VIENNA, June 25 (Reuters) – Cocaine demand and provide are booming worldwide and methamphetamine trafficking is increasing past established markets, together with in Afghanistan the place the drug is now being produced, a United Nations report stated on Sunday.
Coca bush cultivation and whole cocaine manufacturing have been at report highs in 2021, the newest 12 months for which information is out there, and the worldwide variety of cocaine customers, estimated at 22 million that very same 12 months, is rising steadily, the U.N. Workplace on Medication and Crime stated in its annual World Drug Report.
Cocaine seizures have, nonetheless, grown quicker than manufacturing, containing the entire provide to some extent, the report stated. The higher band of the estimated whole provide was larger within the mid-2000s than now.
“The world is at the moment experiencing a protracted surge in each provide and demand of cocaine, which is now being felt throughout the globe and is more likely to spur the event of recent markets past the standard confines,” the UNODC report stated.
“Though the worldwide cocaine market continues to be concentrated within the Americas and in Western and Central Europe (with very excessive prevalence additionally in Australia), in relative phrases it seems that the quickest progress, albeit constructing on very low preliminary ranges, is going on in growing markets present in Africa, Asia and South-Jap Europe,” it stated.
Whereas nearly 90% of methamphetamine seized worldwide was in two areas – East and Southeast Asia and North America – seizure information suggests these markets have stabilised at a excessive degree but trafficking has elevated elsewhere, such because the Center East and West Africa, the report stated.
It added that reviews and seizures involving methamphetamine produced in Afghanistan urged the drug financial system was altering in that nation, the place 80% of the world’s illicit opium poppy, which is used to make heroin, is produced.
“Questions stay relating to the linkages between unlawful manufacture of heroin and of methamphetamine (in Afghanistan) and whether or not the 2 markets will develop in parallel or whether or not one will substitute the opposite,” it added. (Reporting by Francois Murphy; modifying by Philippa Fletcher)
