BOGOTÁ, Colombia -- "What America needs now is a drink," Franklin Roosevelt famously declared upon repealing Prohibition in 1933, amidst a bleak economic climate. But according to the U.N.'s top anti-drug official, consumers of prohibited substances -- particularly cocaine -- might not have the same reaction to today's comparable economic turmoil. "There is no doubt the [economic] crisis will have an impact [on the drug trade]," Antonio María Costa, the director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, told Reuters last week. "It may turn cocaine into a much less desirable discretionary income expenditure." Costa was referring to European markets, where the estimated number of cocaine users rose from 3.5 million to 4.5 million between 2006 and 2007. He argued that depreciating European currencies would reduce the affortability of such illegal imports, reversing the recent consumption growth.
Will the Global Slowdown Reduce Cocaine Demand?
