Global cocaine boom keeps setting new records, UN report says
The annual UN Office on Drugs and Crime's (UNODC) World Drug Report showed that in 2023, the latest year for which comprehensive data was available, the cocaine trade went from strength to strength.
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Indian Express
11 hours ago
- Indian Express
Myanmar burns confiscated drugs worth around $300 million
Officials in Myanmar's major cities destroyed about $300 million worth of confiscated illegal drugs Thursday. The destroyed drugs included opium, heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana, ketamine and the stimulant known as ice, or crystal meth, Yangon Police Brig. Gen. Sein Lwin said in a speech at a drug-burning ceremony. The drug burnings came nearly a month after UN experts warned of unprecedented levels of methamphetamine production and trafficking from Southeast Asia's Golden Triangle region, where the borders of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand meet, and Myanmar's eastern Shan State in particular. The production of opium and heroin historically flourished there, largely because of the lawlessness in border areas where Myanmar's central government has been able to exercise only minimum control over various ethnic minority militias, some of them partners in the drug trade. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in a May report that the political crisis across the country after the military takeover in 2021 — which led to a civil war — has turbocharged growth of the methamphetamine trade. In the country's biggest city, Yangon, a massive pile of drugs worth more than $117 million went up in a blaze, Sein Lwin said. Similar events to mark the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking also occurred in the country's second-largest city of Mandalay, and in Taunggyi, the capital of eastern Myanmar's Shan state, all areas close to where the drugs are produced. A police official from the capital Naypyitaw told The Associated Press that the substances burned in three locations were worth $297.95 million. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the information has not yet been publicly announced. Myanmar has a long history of drug production linked to political and economic insecurity caused by decades of armed conflict. It has been a major source of illegal drugs destined for East and Southeast Asia, despite repeated efforts to crack down. That has led the flow of drugs to surge 'across not only East and Southeast Asia, but also increasingly into South Asia, in particular Northeast India,' the UN said last month. Drugs are increasingly trafficked from Myanmar to Cambodia, mostly through Laos, as well as through maritime routes linking Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, with Sabah in Malaysia serving as a key transit hub, it added. The UN agency labeled Myanmar in 2023 as the world's largest opium producer.
NDTV
13 hours ago
- NDTV
Global Drugs Production At 3,708 Tonnes, 34% Jump From 2022: UN
Cocaine production, seizures and use all hit record highs in 2023, the UN drug agency said on Thursday, with the illicit drug's market the world's fastest-growing. Illegal production jumped to 3,708 tonnes, nearly 34 per cent more than in 2022, and more than four times higher than 10 years earlier, when it was at a low, the Vienna-based UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in its annual report. The current surge is mainly due to an increase in the size of the area under illicit coca bush cultivation in Colombia and updated yield data, it added. Global cocaine seizures, too, recorded a high of 2,275 tonnes, marking a 68 per cent rise in the four years to 2023. The number of cocaine users also grew to 25 million in 2023, up from 17 million ten years earlier. "Cocaine has become fashionable for the more affluent society," UNODC chief researcher Angela Me said, noting a "vicious cycle" of increased use and production. While Colombia remains the key producer, cocaine traffickers are breaking into new markets across Asia and Africa, according to the report, with organised crime groups from the Western Balkans increasing their influence. Captagon "A new era of global instability has intensified challenges in addressing the world drug problem, empowering organised crime groups and pushing drug use to historically high levels," UNODC noted. In 2023, six per cent of the population aged between 15 and 64 are estimated to have used a drug, compared to 5.2 per cent of the population in 2013. Cannabis remains the most widely used drug. Seizures of amphetamine-type stimulants also reached a record high in 2023, making up almost half of all global seizures of synthetic drugs, followed by synthetic opioids, including fentanyl, UNODC said. The fall of ruler Bashar al-Assad in Syria last December has "created uncertainty around the future of the captagon trade", UNODC added. Earlier this month, Syria said authorities had seized all production facilities of the illicit stimulant, which became Syria's largest export under Assad. "The latest seizure data from 2024 and 2025 confirm that captagon is continuing to flow -- primarily to countries of the Arabian peninsula -- possibly indicating the release of previously-accumulated stockpiles or continued production in different locations," UNODC said.
Hindustan Times
16 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
Cartels shift drug production abroad, hide low-grade drugs in everyday good
Cartels are offshoring more cocaine production outside of Colombia and exporting lower-grade drugs that are easier to conceal in products such as paints and plastics. Increasingly, the groups are smuggling coca paste which is cheap, unrefined cocaine, to laboratories as far away as Italy and the Netherlands to be processed into the final powder, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Drugs smuggling gangs have succeeded in mixing coca paste into products such as asphalt, vegetable oil and charcoal, according to the UN.(Representational Image) 'In terms of risk, if a shipment gets intercepted they're losing less,' said Leonardo Correa, who heads the UNODC's monitoring and technical analysis in the Andes. 'Coca paste is also easier to mix with other products, which facilitates smuggling.' The evolving tactics seek to profit from soaring production, with global output up more than third in a year, driven partly by Colombian President Gustavo Petro's decision to scale back the military campaign against the private armies of drug traffickers. It's a policy that may change after 2026 elections if angry voters back candidates promising a security crackdown. Petro's approval rating fell to 29% in June, according to local pollster Invamer. Global cocaine production reached a record of an estimated 3,708 tons in 2023, up 300% over the last decade, according to the UNODC's 2025 World Drug Report published Thursday. That makes it the fastest-growing illicit drug market. While drug violence 'has long been a problem in Latin America and the Caribbean, it is now spreading to countries in Western Europe,' the UNODC found. 'Traffickers are also riding a wave of record production, pushing into new markets across Asia and Africa.' Chemical Camouflage Smuggling gangs have succeeded in mixing coca paste into products such as asphalt, vegetable oil and charcoal, according to the UN. Experts with some knowledge of chemistry then extract the product at the destination, Correa said. In December, Portuguese police dismantled a major cocaine laboratory. Such laboratories have also been found in Spain, Central America and elsewhere. Satellite images show the increase in cocaine supply is being fueled by a surge in production of coca, the raw material for the drug, in Colombia. Output in Bolivia was stable, while in Peru it fell slightly, according to the UN. In Colombia, Petro has sought 'total peace' through negotiations with guerrillas and the private armies of drug traffickers since taking office in 2022. So far these talks have failed to yield major demobilizations, while the groups have taken advantage of a relative lack of military pressure to seize more territory. Many farmers have turned back to growing coca, after crop substitution programs introduced as part of a previous peace process in 2016 have been underfunded and poorly implemented. Producing coca provides them with a more reliable income. Colombia's surging coca production and Petro's strained relationship with President Donald Trump put the Andean nation at risk of being decertified as a partner in the war on drugs by the US. That would put the country in the same category as Bolivia and Nicolas Maduro's Venezuela, and limit access to some aid and loans.
