June 26, 2026
The global trade in illicit drugs is booming, with cocaine production and seizures of methamphetamine at an all-time high, a United Nations report showed on Friday, warning of a surge in new drugs filling a gap left by the collapse in heroin supply.
Cocaine production surged to roughly 4,100 metric tons of pure product in 2024, the latest year on record, a fourfold increase within a decade, while methamphetamine seizures suggest production is growing 13 percent a year, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in its annual World Drug Report.
"We have seen an unprecedented spike in new types of drugs on the market, and worryingly, some are more potent or dangerous than before," UNODC Executive Director Monica Juma said in a statement.
Opium production in long-dominant supplier Afghanistan plummeted in 2023 after the Taliban took back power and banned it, and it has not bounced back since, leading to a decline in the supply and use of heroin, which is derived from it.
