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TITLE
Cohen, Peter, & Arjan Sas (1995), Cocaine use in Amsterdam II.
Initiation and patterns of use after 1986. Amsterdam: Department of
Human Geography, University of Amsterdam.
© 1995 Peter Cohen & Arjan Sas. All rights reserved.
URL of this document: http://www.cedro-uva.org/lib/cohen.cocaine2.pdf
COCAINE USE IN AMSTERDAM II
Initiation and patterns of use after 1986
Peter Cohen & Arjan Sas
1
COCAINE USE
IN AMSTERDAM II
Initiation and patterns of use after 1986
Peter Cohen
Arjan Sas
COCAINE USE
IN AMSTERDAM II
Initiation and patterns of use after 1986
Amsterdam, 1995
Department of Human Geography
University of Amsterdam
Nieuwe Prinsengracht 130
1018 VZ Amsterdam
Netherlands
Explanation of symbols
. data not available
- nil
0 (0.0) less than half of unit employed
a blank category not applicable
CIP-GEGEVENS KONINKLIJKE BIBLIOTHEEK, DEN HAAG
Cohen, Peter
Cocaine use in Amsterdam II : initiation and patterns of use after 1986 / Peter
Cohen, Arjan Sas. - Amsterdam : Instituut voor Sociale Geografie,
Universiteit van Amsterdam. - Ill. - (Onderzoekprogramma drugbeleid
gemeente Amsterdam ; nr. 14)
Met lit. opg.
ISBN 90-6993-099-4
Trefw.: druggebruik ; Amsterdam ; onderzoek.
Funded by the Ministry of Welfare, Public Health and Cultural Affairs
Copyright © 1995 Peter Cohen & Arjan Sas
Niets uit deze uitgave mag worden verveelvoudigd en/of openbaar gemaakt door
middel van druk, fotokopie of op welke andere wijze ook zonder voorafgaande
schriftelijke toestemming van de uitgever.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form of print, photoprint, microfilm,
or any other means without written permission from the publisher.
Lay-out: Arjan Sas
Printed by Elinkwijk Utrecht
Cover: Stadsdrukkerij van Amsterdam
Contents
Contents
Preface 9
1 Introduction, conclusion, and eight chapter summaries 11
Introduction 11
Conclusion 13
Chapter summaries 14
2 The sample 14
3 Initiation into the use of cocaine 15
4 Level of use through time 16
5 Routes of ingestion, other drug use, price and purity of cocaine 17
6 Rules applied to the use of cocaine 17
7 Advantages, disadvantages and effects of cocaine 18
8 Craving cocaine, extra activities to obtain it, cocaine’s effects on work
and relations 20
Notes 20
2 The sample 21
2.1 Introduction 21
The snowball sample of 1991 21
Selecting zero stages 22
The snow ball chains 24
2.2 Comparison of snowball sample with cocaine users from the
household survey 26
A sub sample of cocaine users from the 1990/1991 household survey 26
Age 28
Gender 28
Nationality 29
Income 30
Children living at home 31
Partner situation 32
Education 32
Contacts with drug treatment institutions 33
2.3 Comparison of the 1987 and 1991 snowball samples on some demo-
graphic and socio-economic variables 33
Notes 36
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Cocaine use in Amsterdam II
3 Initiation into cocaine use 37
4 Level of use through time 40
Introduction 40
4.1 “Typical” dosage at “typical” occasions in different phases 40
4.2 Minimum and maximum dosage during last four weeks prior to
interview 41
4.3 Frequency of ingestion during a “typical” month of use 44
4.4 Level of use 44
4.5 Time intervals between stages of use, age, duration of top period, and
pattern of use over time 49
Distribution of use over a typical week and over a typical occasion of use 53
4.6 Periods of abstinence and quitting cocaine use 54
Quitting cocaine use 58
Notes 59
5 Routes of ingestion, combinations with other drugs, and buying,
price, and purity of cocaine in Amsterdam 61
Introduction 61
5.1 Methods of ingestion 61
5.2 Cocaine, other drugs, and their combined use 64
5.3 Cocaine purity and price, cocaine buying in 1991 66
Notes 68
6 Informal rules applied to the use of cocaine 70
Introduction 70
6.1 Situations (settings) in which cocaine use occurs 70
6.2 Emotional states (sets) for cocaine use 72
6.3 Financial limits on cocaine purchases per month 74
6.4 Advice to novice users 74
6.5 Preferred cocaine policy 78
6.6 Self reported rules 80
Notes 81
7 Advantages, disadvantages, and effects of cocaine 82
Introduction 82
7.1 Cocaine’s advantages 82
7.2 Cocaine’s disadvantages 83
7.3 Effects of cocaine 85
Prevalence of cocaine effects 87
Scales of (adverse) effects and clustering effects 92
Differential effect clustering, user types and shifts of user type over time 94
Notes 95
6
Contents
8 Craving cocaine and activities to obtain it; cocaine’s effects on
work and relations 96
Introduction 96
8.1 Craving and obsession 96
8.2 Extra sources of income in order to buy cocaine 97
8.3 Effects of cocaine use on work and personal relations 98
Literature 101
Cocaine Use in Amsterdam in Non Deviant Subcultures 104
Methodology 105
Characteristics of community based cocaine users in Amsterdam 107
General Characteristics 107
Other Drug Use 108
Cocaine Use 108
Initiation and Level of Use through Time 108
Effects, Advantages and Disadvantages of Cocaine 112
Loss of Control 115
The Follow-Up Study 117
Developments in Cocaine Use of Follow-up Respondents 118
Price and Quality of Cocaine 121
Settings of Cocaine Use 121
Rules of Use 122
Advice to Novice Users 122
Conclusions 123
References 124
Notes 125
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Cocaine use in Amsterdam II
8
Preface
Preface
In an area where anecdote, press impressions and data from treatment institu-
tions are still the major sources of knowledge about cocaine, data that run
counter to dominant notions have to be presented with great detail. This enables
the reader to check our conclusions as much as possible. However, we realize
that the level of detail we present in this study goes far beyond the needs of most
readers. For them, we have added a special Chapter 1 that covers the main
findings in a summary format.
In this report we try to describe 108 persons who on average started their regular
cocaine use career in 1985 or later. The report is a sequel to our first cocaine use
investigation (Cohen, 1989), hence the title “Cocaine use in Amsterdam II”1.
Main goal of the second investigation was to find out whether cocaine had
remained attractive to the same type of persons as found by us in 1987, or that
changed publicity about the drug had modified both type of users and patterns
of use. To give the reader of this report an impression of all our efforts to
investigate cocaine use in Amsterdam, we reprinted an overview article first
published in Addiction Research, 1994, Vol 2. In this article we present a general
overview of all our findings, including the results of the follow up study we
performed on 64 of the respondents we first interviewed in 1987.
The publication of “Cocaine use in Amsterdam II” marks the end of the cocaine
use studies we started in 1987. This relatively large project was made possible
by a lot of persons, of whom we would like to mention Eddy Engelsman in the
first place. His knowledge of the drug field provided us with the backing we
needed in order to acquire funding from the Ministry of Welfare, Public Health
and Cultural Affairs.
Further we would like to thank Paul Sandwijk, Harry van Kesteren and Tom
Verhoek of the Stichting BRON2 for their impeccable organization of the field
work and interviewer instruction.
Harm ‘t Hart was as always an encyclopedic source of methodological and
statistical advice, any time we needed it.
We thank Lynn Zimmer Ph.D. and John Morgan Ph.D. for the generosity of
spending a lot of time to editing the English text and for the valuable remarks
he made on the unedited version of this report.
Last, but not least, we have to thank our interviewers. Their zeal and integrity
made it possible to process a lot of good data, of which very little was ‘missing’.
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Ten years of cocaine
Between Arjan Sas and Peter Cohen a consistent division of labor emerged that
gave the former almost supreme reign over data processing and the countless
and sometimes very complicated SPSS runs we needed. The latter however
remained fully responsible for the text and the over all product.
Arjan Sas
Peter Cohen
April 1995
1 This report was presented to the Ministry of Welfare, Public Health and Cultural Affairs in
July 1994 who funded our series of cocaine use investigations in Amsterdam from 1987 to
1991. The present version is modified, according to the editing comments of Zimmer and
Morgan.
2 The “BRON Foundation” is a small research institution attached to the department of Human
Geography of the University of Amsterdam.
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