Sydney’s cocaine wars are spiralling out of control

The illicit moment of surreal euphoria from snorting a line of cocaine comes at a heavy price of misery and death for so many others – a dreadful toll that is plain to see on the streets of Sydney. The competition between criminal gangs for the city’s drug users has become deadly on a scale not seen in Australia for years. The latest victim, David Stemler, died in a hail of bullets in the early hours of Thursday. Stemler was the 23rd person to lose his life in Sydney’s drug wars over the last two years.

Just why demand for cocaine has skyrocketed in Australia isn’t clear. It’s not as if this dangerously addictive recreational drug has just hit our shores. As in Britain, cocaine has been on the streets for decades, and is a favourite recreational drug for middle-class Australians who dare flirt with it, whether or not they can afford to pay the steeply-rising prices demanded by dealers.