Global trade in cocaine, methamphetamine is booming, UN drug report shows

File photo of packages of confiscated cocaine being prepared for incineration in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. (EPA Images pic)

VIENNA: The global trade in illicit drugs is booming, with cocaine production and seizures of methamphetamine at an all-time high, a United Nations report showed on Friday, warning of a surge in new drugs filling a gap left by the collapse in heroin supply.

Cocaine production surged to roughly 4,100 metric tons of pure product in 2024, the latest year on record, a fourfold increase within a decade, while methamphetamine seizures suggest production is growing 13% a year, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in its annual World Drug Report.

“We have seen an unprecedented spike in new types of drugs on the market, and worryingly, some are more potent or dangerous than before,” UNODC Executive Director Monica Juma said in a statement.

Opium production in long-dominant supplier Afghanistan plummeted in 2023 after the Taliban took back power and banned it, and it has not bounced back since, leading to a decline in the supply and use of heroin, which is derived from it.

But 2024 saw a sharp increase in reports of new synthetic opioids, such as fentanyls or even more potent nitazenes, which could be filling at least some of the gap left by the drop in heroin supply, particularly in Europe, the UNODC said.

“Instances of NPS (new psychoactive substance) synthetic opioids reported in early warning systems increased in 2023 and 2024 across most regions, but most prominently in Europe, Oceania and Africa, suggesting a recent diversification by market actors,” the UNODC said.

“North America, where fentanyl has largely displaced heroin, reported around a 10% increase in the number of NPS synthetic opioids identified in 2024 from the previous year, while that number rose by more than 80% in Europe and by 150% in Oceania,” it said.

Supply and harder-to-estimate demand for cocaine continued to increase strongly, the report said. It also said that the way cocaine is consumed has changed while purity has increased and prices have dropped.

“Qualitative research conducted in 2024 indicates an expansion of cocaine use to social settings beyond the nightlife scene and its integration into daily routines, together with an upsurge in ‘crack’ cocaine use among socioeconomically disadvantaged groups and a shift from heroin use to ‘crack’ cocaine use,” the report said.

Data on those receiving treatment for drug use strongly suggests an increase in crack cocaine use in Western and Central Europe beginning in 2015, it added.