Europe faces drug snowstorm
Record amounts of cocaine are being seized in Europe, while manufacturing of the drug is now taking place inside the European Union, officials in charge of fighting and monitoring drugs use in the bloc have warned.
More than 214 tonnes of cocaine were seized in Europe in 2020, a 6% increase from the previous year. Experts from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) believe that this could reach 300 tonnes in 2022.
With a market retail value estimated at €10.5 billion (NZ$17.3b) in 2020, and about 3.5 million European citizens reporting having used it in the past year, cocaine is the secondmost used drug in the EU after cannabis. Its availability in Europe has never been higher, with extremely high purity and low prices.
While most cocaine manufacturing still occurs in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, EU experts are worried by the processing now taking place inside the 27-nation bloc, particularly in Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands. Between 2018 and 2020, 45 illicit laboratories were discovered.
Laurent Laniel, a scientific analyst at the EMCDDA, said cocaine powder was often smuggled from South America to
Europe in carrier materials such as charcoal and plastics, then extracted in local laboratories.
EMCDDA director Alexis Goosdeel said the availability on the continent of large amounts of cocaine base and paste increased the risk of seeing new forms of highly addictive crack emerging in European markets.
‘‘We are now facing a growing threat from a more diverse and dynamic drug market that is driven by closer collaboration between European and international criminal organisations,’’ he said.
The expansion of the cocaine market has also seen a rise in violence and corruption in the EU, with fierce competition between traffickers leading to a rise in homicides and intimidation.
Meanwhile, the EU’s methamphetamine market has been growing in recent years after being initially concentrated in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In 2020, a total of 215 methamphetamine laboratories were dismantled in the region.
According to Europol, the EU agency for law enforcement, European manufacturers of synthetic drugs are working with Mexican cartels to increase production.