Fury after Spanish city offers tips to cocaine users

A CITY in northern Spain has sparked outrage after the health department handed out pointers on how to safely snort cocaine.

Plastic cards bearing messages including “Chop your line up well…if it is not well cut you could damage your nostrils” were distributed to citizens identified as users or potential users in Bilbao, Basque Country.

Another tip recommends that each person use his or her own “rulo,” a rolled up bank note or other snorting device, in order to stop the spread of infections.

But the move was panned by the opposition Popular Party.

A spokesperson said: “It is total nonsense to hand out a kind of consumption kit with such a flippant and frivolous message.”

The city council’s health boss, Yolanda Diez, said that “the material has been checked by doctors,” adding that the campaign aims to reduce the risks associated with taking cocaine.

Spain boasts the second-highest rate of cocaine consumption in Europe after Britain with the latest figures from the European Drug Monitoring Centre revealing that 9.1 per cent of residents aged 15-64 have tried the drug, compared with 9.7 per cent in the UK.