U.N. Report Finds Record-High Cocaine Production and Use Globally

Cocaine production, seizures, and use reached all-time highs in 2023, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) revealed in its latest world drug report published on Thursday.

UNODC warned that cocaine is the world’s fastest-growing illicit drug market. Production skyrocketed to 3,708 tons in 2023 — a 340 percent increase from UNOC’s 2022 records. The drug, once largely confined to Latin America, is now spreading to Western Europe as criminal organizations from the Western Balkans increase their influence over the market.

The dramatic increase, UNODC explained in its key findings, is primarily due to an increase in the size of illicit coca bush cultivation areas in Colombia, the world’s top cocaine producer. Updated yield data measured by the U.N. agency found a 50-percent increase in coca bush in the country during 2023 when compared to 2022. Coca leaves are the main ingredient used to manufacture cocaine.

“The concentration of coca leaf production and manufacture of cocaine in high-yielding areas of Colombia also increased,” the report read. “By contrast, the area under coca leaf production in the Plurinational State of Bolivia stabilized in 2023, while the area of coca leaf production in Peru declined slightly.”

“Global cocaine seizures also reached a record high in 2023, and increases were reported in all regions. Over the period 2019–2023, there was a 68 per cent rise in the quantity of cocaine seized worldwide,” the report continued.

UNODC’s findings also revealed that the estimated global number of cocaine users grew from 17 million in 2013 to 25 million in 2023, with an increase in the prevalence of cocaine users among people aged between 15 and 64. The largest cocaine markets continue to be North America, Western and Central Europe, and South America according to the data.

“This edition of the World Drug Report shows that organized drug trafficking groups continue to adapt, exploit global crises, and target vulnerable populations,” UNODC Executive Director Ghada Waly said. “We must invest in prevention and address the root causes of the drug trade at every point of the illicit supply chain.”

“And we must strengthen responses by leveraging technology, strengthening cross-border cooperation, providing alternative livelihoods, and taking judicial action that targets key actors driving these networks,” Waly continued. “Through a comprehensive, coordinated approach we can dismantle criminal organizations, bolster global security, and protect our communities.”

The report found that, in addition to cocaine, the synthetic drug market continues to expand on a global level, largely driven by amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) such as methamphetamine and amphetamine including fentanyl — which is also known under the brand name “captagon.” ATS-related seizures reached record highs in 2023 and accounted for almost half of global synthetic drug seizures in that same year, followed by fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. 

“The fall of the Assad regime in Syria has created uncertainty around the future of the captagon trade. Following the political transition, large captagon manufacturing sites in the country were uncovered,” UNODC said. “Though the discovery could possibly disrupt the drug’s supply, the latest seizure data from 2024 and 2025 confirm that captagon is continuing to flow — primarily to countries of the Arabian peninsula — possibly indicating the release of previously-accumulated stockpiles or continued production in different locations.”

Former Syrian dictator Bashar Assad presided over one of the world’s most prolific producers of captagon, a drug that became more prominent after being identified as the drug of choice during several jihadist atrocities, most recently the October 7 Hamas siege of Israel. Following the demise of the Assad regime in December, the Sunni jihadist groups that ousted him found a massive cache of captagon believed to have been in the regime’s control.

Colombian authorities have made extensive efforts for decades to eradicate cocaine production in the country, typically run by criminal organizations such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) Marxist terrorist groups. In recent years, cocaine production in Colombia has dramatically increased during the administration of far-left and pro-cocaine President Gustavo Petro, who changed the country’s drug-fighting policies as part of his broader — and struggling — “total peace” program.

Petro has repeatedly called for the legalization of cocaine and, in February, claimed that the drug is only illegal because “it’s produced in Latin America.” According to Petro, cocaine is “not worse than whiskey” and could be “sold like wine” if it were legalized. The Colombian president himself is currently facing a preliminary inquiry launched this month by a Colombian Congressional commission investigating allegations that Petro himself suffers from drug addiction, made by former Foreign Minister Alvaro Leyva. 

Leyva, in a series of explosive public letters published between April and May, accused Petro of suffering from drug addiction problems based on circumstances that Leyva experienced throughout his tenure as Minister, and urged Petro to resign from the presidency.

According to Leyva, he was first able to “confirm” Petro’s substance abuse problems after Petro allegedly went missing for two days during one of his official visits to Paris, France. Throughout the letters, the former Foreign President also recounted other circumstances that, he claimed, serve as further evidence of Petro’s alleged addiction problems. Most notably, in one such incident involving Chinese communist dictator Xi Jinping, Leyva said that Petro refused to speak to Xi during a lavish banquet reception during his official visit to China. The letters did not name the substances Petro was alleged to abuse.

Petro refuted Leyva’s accusations and instead accused his former top diplomat of allegedly conspiring with others to oust his government through meetings allegedly “organized” by Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL). Díaz-Balart responded to Petro’s accusations at the time by urging him to “seek professional help with [his] addiction problem.”

In July, the New York Times released a report indicating that Petro’s policies led to a dramatic surge in cocaine production to the point that large amounts of unsold coca paste are “piling up” in the country due to the increased supply of cocaine. The paste, obtained from harvested coca leaves, undergoes a chemical process that refines it into cocaine.

Petro’s government formally requested to the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in March that it remove coca leaves from its list of harmful substances on the grounds that the leaves would serve an industrial use in the manufacturing of fertilizers and beverages.

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.