On the 16 March, during a side event at the United Nations 66th Commission on Narcotic Drugs, GIFP action CRIMJUST, launched the Global Report on Cocaine. The Report, developed under the second iteration of CRIMJUST, contributes to increased strategic and action-oriented knowledge on drug research and monitoring, aiming to support evidence-based policy making as well as practitioners in the field to reduce the cocaine threat.
Ms. Angela Me, Chief of the Research and Trend Analysis Branch at the UNODC and Mr. Tofiq Murshudlu, Head of Coordination, Border Management Branch at the UNODC, opened the side event by thanking the European Union for the generous funding provided to develop the report. Ms. Me elaborated that the report provides actionable evidence on the global cocaine market in order to support comprehensive global policies. Mr. Murshudlu continued by highlighting that the report is the first to synthesise global cocaine data on this scale as well as fully analyse and identify the various actors involved. He concluded by pinpointing that the report aims to provide authorities with a sound foundation for developing effective strategies to disrupt the illicit flow of cocaine.
Ms. Chloé Carpentier, Chief of the Drug Research Section at UNODC shared the main findings of the report including the observation that coca cultivation has risen by 35% globally yet the net availability of cocaine has not increased proportionally. She explained that one of the main reasons why this could be the case is that seizures have outpaced production which would in turn contain the market and availability.
Ms. Floriana Sipala, Head of the Organised Crime and Drugs Unit, Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs of the European Commission, expressed increased concerns over the growing availability of cocaine in the European Union and the rise in the use of its ports and airports for cocaine trafficking. Moving forward, she advocated for investigations to draw upon financial and criminal intelligence collection and sharing to disrupt high-level criminal targets as well as for stronger coordination to implement effective criminal justice responses in line with human rights.
Ms. Angela Martins, from the African Union Commission and Ag. Director of Social Development, Culture and Sports, reaffirmed that illicit drug trafficking continues to thrive in Africa and further explained that the Pan-African Epidemiology Network on Drug Use reported a significant increase in drug related arrest and offenses with an estimated rate of 754 individuals out of 100,000. Furthermore, from 2016 to 2021, West Africa accounted for 99.4 percent of seizures on the continent with cocaine being the second most common illicit drug seized (cannabis remains the first).
H.E. Amb. Adam Namm, Executive Secretary of the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission of the Organization of American States (CICAD), wrapped up the panel by confirming that the Americas have been experiencing historically high levels of production of not only cocaine but of heroin, methamphetamine, and synthetic drugs. Ambassador Namm further elaborated that this exacerbates biodiversity loss within production countries, as coca is often planted within protected habitats and the chemicals used in the processing of cocaine are deadly to the local flora and fauna. Ambassador Namm finished by sharing CICAD’s multilateral evaluation mechanism’s findings that only 50% of OAS members states have strengthened their intelligence and interdiction capacities to detect, investigate, and dismantle facilities dedicated to illicit drug production.
