We all know that driving is incompatible with the consumption of certain substances. Alcohol allows a minimal amount, while there is zero tolerance for drugs. However, at a social level we see that studies place Spain as the second country in cocaine consumption within Europe, only behind the United Kingdom. And that has also been reflected in driving, because in recent years cocaine consumption has increased behind the wheel worryingly.
So much so that cocaine positives detected in traffic accidents have grown by 54% in the last ten years. It is an unprecedented increase that worries the authorities, since more than half of the people who have lost their lives on the road tested positive for drugs, alcohol or some psychotropic drug. If we get specific, in 2022 13% of those who died tested positive for cocaine. This substance It is one of the most dangerous in driving, in addition to being harmful to the body and highly addictive.
In the study carried out by Fundación Línea Directa in collaboration with Fesvial, a deceased driver profile that presents cocaine in the body. They break clichés by showing you that the majority of cases are men between 35 and 54 years old at leisure (nights, weekends and summer), in rollovers, head-on collisions or hitting obstacles. It is true that it is not the most detected substance among drivers, since that “privilege” goes to the cannabis with 39%. Cocaine represents 19%, although it has a greater presence in accidents.
Another illuminating piece of information is the way to detect this substance. Most are caught in the preventive controls of the Civil Guard, although it also reaches 50% in the case of an infraction and 26% in the case of an accident. The autonomous communities with the greatest presence of cocaine at the wheel are Galicia (25%), the Balearic Islands (22%) and Andalusia (21%); while the country average is 19%. The reality is that nothing less than 2.24 million of Spanish drivers (8%) admit to having driven at some time under the influence of cocaine and that is a pending issue.
