DAccording to a UN report, the global number of drug users has risen by almost a quarter within a decade. In its annual report on Sunday, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Vienna also expressed concern about the spread of synthetic drugs and trouble spots such as Ukraine and Afghanistan.
Between 2011 and 2021, the estimated number of people using drugs rose from 240 million to 296 million, a 23 percent increase. According to the UN agency, only about half of this increase is due to global population growth. The number of people with drug addiction or disorders rose by 45 percent to 39.5 million during this period.
The UNODC warned against the spread of chemical drugs such as methamphetamine, amphetamine, fentanyl and also against the many newly developed substances on the market. “The production of synthetic drugs is cheap, easy and fast,” it said. This highly flexible sector of the drug business is harder for authorities to trace because, unlike cocaine and heroin, for example, it is not tied to specific growing regions and growth cycles.
Less opium, more synthetic drugs
The UNODC is therefore particularly monitoring the situation in Ukraine, where in the year before the war began 79 amphetamine laboratories were shut down by the authorities, the highest number in the world. Since the Russian invasion in early 2022, seizures of synthetic drugs in Ukraine have increased while the market for such substances has grown in neighboring countries, UNODC Chief Analyst Angela Me reported see,” she said.
In Afghanistan, the UNODC is monitoring signs of a decline in opium production under Taliban rule. However, the UN drug experts pointed out that Afghanistan is not only the world’s most important exporter of the heroin raw material opium, but has also become a major producer of methamphetamine. Falling opium cultivation could drive a shift toward synthetic drugs, the UNODC warned. In the past three years, Afghan methamphetamine has not only reached countries in the surrounding region, but also France, Hong Kong and Australia.
But the United Nations drug watchdog is also concerned about continued growth in the cocaine market. “In the global cocaine market, we are seeing a spiral where demand leads to more supply and supply leads to more demand,” Me said. In 2021, a record 2,300 tons of cocaine was manufactured.
However, according to the UNODC, most cases of addiction and illnesses can still be traced back to opioids and cannabis. Almost 70 percent of the 128,000 drug-related deaths in 2019 had used opioids, the report said. Cannabis addicts account for a significant portion of drug therapy patients in many regions, 18 percent in Europe, and more than a third in Africa and Oceania. However, only a fifth of people with drug problems worldwide have access to therapies, as reported by the UN drug agency.
