New synthetic drugs, cocaine and meth booming, warns UN

A spike in potent synthetic drugs comes as manufacturers respond to geopolitical changes and look to increase profits.

The global drug trade is flourishing, with a surge of new synthetic drugs, as well as cocaine and methamphetamine, as traffickers exploit global instability to push into new markets, the United Nations has warned.

In its World Drug Report released on Friday, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) warns that established and new narcotics are surging, and filling a gap left by the Taliban’s clampdown on heroin production in Afghanistan.

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“We have seen an unprecedented spike in new types of drugs on the market, and worryingly, some are more potent or dangerous than before,” Executive Director Monica Juma said in a statement.

There were five times more drug types found in 2024 than just four years before, according to the report, as suppliers continue to invent new synthetic drugs to avoid detection.

The UN notes that 755 types of new psychoactive substances (NPS) were in circulation in 2024 – 118 of them reported for the first time.

The surge comes as production and use of heroin remains affected by the Taliban’s 2022 ban on opium cultivation in Afghanistan.

That has seen synthetic opioids like fentanyl, nitazenes and orphines – which are more powerful and easier to manufacture – become increasingly available. The UN warns this could cause a permanent shift in the global market and risks “elevating levels of harm” to users.

Methamphetamine trafficking is thought to be growing by 13 percent annually, based on drug seizures. New routes and the spread of production have created new markets, particularly in Africa, the Near and Middle East and parts of Europe.

The fall of the Assad regime in Syria in 2024 has resulted in disruptions and price increases in the Captagon market, which the UN says could see users switch from the amphetamine-like drug to methamphetamine.

Cocaine production is at an all-time high, increasing fourfold within a decade to more than 4,000 tonnes of pure product in 2024.

Organised crime groups continue to push the drug in both established and emerging destination markets to expand their customer base, while quality has increased and prices have gone down.