Karachi has been declared the second largest consumer of cannabis worldwide. The city retains its position for the second time in a row even though the drug is illegal across the entire country.
Statistics presented by ABCD2018 Cannabis Price Index show Karachi as next to New York at consuming 41.95 metric tons of cannabis, including hashish. New Delhi, its neighbor in ranking, follows right after at 38.26 metric tons. The top ten consumers include Los Angeles, Cairo, Mumbai, London, Chicago, Moscow and Toronto.
Read: Karachi among least livable cities in World
Only last year Karachi was declared one of the least safe cities to live in by The Economist. Another report by Economist Intelligence Unit labelled it amongst the ten least livable cities of 2019.
Top cities most consumption of cannabis, per year, (metric tons)
🇺🇸 New York: 77.44
🇵🇰 Karachi: 41.95
🇮🇳 Delhi: 38.26
🇺🇸 Los Angeles: 36.06
🇪🇬 Cairo: 32.59
🇮🇳 Mumbai: 32.38
🇬🇧 London: 31.4
🇺🇸 Chicago: 24.54
🇷🇺 Moscow: 22.87
🇨🇦 Toronto: 22.75(weedindex-2018)
— World Index (@theworldindex) September 9, 2019
The news has sprouted varied responses. Asif Razzak, a retired police officer mockingly tweeted, “Don’t be worried soon we will be #1 and will not allow anyone to come near as we are not interested to clean deliberately for just standing alone on the victory stand.” Others jumped to the city’s defense and a twitter user pyromania4u tweeted, “Considering population to area, Karachi is number one in the world. When people don’t have work they will do this.” While others denied the index altogether- @Mtariq tweeted, “Bullshit Karachi never had cannabis consumption so much it’s all western media fake news.”
Cannabis, sometimes known as marijuana or weed, is a drug that tends to distress and slows down activity of the nervous system.