The annual report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Vienna warns that the expansion of illegal drug markets, synthetic drugs that are cheap and easy to produce, would change 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 is further fueled by drugs.
The number of narcotic users who inject drugs in 2021 was estimated at 13.2 million, 18% more than previously assumed, according to UNODC data. In the same year, the number of people using drugs worldwide increased to over 296 million, a 23% increase over the previous decade. Meanwhile, the number of people suffering from substance use disorders has increased to 39.5 million, a 45% increase in a decade.
According to the UNODC, Afghanistan’s national drug ban has reduced previously booming opium production, with this year’s harvest drastically reduced, according to reports. What could be beneficial globally would come at the expense of many farmers who lack alternative sources of income. However, there is also a global trend in Afghanistan, as the country is also a major methamphetamine producer in the region, which could see a shift towards synthetic drugs.
Under the slogan “cheap and easy”, the drug report warns of the growing dominance of synthetic addictive substances, because the cheap, simple and quick production of these drugs is changing illegal markets. The criminals who manufacture methamphetamine – the most illicitly manufactured drug in the world – use several strategies to evade authorities: new synthesis routes, new bases of operations and the uncontrolled use of precursors are the means to circumvent regulation.
Fentanyl is another example of the synthetic substance that dramatically changed the opioid market in North America, with fatal consequences. In 2021, manufactured fentanyl, which is 50 times more potent than heroin, accounted for most of the estimated 90,000 overdose deaths in North America.
Pharmaceutical fentanyl is approved for the treatment of severe pain often 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.
And in Europe, while the war in Ukraine has wiped out traditional cocaine and heroin routes, here too the global trend is striking, with signs that the conflict could trigger an expansion in the manufacture and trafficking of synthetic drugs. The combination of war and drugs also affects Africa’s Sahel region, where illicit trade serves to finance armed groups and non-state insurgents.
This report also devotes a separate chapter to the connection between drug trafficking and environmental crimes in the Amazon basin, as well as clinical trials with psychedelics and the medical use of marijuana. The “World Drug Report 2023” also examines the correlation between social and economic inequalities and the drug problem, as well as the resulting environmental destruction and human rights violations.