Drug consumption in the world has increased by 25% in ten years, generating addiction problems.
- In 2021, 52 new drugs were “reported for the first time”, including “15 new synthetic cannabinoids”, according to the latest report from the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction
- According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the global drug market generates no less than 243 billion euros in revenue per year. A figure higher than the GDP of Finland (236 billion) or Colombia (237 billion).
Still more drugs across the globe. The number of 15-64 year olds addicted to psychoactive substances in the world has jumped by 26% in the space of a decade, according to the Annual Report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, released on Monday.
In 2020, some 284 million people reported using drugs in this way.
Cocaine, opium, amphetamines…
It is, first of all, the consumption of cocaine which has exploded, supplying mainly the European and North American markets. Since 2014, production has completely doubled, reaching almost 2,000 tonnes for 2020 alone (+ 11% compared to 2019). Opium production, for its part, jumped 7% between 2020 and 2021, peaking at nearly 8,000 tons. Methamphetamine trafficking continues to grow, with seizures now recorded in no less than 117 countries between 2016 and 2020, compared to 84 between 2006 and 2010.
On a milder, but no less harmful note, daily cannabis use has also increased over the past decade, particularly among young adults, starting with high-THC cannabis products. The legalization of recreational weed in Canada and in some states of the United States would not be foreign to this, according to the UN agency.
Women discriminated against
Another lesson from the survey: the difference in behavior by gender. If women are less drug users in general, “their number is constantly increasing, and disorders related to their use occur much more quickly than in men”, warns the report.
Similarly, women have more difficulty accessing treatment than the opposite sex. Proof of this unequal access: women represent half of amphetamine users, but only a fifth of people treated for this addiction.
France leads in cannabis consumption
According to’European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), which has just published its latest annual report, the supply and consumption of drugs in Europe has increased over the past year, returning to its pre-Covid crisis level. Cannabis, cocaine, amphetamines and methamphetamines are concerned. Ecstasy (and its active ingredient, MDMA) is the only drug whose level would have decreased… due to the nightclubs being closed at the time of the survey in the spring of 2021.
Cannabis remains by far the most widely used substance, with more than 22 million European adults using it in 2021, according to the report. Cocaine follows, with 3.5 million declared users, then MDMA-ecstasy, with 2.6 million, before amphetamines and its 2 million users.
In France, the number of people who, every day, consume cannabis is estimated at 900,000. According to theFrench Observatory of Drugs and Addictive Tendenciess, the number of regular amateurs, who indulge around ten times a month in this “soft” drug, would amount to 1.4 million. The more casual followers would be 5 million. Nearly half of adults have already tasted it. Figures that place France at the top of the European ranking of consumer countries, ahead of Denmark and Spain.