Saturday night fever

Many who claim to be 8216;recreational drug users8217; may be more hooked than they realise

Nabbing a couple of Nigerian drug dealers isn8217;t going to change anything. In some circles in urban India, cocaine has become a social lubricant. While the jury is still out on whether the recent instance was Rahul Mahajan8217;s first brush with cocaine, sceptics are willing to bet it wasn8217;t. This is because cocaine has been in circulation in Delhi and Mumbai as a Saturday night party drug for ages.

The cops may choose to dismiss it as a 8220;darzi drug8221; limited to designers and supermodels trying to get thin. The reality however is that a number of successful people from all professions are today experimenting with cocaine regularly. As one successful Delhi businessman, who has been using cocaine occasionally for the last four years, put it: 8220;If I have two lines of coke once a month, it8217;s better than three whiskys every night.8221; Another garment exporter agrees. 8220;Nothing will change. We8217;ll all be back to buying cocaine when this dies down in a month.8221;

The sub-text cannot be clearer: cocaine is cool. You8217;re not a drug-addled loser if you8217;re using it. It8217;s considered naughty and fashionable, not dangerous. At a prominent wedding in the Capital earlier this year, the joke was the groom just about emerged from the restroom the favourite hangout for cokeheads in time for the pheras. A popular nightclub in a five-star hotel in Delhi has low tables in their restrooms, supposedly for the convenience of their coke snorting clients. The two-day rave bashes, hosted by a Mumbai millionaire8217;s son in Goa, boasted of 8220;sackfuls of cocaine8221;, according to sources.

In urban India, with its highly stratified social scene, access to the higher echelons of society is dependent on whom you studied with, where you live and what your family does. The fastest way for an outsider to fit in is to become a 8220;druggie buddy8221; of the in-crowd. Sahil Zaroo claimed he bought the drugs for Mahajan and Bibek Moitra in the hope that this would get him closer to a rich and politically important family.

Being successful isn8217;t enough for these glamour struck 20-somethings, keen on new thrills, new highs. And cocaine8217;s cool quotient is fuelled by its astronomical price. A gram, priced at something like Rs 6,000, can get you a four-hour high. So while it8217;s never going to be a drug for the masses, a lot of professionals can afford to do cocaine. They dub themselves 8220;recreational cocaine users8221; but they may be more hooked on the drug than they realise. They should do the self-test on cocaineanonymous.com to check if they have become addicted or not.

A Delhiite who spent three days in jail for cocaine possession shudders at the recollection. 8220;I have a copy of my engineering degree and jail slip framed. Never again,8221; he says. Since you can never be sure of quality, you could end up dead like Moitra, or hospitalised like Mahajan, or in jail like Zaroo. The brief spell cocaine casts over you isn8217;t worth it.