a few years before the consequences become apparent: cocaine users face a higher risk of heart attacks.