Unisa online - New drugs open up new markets

From left: David Bayever (Deputy Chairperson Central Drug Authority), Dr Elisabeth Bayer (Acting Regional Representative UNODC Southern Africa) & Prof Mandla Makhanya (Unisa's Pro-Vice-Chancellor)

Drug use around the world is shifting towards new drugs and new markets. This is the finding of the World Drug Report 2010 which was launched on 15 July 2010 in the Dr Miriam Makeba Concert Hall by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The report indicates that while drug use has stabilised in the developed world, there are signs of an increase in drug use in developing countries, and growing abuse of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) and prescription drugs around the world.

The report also indicates that the world’s supply of the two main problem drugs – opiates and cocaine – keeps declining. The global area under opium cultivation has dropped by 23% in the past two years, and opium production looks set to fall steeply in 2010 due to a blight that could wipe out a quarter of Afghanistan’s poppy crop. Coca cultivation, which is down by 28% in the past decade, has kept declining in 2009. World cocaine production has declined by between 12% and 18% over the 2007 to 2009 period.

Global potential heroin production fell by 13% in 2009, reflecting lower opium production in both Afghanistan and Myanmar. The actual amount of heroin reaching the market is much lower (around 430 tons), since significant amounts of opium are being stockpiled. The global heroin market is concentrated in Afghanistan (which accounts for 90% of supply). Russia, Iran and Western Europe now consume half of the heroin produced in the world.

Although Afghanistan produces most of the world’s opiates, it seizes less than 2% of them. Iran and Turkey are scoring the highest, responsible for over half of all heroin seized globally in 2008.

The cocaine market is shifting, as the World Drug Report 2010 shows that cocaine consumption has fallen significantly in the United States in the past few years. The retail value of the US cocaine market declined by about two thirds in the 1990s, and by about one quarter in the past decade. The problem has now moved across the Atlantic; in the last decade, the number of cocaine users in Europe doubled from 2 million in 1998 to 4,1 million in 2008. The shift in demand has led to a shift in trafficking routes, with an increasing amount of cocaine flowing to Europe from the Andean countries via West Africa. This is causing regional instability. The global number of people using ATSs is estimated at around 30 to 40 million and is soon likely to exceed the number of opiate and cocaine users combined. There is also evidence of increasing abuse of prescription drugs.

The ATS market is harder to track, because of short trafficking routes (manufacturing usually takes place close to main consumer markets) and the fact that many of the raw materials are both legal and readily available. Manufacturers are quick to market new products (such as ketamine, piperazines, Mephedrone and Spice) and exploit new markets. The number of ATS-related clandestine laboratories reported increased by 20% in 2008, particularly in countries where such labs had never been detected in the past.

The manufacture of ecstasy has increased in North America, notably in Canada, and in several parts of Asia, and use seems to be increasing in Asia. In another demonstration of the fluidity of drug markets, ecstasy use in Europe has plummeted since 2006.

Cannabis remains the world’s most widely produced and used illicit substance, as it is grown in almost all countries of the world and is smoked by between 130 and 190 million people at least once a year. However, the  UNODC cautions that these parameters are not very telling in terms of addiction. The fact that cannabis use is declining in some of its highest value markets, namely North America and parts of Europe, is another indication of shifting patterns of drug abuse.

The report also exposes a serious lack of drug treatment facilities around the world and indicates that while rich people in rich countries can afford treatment, poor people and/or poor countries are facing the greatest health consequences. The report estimates that in 2008, only around a fifth of problem drug users worldwide had received treatment in the past year, which means around 20 million drug dependent people did not receive treatment. 

There are warning signs of increased drug activity in the developing world. This is because the world’s biggest consumers (the rich countries) have imposed upon the poor (the main locations of supply and trafficking) the greatest damage. The UNODC states that poor countries are not in a position to absorb the consequences of increased drug use and that the developing world faces a looming crisis that will enslave millions.

Heroin consumption in Eastern Africa has increased, there is an increase in cocaine use in West Africa and South America, as well as a surge in the production and abuse of synthetic drugs in the Middle East and South East Asia.

The report also contains a chapter on the destabilising influence of drug trafficking on transit countries, focusing in particular on the case of cocaine. It shows how under-development and weak governance attract crime, while crime deepens instability. It shows how the wealth, violence and power of drug trafficking can undermine security, even the sovereignty of states. The threat to security posed by drug trafficking has been on the agenda of the United Nations Security Council several times during the past year.

While drug-related violence in Mexico receives considerable attention, the Northern Triangle of Central America, consisting of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, is even more badly affected, with murder rates much higher than in Mexico. The report states that Venezuela has emerged as a major departure point for cocaine trafficked to Europe; between 2006 and 2008, over half of all detected maritime shipments of cocaine to Europe came from Venezuela.

The report highlights the unstable situation in West Africa which has become a hub for cocaine trafficking.

To read the full World Drug Report 2010, click here.