Cocaine production hit new high in 2017: Report

Vienna, June 26 

Global cocaine production reached an all-time high in 2017, breaking the previous year’s record by 25%, the UN drugs and crime agency said on Wednesday in its annual report after it ran surveys in India and Nigeria.

New remote fields and criminal gangs boosted production in the world’s top supplier, despite efforts to steer rural communities away from coca cultivation following a peace deal with FARC rebels.

“Of course it’s bad news every time. It’s bad news for the producing countries... What is happening in Columbia is worrisome,” said Angela Me, chief of research of the Vienna-based United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

The report said the jump in production “was mainly driven by increases in cocaine manufacture in Colombia, which produced an estimated 70% of the world’s cocaine”.

In the decade to 2017, there was a 50% increase in manufacture, reaching a record 1,976 tons two years ago, according to the report, which bases its figures on national monitoring systems. Over the same 10-year period, the amount of cocaine seized worldwide rose by 74%. In 2017, authorities across the globe intercepted a record quantity of the drug: in all 1,275 tons were seized. — AFP

Global seizures of synthetic opioid surge

• UNODC estimates that there were 53.4 million opioid users worldwide in 2017, up 56% from the 2016 estimate due to the surveys from India and Nigeria
• Global seizures of the synthetic opioid surged from less than 10 kg in 2010 to almost nine tonnes in 2013 and a record 125 tonnes in 2017