The annual report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Vienna warns of growing illicit drug markets, cheap and easy-to-produce synthetic drugs that would transform the trade and be associated with deadly consequences for users. Whether it’s fentanyl in the US or methamphetamine in Afghanistan, synthetic drugs are booming. And environmental destruction and crime in the Amazon Basin are further fueled by the drugs.
The number of drug users injecting drugs in 2021 was estimated at 13.2 million, an 18 percent increase over previously believed, according to UNODC figures. In the same year, the number of people using drugs worldwide rose to more than 296 million, a 23 percent increase from the previous decade. Meanwhile, the number of people suffering from substance use disorders rose to 39.5 million, a 45 percent increase in a decade.
Afghanistan: Opium production significantly reduced
According to the UNODC, Afghanistan’s national drug ban has reduced formerly soaring opium production, with a drastic reduction in this year’s harvest, reports show. However, what could be beneficial globally comes at the expense of many farmers who have no alternative sources of income. However, there is also a global trend in Afghanistan as the country is also a major producer of methamphetamines in the region, which could see a shift towards synthetic drugs.
Under the motto “cheap and easy”, the drug report warns of the increasing dominance of synthetic addictive drugs, as the cheap, simple and rapid production of these drugs is changing the illicit markets. Criminals who manufacture methamphetamine – the world’s most illicitly manufactured drug – use several strategies to evade authorities: new synthetic routes, new bases of operations and the use of uncontrolled precursors are the means to avoid the law.
90,000 Fentanyl-Tote in North America
Fentanyl is another example of the synthetic that dramatically changed the opioid market in North America, with fatal consequences. By 2021, manufactured fentanyl, which is 50 times more potent than heroin, was responsible for the majority of the approximately 90,000 overdose deaths in North America.
Pharmaceutical fentanyl is approved for the treatment of severe pain, usually associated with advanced cancer. However, illegally manufactured fentanyl is sold illegally because of its heroin-like effects and is often mixed with heroin or other drugs such as cocaine, or compressed into counterfeit pills.
Conflicts are often financed through drug trafficking
And in Europe, where the war in Ukraine has displaced traditional cocaine and heroin routes, the global trend is also striking, with signs that the conflict could lead to an expansion of synthetic drug production and trafficking. The combination of war and drugs also affects Africa’s Sahel region, where the illicit trade serves to fund non-state armed and insurgent groups.
The current report also devotes a separate chapter to the link between drug trafficking and environmental crime in the Amazon Basin, as well as clinical trials of psychedelics and the medical use of cannabis. Similarly, the correlation of social and economic inequalities with the drug problem, as well as the environmental destruction and human rights violations it causes, is explored in the World Drug Report 2023.
Source: Krone
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