Twisted rise of shady Brit ‘cocaine-fluencers’ sampling ‘nose beers’ around the world in brazen viral drug vids

WANDERING through South America, a young Brit has made a name for himself rating one of the continent’s most notorious exports. The 21-year-old travels from country to country rating cocaine, known in some circles as “packet”. Much to the horror of many critics who fear they could be normalising drug taking. One Brit travels the world to review the drug Credit: Tiktok Credit: Tiktok In one video he asks: “How good is the packet in Brazil?” Others see him discuss the price and quality of the Class A drug as he makes his way through South and Central America. Sign up for The Sun newsletter Thank you! And he is far from alone. Across TikTok and Instagram, British creators are racking up thousands, and sometimes millions, of views with videos joking about “packet”, “nose beers”, lines, “seshes” and afters. No data found Another Brit regularly posts ‘sesh’ content to his 16,000 followers. One clip joking about getting “on the packet” on a Wednesday has been viewed 1.1million times. Meme accounts also rack up tens of thousands of views with posts including: “Morning, because if it was a good morning I would already be sniffing.” Addiction expert Ian Hamilton warned the content risks making cocaine appear normal and even glamorous to huge audiences. “It’s glamorising an illegal drug,” says Ian, an Honorary Fellow and Associate Professor in Addiction at the University of York’s Department of Health Sciences. Most read in The Sun Joke accounts also rack up thousands of views Credit: Tiktok Experts say that the content is pushing the drug to a younger audience Credit: Tiktok “It’s dangerous, pushing the reach of harmful substances far beyond the usual word on the street or your mate’s advice, as it was decades ago. “The social media companies have to do more to tackle this.” He fears children could be among those watching. “We know how young some children are when they are accessing these types of information,” he said. “It is potentially reaching an audience much younger than in the past. “Early teens are far more suggestible and far more likely to be influenced.” The 21-year-old Brit is perhaps the most brazen example of the trend. And lately his videos have taken an even stranger turn. In a recent podcast interview, he revealed how his bizarre online career began. “I came out here to start social media and, in all honesty, nothing went well with just normal travel content,” he said. “So I was a big fan of the packet back home and I decided to test it out on social media.” It worked. He said the cocaine videos went “almost viral overnight” after he started posting them earlier this year. And repeated bans have done little to stop him. He claims to have lost two Telegram channels with 17,000 and 8,500 members, Instagram accounts with 85,000 and 10,000 followers and TikTok pages followed by 60,000 and 25,000 people. His first video to take off was filmed in a favela in São Paulo and discussed the price of cocaine in Brazil. The trips have not been without danger. He described meeting a dealer in Paraguay before accidentally pulling out the wrong banknote. “That had someone pull a gun out on me,” he said. “I’ve never run faster in my life.” More recently, he said he spent two nights sleeping rough in Mexico after losing his passport and being thrown out of hotels while drunk. “I was in a very bad way,” he said. “I’ve never felt so vulnerable in my life.” Yet his notoriety is now helping to pay for the travelling. “Due to the social media presence, if you’re able to monetise social media, you can just do some promos,” he said. “As for now, it’s mainly a social media brand deal.” His Instagram stories and videos have also featured promotions for online poker and gambling sites. One tells followers: “Use code PACKET to claim a 150% bonus.” Research suggests young people are already being exposed to drug content on a huge scale. A UCL study of more than 1,100 British secondary school pupils aged 13 to 18 found six in ten had encountered drug-related content on social media. Funny posts and memes were the most common type they reported seeing. Almost a third had encountered adverts for illegal drugs. Of those youngsters, 83 per cent said the adverts had simply appeared in their feeds rather than being something they searched for. Ian says cocaine itself has also become far more normalised. “When I first got involved in this, a lot of people were very wary of cocaine,” he said. “There has been a definite shift. Cocaine has become very normalised. “It is accessible, cheap and potent. “It is still seen as affluent and has an element of risk attached to it which can be seen as quite exciting.” Britain already has a huge appetite for the drug. The National Crime Agency estimates around 117 tonnes of cocaine are consumed in the UK every year, with Britain believed to have the second-highest consumption rate in the world. Deaths involving cocaine have risen ten-fold in a decade and hit another record high last year. Cocaine was involved in 23 per cent of drug poisoning deaths recorded, up from 20 per cent the year before. You would not know it from many of the videos. University of Queensland researchers analysed cocaine-related videos on TikTok and found 66.8 per cent promoted substance use. Among videos depicting cocaine use, 89.6 per cent portrayed it positively. Just 4.7 per cent portrayed it negatively. And it is not just videos of people taking it. A University of Huddersfield study analysed 90 TikTok posts featuring cocaine producers, distributors and users. Some showed cocaine being taken to upbeat music with a party going on around it. Others featured producers and dealers apparently enjoying what they were doing and appearing proud of their part in the trade. The biggest posts attracted huge audiences, with engagement reaching around 269,000. Researchers warned social media videos could “humanise” people involved in the cocaine trade, presenting them as ordinary people rather than the criminals usually associated with it. Similar accounts have pulled in huge audiences before. A string of British creators have made their names with cocaine and “sesh” content. Many of the TikTok handles used by those creators at the time are now either unavailable or no longer active under the names previously published. But the content has not disappeared with them. And some of what is slipping through goes much further than jokes. Experts warn that the content is pushing a drug that is more dangerous than ever. The cocaine being sold in Britain is now far purer than it once was. “It is a lot purer than it used to be,” Ian said. “You don’t need a lot because it is potent, cheap and strong.” Cocaine can cause serious cardiovascular problems and, at its most extreme, a fatal overdose. Ian warned people do not necessarily need years of heavy consumption before they begin running into problems. “You don’t need many exposures to become dependent,” he said. “And that means you are facing the same risks.” He also questioned whether the huge audiences being built around cocaine could eventually attract the attention of the organised criminals supplying it. There is no evidence any of the creators featured here are being paid or supplied by criminal gangs, and Ian stressed he could not prove organised crime was involved. But he said: “I find it hard to believe they aren’t interested in it. “It would make sense given the reach that they would have. “Are they supplying them or paying them? We don’t know.” Ian believes social media firms should be doing far more to stop it. “The platforms really need to be doing more,” he said. “It is an illegal drug. It is well within the scope of these providers to make a good dent in it. “They can do it, but they are choosing not to.” A Meta spokesperson: “We have removed the content brought to our attention for violating our policies.” TikTok were approached for comment. Comment now