Narcotics Trafficking Expands Worldwide, UN Says in Report

Officers of Honduras' Technical Agency for Criminal Investigation carry a package containing cocaine seized during a police operation, at a presentation to the media, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, on Dec. 11, 2022. (Fredy Rodriguez/Reuters)

Cocaine trafficking is booming worldwide while methamphetamine trafficking continues to expand beyond its established areas, including in Afghanistan where the drug is mainly produced, according to a United Nations report published on June 25.

Coca bush cultivation and total cocaine production were at record highs in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available, and the global number of cocaine users, estimated at 22 million that same year, is growing steadily, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime said in its annual World Drug Report.

The supply of cocaine supply peaked in the mid-2000s, the report said. Meanwhile, confiscations of cocaine in recent years have grown faster than production.

“The world is currently experiencing a prolonged surge in both supply and demand of cocaine, which is now being felt across the globe and is likely to spur the development of new markets beyond the traditional confines,” the UNODC report said.

“Although the global cocaine market continues to be concentrated in the Americas and in Western and Central Europe (with very high prevalence also in Australia), in relative terms it appears that the fastest growth, albeit building on very low initial levels, is occurring in developing markets found in Africa, Asia, and South-Eastern Europe.”

Most methamphetamine seized worldwide, 90 percent, was in East and Southeast Asia and North America. The quantity has remained stable and at high levels in these areas, but the trafficking has increased in the Middle East and Africa, the report said.

It added that reports and seizures including methamphetamine produced in Afghanistan, a country that grows 80 percent of the world’s poppies, which are used to make heroin, suggested the drug’s presence there is changing.

“Questions remain regarding the linkages between illegal manufacture of heroin and of methamphetamine (in Afghanistan) and whether the two markets will develop in parallel or whether one will substitute the other,” it added.

Africa as a Trafficking Hub

South African ports are being increasingly used to smuggle cocaine around the world, including to the United States, the United Nations reported earlier this year.

Investigators from South Africa’s special crime-busting unit, the Hawks, which targets organized crime, confirmed the report’s contents to The Epoch Times, saying that “record amounts” of cocaine have been seized since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In February, authorities at the port of Durban—on the country’s east coast—discovered almost 900 pounds of cocaine in a container aboard a ship.

The majority of cocaine shipments entered South Africa from South America, with the narcotics destined for countries including Australia, the United Kingdom, and Hong Kong.

In East and Southeast Asia, methamphetamine trafficking has found new smuggling routes, and ketamine production is expanding, the United Nations said earlier in June.

High volumes of methamphetamine continue to be produced in Shan State, Burma (also known as Myanmar), and trafficked from there through Thailand and Laos as well as new routes through central Burma, UNODC said in a report.

Seized crystal methamphetamine hidden inside tea bags are seen during a news conference at the Office of the Narcotics Control Board in Bangkok, Thailand, on Jan. 24, 2023. (Napat Wesshasartar/Reuters)

“Traffickers have continued to ship large volumes through Laos and northern Thailand,” said Jeremy Douglas, UNODC Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

“At the same time they have pushed significant supply through central Myanmar to the Andaman Sea where it seems few were looking,” he said.

Overall, authorities in Asia seized nearly 151 tons of methamphetamine in 2022, a decline from 171.5 tons in 2021 partly due to the new routes, according to the report.

Authorities in Southeast Asia also seized a record 27.4 tons of ketamine in 2022, an increase of 167 percent from a year earlier.

Fentanyl-Laced Marijuana

In the United States, synthetic opioids are becoming a danger even to those who abuse different substances such as marijuana, according to recent findings.

An estimated 55 million people use marijuana in the United States, and 45 percent of the population has tried it at least once, according to the National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics.

But as attitudes and state laws are becoming less restrictive regarding marijuana, reports of marijuana laced with substances such as the synthetic opioid fentanyl are also increasing.

“One of the trends that we saw secondary to the pandemic was individuals stopped reporting opioid use as their primary drug of choice, and it seems to be replaced with marijuana and methamphetamine,” Teresa Russell, director of criminal justice outreach in Dayton, Ohio, told The Epoch Times in a previous report.

Russell, who works with the county jail and community health and treatment facilities, explained that when someone is booked into the jail and needs to detox, they’re asked about drugs they’ve taken and must take a urine drug screen. She said it’s becoming increasingly common for someone to say they’ve only used marijuana but then test positive for fentanyl.

Katie Spence, Darren Taylor, and Reuters contributed to this report.