Global drug market 'thriving'<

With the production of cocaine and opium on the rise, the development of synthetic drugs, an increase in mortality linked to opiates, the world drug market is "thriving" and "diversifying", observes the United Nations Office against drugs and crime (UNODC).

While "recent attention has focused on the threats posed by methamphetamine and new psychoactive substances (NPS), we must not forget that the manufacture of cocaine and opioids is on the rise", notes Yuri Fedotov, director of this organization based in Vienna, which has published its annual report.

These traditional drugs "remain very worrying, and the opiate crisis is not really showing signs of easing", he observes again.

All substances reviewed by UNODC show worrying trends.

In 2016, global opium production increased by a third compared to the previous year due to improved yields in Afghanistan helped by better weather conditions.

At 6,380 tonnes in total, world production remains however around 20% lower than the peak reached in 2014 and close to the average value of the previous five years.

The situation in the United States is particularly worrying: the quantity of heroin seized there “increased sharply in 2015”, according to the report which speaks of a “veritable epidemic” of combined consumption of prescription opiate drugs (such as fentanyl). and heroin.

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Around a quarter of the world's drug-related deaths take place in the United States, mostly opiate-related, with overdoses more than tripling between 1999 and 2015, from 16,849 to 52,404 per year.

On the cocaine market, the trend is also on the rise in terms of production, trafficking - record seizures in 2015 - and use, according to the UNODC.

After declining for a long time, coca cultivation increased by 30% between 2013 and 2015, mainly in Colombia, the world's largest producer.

Consumption also seems to be on the rise in the United States, as in Europe where “the analysis of wastewater from certain cities indicates an increase which would have been 30% or more between 2011 and 2016”.

The expansion and diversification of synthetic drugs, a major trend in recent years, continues, but "the market remains relatively small in size compared to the markets" for traditional drugs.

With AFP