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My local coop (I will not share the articles, because doxing) caught someone trying to smuggle >£300 of stuff out of the store. its a tiny store, maybe medium cornershop sized.

at the start of the year, I personally saw 4 shop liftings happen. I know the staff well, they told me after one of the events that at the present rate they are loosing something like £1500 a week.

They now have a security guard, which has lowered the problem, but not stopped it.

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Maybe not organised like the mafia but you 100% get crackheads shoplifting in an organised fashion to get money for drugs in London, and self checkouts obviously make this easier.

Not unheard of to get crackheads trying to sell you stolen supermarket meat out of a bag if you hang around in some of the less salubrious pubs

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Do you even have crackheads in London? I was familiar with "crackhead" only as an American concept.
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Yes actual crack is pretty popular among that demographic, the UK has a very good relatively low cost supply of cocaine.

The classic combo is Afghan buj + crack but synthetic opioids are starting to make an appearance now the CIA isn’t producing heroin anymore.

It’s nowhere near as bad as the west coast of the US obviously, that’s a whole other level.

I would normally use a different word than crackhead but I thought I’d use the internationally recognised term

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Interesting. I always thought it was opioids that were the main problem in Europe.
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Wastewater analysis shows cocaine is consumed massively ... in the financial district of London.
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No, it's metric. Our schools are flooded with 30cm rulers. You'll see kids as young as 8 with 330ml drinks. Some even count in decimal - there is no end in sight
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