COCAINE is the drug often associated in people’s minds with the millionaire lifestyle of film stars and fast-living City high flyers.

Indeed, the drug’s association with money is symbolically cemented by the fact that it is often snorted through a rolled-up banknote.

But cocaine’s party-time glamour is an illusion. As well as being addictive, it is capable of causing severe psychological and physical damage to those who take it regularly.

Yet although cocaine is just as capable of wrecking lives as heroin – a drug conjuring up images of degradation – it continues to ride high on its glitzy reputation. That this is totally undeserved became clear last week, when it was revealed that supplies of cheap cocaine were coming into the Island.

The dealers’ ploy appears to be to encourage more young people to try the cut-price and therefore more affordable version of the drug. This might trap the gullible, but anyone who becomes acquainted with the methods used to make cocaine go further should very quickly realise that the murky world of illegal drugs is about as far removed from luxury and the high life as it is possible to get.

The substances used to adulterate the cheap cocaine may in themselves be harmful. Amphetamines, for example, are used, but the drug-taker has no idea in what quantities or strengths.

Inert fillers are also used, but so too are bizarre ingredients such as crushed dog-worming tablets. Knowledge of this should surely encourage many potential users to see the drug that they are being offered for what it is – a highly dubious cocktail of largely unidentified chemicals put together by unscrupulous criminals for the sole purpose of making a quick profit.

Full and frank disclosure of information about dangerous drugs does not always produce the favourable results anticipated. In this case, however, the candid strategy adopted by the Drugs and Alcohol Service and Customs is likely to pay dividends.

Even the most obtuse potential user ought to be able to appreciate the vast gulf that exists between the image of a starlet inhaling cocaine from a gilded mirror and snorting dog-worming tablets.