Global Cocaine Market Reaches Record Highs in 2023, UNODC Reports
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the Global Cocaine Market grew at an unprecedented rate in 2023. The agency’s most recent annual report, which came out on Thursday, shows that cocaine production, seizures, and use are all at all-time highs. This proves that the cocaine trade is the world’s fastest-growing illegal drug market.
Cocaine Production Soars by 34%
Last year, the amount of illegal cocaine made rose to an estimated 3,708 metric tons. This was a 34% increase from 2022 and more than four times what it was ten years ago, when production was at a relative low. UNODC says that this increase is mostly due to the growth of coca bush cultivation areas in Colombia and more accurate yield data that give a better picture of how big the drug is.
Record Seizures and a Rising User Base
In 2023, 2,275 tons of cocaine were stopped by police around the world, which was a new record. This is a 68% increase in seizures compared to the last four years. At the same time, the number of people around the world who used cocaine grew from 17 million ten years ago to 25 million now.
Angela Me, the head researcher at UNODC, said that cocaine use is becoming more common among wealthier social groups. She called this a “vicious cycle” because rising demand leads to more production, which in turn leads to even more demand.
Trafficking Expands into New Regions
Although Colombia remains the dominant cocaine producer, the global cocaine market is expanding rapidly into previously untapped territories. Organised criminal networks from the Western Balkans have gained a stronger foothold, playing a growing role in trafficking operations that now span parts of Africa and Asia.
This broadening of the cocaine supply chain has increased access and availability in regions where the drug was previously less common.
Surge in Synthetic Drugs and Global Drug Us
The UNODC report shows that drug use is going up all over the world. About 6% of people in the world between the ages of 15 and 64 used some kind of illegal drug in 2023. This is up from 5.2% in 2013. Cannabis is still the most popular drug in the world.
In 2023, seizures of amphetamine-type stimulants also reached an all-time high, making up almost half of all intercepted synthetic drugs. Fentanyl and other synthetic opioids came in second.
The report also talked about changes in the Captagon trade, which is a synthetic stimulant that became Syria’s biggest export while Bashar al-Assad was in power. Since Assad fell in December 2023, the future of the trade is now uncertain.
Syria said earlier this month that it had shut down all known Captagon production sites. However, the UNODC warned that seizure data from 2024 and 2025 show that the drug is still flowing, mostly into Gulf countries. This could be because of leftover stockpiles or moving production to a new location.
Conclusion
The UNODC says that a new time of global instability is making organized crime networks stronger, making drug problems worse, and pushing drug use to record levels. The rapid growth of the global cocaine market, along with the rise in the use of synthetic drugs, is becoming a bigger problem for both international law enforcement and public health systems.
