Cannabis cultivation Up 40% as UNODC warns drug markets are rapidly changing

VIENNA--Cannabis remains the most widely used drug in the world, with the number of users rising by 40 per cent over the past decade, even as global drug markets are rapidly transforming through new technologies, synthetic substances, shifting trafficking routes and rising instability, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime World Drug Report 2026 released today.

“We have seen an unprecedented spike in new types of drugs on the market, and worryingly, some are more potent or dangerous than before,” said Monica Juma, Executive Director of UNODC. “And, we are already suffering the impact: millions of premature deaths and healthy years of life needlessly lost; drug trafficking networks that are distorting economies; the destruction of lives, communities and livelihoods; and the compounding of insecurity and violence. The imperative to focus on stopping organized crime groups has never been greater. We must surge deterrence efforts, increase intelligence-sharing and coordinate joint operations, while investing more in prevention and treatment.”

An estimated 331 million people used a drug in 2024, or 6.2 per cent of the global population aged between 15 and 64, compared to 5.2 per cent in 2014. Cannabis remains the most widely used drug by far, with 256 million users in 2024, followed by opioids (63 million), amphetamines (32 million), cocaine (25 million) and ecstasy (21 million).  

Drug traffickers continue to innovate

Illicit drug manufacturers continue to invent new synthetic drugs in attempts to skirt regulations and avoid detection, with five times more drug types found in seizures in 2024 than before 2000. The number of new psychoactive substances (NPS) reported to have been circulating in drug markets, for example, reached 755 in 2024, with 118 of these substances reported for the first time.  

A turning point in the global opioid market

The 2022 drug ban in Afghanistan has continued to severely constrain the illicit production of opium and heroin. Although production in Myanmar rose from 420 tons in 2021 to over 1,000 in 2025, the increase in the country (together with quantities produced in other countries monitored by UNODC, i.e., Laos and Mexico) does not offset the declines in Afghanistan, which in 2022 produced more than 6,000 tons of opium.  

The increasing availability of novel synthetic opioids such as fentanyls, nitazenes and orphines on the market suggests that traffickers are searching for alternatives to heroin. A turn away from plant-based opiates toward synthetics could cause a permanent shift in the global opioid market, with ramifications on how these drugs are used and the harms therein.  

The methamphetamine market is now global

New trafficking routes and the gradual spread of methamphetamine production have created new markets for the drug, notably in the Near and Middle East, Africa and parts of Europe. Seizures grew 13 per cent per year on average, an increase largely driven by quantities in East and South-East Asia. Although Myanmar remains the predominant source country for methamphetamine, the high demand has also attracted suppliers from North America, West and Southern Africa and South-West Asia.

Methamphetamine from North America is also now crossing the Pacific Ocean to countries on the Western Pacific Rim, and in the process causing an increase in trafficking and use in Pacific Islands as well. In the Middle East, disruptions of the “captagon” market following the fall of the former Assad regime in the Syrian Arab Republic in December 2024 and the subsequent doubling in price of a captagon tablet in some places may cause a shift among users of captagon to methamphetamine, the use of which has increased in the region.  

Shifting perceptions on cannabis drive user growth

Cannabis production, trafficking and use are all evolving, likely in part due to the ongoing changes in perception towards the drug around the time when many jurisdictions, notably in North America, adopted legalization and/or decriminalization policies.

The number of people using cannabis has grown by 40 per cent over the past decade, while the prevalence of its use increased from 3.8 per cent of the population aged 15-64 in 2014 to 4.8 per cent in 2024. Cannabis seizures also reached historically high levels in 2024.  

Historically, most cannabis trafficking has been within regions, largely because cannabis can be grown virtually anywhere. Yet inter-regional trade, with supply coming from North America, is growing: over 2015–2024, 57 countries or territories outside North America identified it as a source region for cannabis seizures, up from just 11 in the preceding decade.

Growth in cocaine supply may soon outstrip demand

Production of cocaine continued to grow in 2024, rising more than fourfold over the past ten years to an estimate of more than 4,000 tonnes (in pure form), driven largely by increases in productivity and the area under cultivation.  

Organized crime groups continue to funnel increasingly large quantities of cocaine towards established and emerging destination markets, in an effort to maximize profit and expand the customer base beyond their largest, most established markets in Western and Central Europe, North America and Oceania.  

Evidence of such continued expansion can be seen in Africa and Asia, where, despite relatively low seizure quantities, certain countries in these regions recorded the highest growth rates of cocaine seizures globally during 2020-24.  

Impact of drug use on safety and security

Drug use can be associated with acquisitive crime, violence within families and social groups, and victimization of - and by - those who use drugs. But these outcomes are also influenced by wider factors such as the context of the drug use, the personal histories of the people involved, such as poverty, homelessness, poor mental health and contextual factors in the community such as a potential lack of access to drug treatment and social services. Such factors also represent entry points for intervention and prevention efforts.

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