Picture the scene: a late-Georgian townhouse in London's stylish Chelsea district. The dinner guests sit back for some post-food banter, complimenting the meal just served by hosts Tamsin and Tarquin, a PR director and a banker.
'Lovely souffle, Tamsin.'
'And the coffee and handmade chocolates, Tarquin.'
'I'll say. And that cocaine was most boisterous.'
'It's Colombian, old boy. Fresh off the boat. I must give you my dealer's number.' With that, Tarquin pulls out his Amex platinum card and reaches for a bowl brimming with 'devil's dandruff'. This may seem like pure fantasy, but if London's new police chief is right (and he probably is), the middle classes are passing around something stronger than coffee and mints after dinner.
The odd snort of after-dinner cocaine behind closed doors may rank low on an ordinary policeman's priorities, especially with rising gun crime and the social nuisance of binge drinking. But not for Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair. He warned the middle class that casual cocaine use would no longer be tolerated. 'Cocaine-taking is becoming socially acceptable,' Sir Ian said on his first day in the job. 'People think that in certain fashionable clubs, restaurants or dinner parties it's okay to do drugs. They will soon find out it is not.'