Cocaine production, seizures, and consumption reached new highs in 2023, fueled by crises, according to the annual report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), released Thursday.
"Cocaine is the fastest-growing illicit drug market in the world," the Vienna-based organization said in a statement.
The UNODC added that production, driven by an increase in the area of illegal coca cultivation in Colombia, "increased by nearly 34%" in a single year, that seizures "increased by 68% between 2019 and 2023," and that the number of users "rose from 17 million to 25 million in ten years."
The report noted that traffickers are penetrating new markets in Asia and Africa, and that violence "previously confined to Latin America" is spreading "to Western Europe," citing "hundreds of billions of dollars in annual turnover."
"Cocaine has become popular among the wealthier segments of society," said Angela Me, a senior researcher at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), pointing to a "vicious cycle" of increased consumption and production.
Seizures of amphetamines also reached record levels, accounting for nearly half of all synthetic drug seizures, followed by opiates, including fentanyl.
The UNODC lamented that "a new era of global instability has strengthened the power of organized crime and pushed consumption to historically high levels."
The report also addresses the issue of Captagon, as the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria in early December has created "uncertainty about the future of this trafficking."
The Assad regime, which has been accused of turning Syria into a platform for drug production and trafficking, was known for its production of this amphetamine, derived from a medication used to treat narcolepsy or attention deficit disorder.
The new Syrian authorities uncovered large stockpiles of Captagon in former military warehouses and facilities and seized factories.
However, the organization emphasizes that these measures do not appear to have disrupted supplies yet: recent seizures show that these drugs "continue to flow freely, particularly to countries in the Arabian Peninsula, suggesting that previously accumulated stocks are being released to the market or that production continues in different locations."
In 2023, 6% of the global population aged 15 to 64 had used drugs, compared to 5.2% in 2013, with cannabis remaining the most commonly used drug.
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