You Can Get Cocaine Delivered Faster than Pizza in a Surprising Number of Countries

There’s no way your dealer has a “30 Minutes or It’s Free” guarantee, but according to a recent study, a large number of cocaine users say that they can have their drugs delivered faster than they can get a pizza.

More than 130,000 people from more than 40 countries participated in the Global Drug Survey (GDS), an annual study of current or former drug users and their habits. In the section on cocaine use, 17 percent of respondents (about 22,100 people) reported that they had used cocaine in the past year, while a full quarter of respondents (32,500) said that they had used coke at some point in their lifetimes. More than 15,000 people chose to complete a ‘special section’ about their coke use—and this is where it got really interesting.

“We asked 15,000 cocaine users from around the world whether it was quicker to get a gram of cocaine delivered or a pizza,” the GDS explains. “Overall, 30 percent said they could get cocaine delivered in 30 minutes or less, compared to only 16.5 percent who could get a pizza delivered in the same time.”

That’s right: You can have a gram in your hand quicker than you can have a bite of pepperoni in your mouth. According to the responses, the fastest coke delivery is in Brazil, the Netherlands, Denmark, Colombia, Scotland, England and the Czech Republic; in all seven countries, more than half of participants said that their blow would be delivered in under 30 minutes. (And a whopping 45 percent of Brazilians said that it took less than half an hour for their drugs to arrive). The United States was slightly below the global average, with only 23 percent of same-day coke customers reporting that their deliveries arrived in under 30 minutes.

In the UK, this statistic has actually been pretty widely circulated for years. An MP recently used it as a talking point, and some members of media on Twitter have noted that it appears in the news cycle perennially. (One of our UK staffers noted that these numbers are “not that revelatory in Britain, where everyone does cocaine all the time and knows how easy it is to get.”)

The three fastest localities for cocaine delivery are all in Denmark, where more than 40 percent of users in the regions of Midtjylland, Nordjylland and Syddanmark reported delivery times of less than 30 minutes.

“Our findings show that drugs are just another commodity, and highlights that in any competitive marketplace a retailer with something to sell will endeavor to break down as many barriers to purchase as possible and beat their competition in customer service,” the GDS said. “For a drug like cocaine, easier access and rapid delivery may lead some people into using more cocaine more often, and may make it more difficult for some users to control their use.”

The GDS—which is conducted by an organization of the same name—hopes that its respondents can help them “explore the positives and negatives of drug use,” with the aim of making drug use safer by developing harm-reduction resources, self-assessment tools and online interventions for those who need or want them. “We are a serious bunch of academics and we research things that we hope will help people use drugs more safely and to help craft optimal public health policies,” the GDS explains.

And maybe its findings will make pizza joints pick up their game. Slower than the average drug courier? Come on, guys!