1. Report and other recent reports
Drug Trafficking,
the World Drug
Report and other recent reports
Dr. Thomas Pietschmann, Drug Research Section, UNODC
Edited by
Ambassador Dr Ugljesa Zvekic

2. Dimensions of the drug problem
DRUG ABUSE
spreading along
the trafficking routes
DRUG PRODUCTION
typically affecting countries with weak institutional structures
TRAFFICKING & ORGANIZED CRIME
narco-cartels
corruption
infiltration of licit economy
HIV-AIDS
risk of an epidemic
TERRORISM
funded by narco-resources

3. DEMAND

4. Annual prevalence of illicit drug use at the global level, among the population aged 15-64,
All drug use: %
Range: %-7.3%
Problem drug use: %
Range: %-0.9%
Largely stable trends in the use of all major drug categories
Source: UNODC, response to annual report questionnaire.

5. TREATMENT
demand – by primary drug-type, (or latest year available)
2015:
Persons using drugs: million ( m); 5.3% ( %)
Problem drug users: million ( m); 0.6% ( %)
Persons treated: million (incl. > 1.5 m in Americas, 1.3 m in Asia and Europe, 0.2 m in Africa and Oceania)
Source: UNODC, Annual Report questionnaire and other Government reports.

6. 2015 (or latest year available)
Proportion of people in treatment for different drugs, global averages,
2015 (or latest year available)
Global level, 2015:
Drug users: million ( m)
Problem drug users: million ( m)
People in treatment: million
People who inject drugs: million ( m)
PWID related HIV: m or 13.1% of PWID
PWID related hepatitis C: m or 51.5% of PWID

7. Primary drug of concern among people in drug treatment, by region, 2015
Largely stable trends in the use of all major drug categories

8. Drug treatment in Italy

9. Italy – testing positive among drug dependent persons in 2016 for
HIV
Hepatitis B
Hepatitis C
Governo italiano, Dipartimento politiche antidroga, Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, Relazionale annuale al Parlamento 2017 sullo stato delle tossicodipendenze in Italia.

10. Health related harm
Number of deaths and “healthy” years of life lost (DALYs)
attributable to drug use, 2015
We can see here that in 2015, the overall burden of disease from Hep C (red) remains much higher than from HIV (green) both in terms of deaths (left) and years of healthy life lost (right) as a result of disability and premature death
Now, if we consider the burden of disease related to drugs themselves (in blue), opioids stand out as the most harmful; they account for 70% of the total burden of disease due to drug use disorders

11. Drug related deaths: United States and European Union, 1985-2015
Sources: EMCDDA, UNODC, Annual Report Questionnaire data and ONDCP.

12. Drug-related deaths, England and Wales, 1993-2015
About 190,000 DRD, Important to highlight that this is a minimum and mostly account for overdoses
Also key to note that most of these deaths are attributable to opioids
In past few years, increase in opioids related deaths, not only in NA, but also in WCE
US: tripling of all deaths over ; since 2011, most of the increase has been driven by heroin and synthetic opioids (dominated by fentanyl)
E&W: another eg where 2015 has seen the highest nb of DRD ever since early 90s; with a sharp increase in the deaths related to heroin and morphine DRD in the past three years
Sources: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Office for National Statistics, “Deaths related to drug poisoning in England and Wales: 2015 registrations”, Statistical Bulletin (Newport, 9 September 2016).

13. Drug related deaths in Germany: 1973 - 2016
Patterns in 2015
* Mean age: 38 years,
up from years in 2002
* Proportion male: 82%
* Mostly related to overdoses with heroin/morphine in combination with other substances
Source: Bundeskriminalamt, Bundeslagebild Rauschgift (and previous years)

14. Global opium production in metric tons, 1906/1907 – 2016
Memo:
World population:
1906: billion 2016: billion
41,600
30,000
-72%
16,600
11,600
323
The introduction of the international drug control system had a major positive impact in reducing opium production worldwide. Global opium production, licit and illicit taken together, fell by some 78% between 1906/07 and 2010.
One problem here: an ever greater part of licit morphine is nowadays produced out of poppy straw, not opium. The harvested poppy straw had thus to be “converted backwards” into opium equivalents. Though the backwards conversion of poppy straw into opium can only provide some tentative results, the results should still provide reasonable orders of magnitude to understand the ‘big picture’.
Opium production declined by more than three quarters between and 2010 while the world population more than quadrupled over this period.
Note: The transformation of poppy straw into opium equivalents is tentative. A transformation ratio of around 7 kg of opium for 100 kg of poppy straw was applied, derived from average morphine output from poppy straw of 0.7% at the global level and an average opium morphine content of close to 10% at the global level (10 years average). Annual specific results were applied for data over the period. Poppy straw figures for 2016 are still preliminary. Average ratios (7.2 kg of opium for 100 kg poppy straw and 9.8 kg of morphine for 100 kg of opium) were used as proxies for 2016.
Sources: Report of the International Opium Commission, Shanghai, China, Feb. 1909, Vol. II, INCB, Narcotics Report, Narcotic Drugs: Estimated World Requirements for 2017 – Statistics for 2015 and previous years, UNODC, A Century of International Drug Control (2009), UNODC, World Drug Report 2017 and previous years.

15. Trends in global interception rates for opiates, 1980-2014
Note: The interception rates is calculated by dividing the total quantity of opiates seized (expressed in opium equivalents, using a traditional 10:1 conversion rate for opium to heroin) by total opium production. The intervals are based on a conversion of quantities of heroin and morphine seized into opium equivalents based on an opium to heroin conversion ratio of 7:1 (lower limit) and 11.6:1 (upper limit) as reported in UNODC’s Afghanistan opium survey and previous years.
Sources: UNODC calculations based on UNODC, Annual Report Questionnaire data and UNODC opium cultivation surveys.

16. Estimates of opiate use among the total population
1907/08 and 2015
-92%
-84%
Based on information provided in the Opium Commission Report an attempt was also made to calculate the opiate using population in 1907/08 and to compare this with the opiate using population in The opiate using population is here given as a percentage of the total population, i.e. including babies and old age people.
CLICK:
Such estimates for Asia suggest a decline in the prevalence rate from 3.3% in 1907/08 to 0.24% in 2006, equivalent to a decline of around 93% over this period.
Similar estimates for the world as a whole suggest a decline in the prevalence rate from 1.5% to 0.25%, equivalent to a decline of more than 80% over this period.
While the drug problem has definitely not disappeared over the last century and a number of new drugs have emerged, these data suggest that at least in terms of ‘hard drug’ use the drug problem at the global level is today smaller than it used to be prior to the introduction of the international drug control system.
Use of opiates (0.25%), cocaine (0.22%) and amphetamines (0.38%) together affect less than 0.85% of the world’s total population today. (The actual figure will be even lower as some drug users do not only use opiates but also cocaine and/or amphetamines). Thus the prevalence rate for the use of opiates, cocaine and amphetamines together is today some 40% to 50% lower than the prevalence rate of global opiate use a century earlier - despite growing cocaine and amphetamines use over the last century.
Sources: UNODC, 2008 World Drug Report, June 2008 and UNODC, 2017 World Drug Report, June 2017.

17. Estimates of annual prevalence of opiate, cocaine and ATS use in per cent of total population at the global level, 1907/08 and 2015
Based on information provided in the Opium Commission Report an attempt was also made to calculate the opiate using population in 1907/08 and to compare this with the opiate using population in The opiate using population is here given as a percentage of the total population, i.e. including babies and old age people.
CLICK:
Such estimates for Asia suggest a decline in the prevalence rate from 3.3% in 1907/08 to 0.24% in 2006, equivalent to a decline of around 93% over this period.
Similar estimates for the world as a whole suggest a decline in the prevalence rate from 1.5% to 0.25%, equivalent to a decline of more than 80% over this period.
While the drug problem has definitely not disappeared over the last century and a number of new drugs have emerged, these data suggest that at least in terms of ‘hard drug’ use the drug problem at the global level is today smaller than it used to be prior to the introduction of the international drug control system.
Use of opiates (0.25%), cocaine (0.22%) and amphetamines (0.38%) together affect less than 0.85% of the world’s total population today. (The actual figure will be even lower as some drug users do not only use opiates but also cocaine and/or amphetamines). Thus the prevalence rate for the use of opiates, cocaine and amphetamines together is today some 40% to 50% lower than the prevalence rate of global opiate use a century earlier - despite growing cocaine and amphetamines use over the last century.
Source:: UNODC calculations based on International Opium Commission, Shanghai, February 1909, UNODC, World Drug Report 2008 and UNODC< World Drug Report 2017.

18. SUPPLY

19. Cultivation and production
coca/cocaine, opium/heroin
Total area under opium poppy and
coca bush cultivation
Global potential opium production and
cocaine (100 % pure) manufacture
This year WDR shows that cultivation of opium poppy remains at high level, it increased in 2016 to 305,000 ha, mostly due to an increase in cultivation in Afgh.
In 2016, global opium production increased by a third compared to the previous year, to reach 6,400 tons, mostly due to an improvement in the poor yield reported in Afgh a year earlier. And out of this 2016 harvest, it was estimated that about 450 tons of heroin were produced.
For the cultivation of coca bush, the latest estimates confirm the increase reported in the previous year, with a 30% increase over , and this comes after a long term decline, mostly driven by changes in Colombia.
Global manufacture of cocaine is also on the increase; it is estimated to have reached 1,125 tons in 2015.

20. Distribution of total drug seizure cases, 2015 (2.4 million cases)

22. Largely stable trends in the use of all major drug categories

23. Identified branches of heroin trafficking via the Balkan route
Source: UNODC, The Illicit Drug Trade through South-Eastern Europe, March 2014.

24. Heroin trafficking along the Balkan route and via Georgia and Ukraine to West and Central Europe,
90%
30%
20%
80%
bulk!
Sources: UNODC, ARQ and individual drug seizures

26. Main cocaine trafficking flows, 2011-2015
We have represented here the main flows of cocaine – you can see them in pink with continued trafficking from production areas in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia to Central America and the Carribbean for onward trafficking to majors markets in North America and via to Europe, either directly or via Africa
A number of indicators suggest an expansion of cocaine trafficking eastward:
40% increase in sezure of cocaine in Asia in 2015
Major seizure cases that were recntly reported in Sri Lanka (900 kg) and Djibouti (500 kg) where it was the largest cocaine seizure in East Africa since 2004.

27. Cocaine in the European Union, 2015
Source: EMCDDA, European Drug Report 2017.

28. Cocaine market: signs of expansion in Europe
Quantities of cocaine seized in Europe and annual prevalence of cocaine use in the European Union
Benzoylecgonine (cocaine metabolite) found in wastewater per 1,000 inhabitants in Europe (based on data from 80 European cities)
And in Europe, the cocaine market shows signs of expansion:
- Though seizures of cocaine have been increasing in the last year, prevalence of use has remained relatively stable in the general population.
- However, if we look at data from wastewater analysis, we see clearly that cocaine consumption may be on the increase in Europe.

29. Cocaine treatment in the European Union, 2015
Source: EMCDDA, European Drug Report 2017.

31. Cannabis in the European Union, Norway and Turkey, 2015
Source: EMCDDA, European Drug Report 2017.

32. Reported quantities of drugs seized
Italy, 2016
Reported drug related violations (49.5% cannabis; 33% cocaine, 11% heroin and 1.2% related to synthetic drugs))
Reported quantities of drugs seized
(91% cannabis (58% marijuana, 33% hashish); 7% cocaine, 0.7% heroin, 0.1% synthetic drugs)
Governo italiano, Dipartimento politiche antidroga, Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, Relazionale annuale al Parlamento 2017 sullo stato delle tossicodipendenze in Italia.

33. Cannabis use: diverging trends
Annual cannabis prevalence: United States, European Union, Australia, global level
Cannabis prevalence among
15-16 year-old, Europe
Use of cannabis rather stable at global level, also in the EU and AUS but increasing in the US

35. Largely stable trends in the use of all major drug categories

36. Drugs and organized crime
Changing business models for drug trafficking and organized crime
Branching out to seize new crime opportunities
Continued importance of drugs
Structural transformations
Technological changes
European Union
The WDR this year reviews the connection between the drug problem and four areas of international concern – organized crime, illicit financial flows, corruption and terrorism.
On the issue of drugs and organized crime, we see a number of transformations that affect organized crime and result in changing business models for drug trafficking:
OCG have branched out:
they have widened their portfolio of illicit activities with the emergence of new crime opportunities such as cybercrime or environmental crime
Fewer groups exclusively dedicated to drug trafficking while mote are also operating in other illicit sectors – ege almost 2/3 of OCGs ivolved in drug trafficking are also involved in other crime areas in the EU according to Europol; OCGs involved in drug trafficking are also frequently involved in counterfeiting of goods, THB, smuggling of migrants and traffing of weapons.
But drugs continue to be a major crime area:
Across the globe between 1/5 and 1/3 of TOC revenues were generated from drug sales
Europol estimated in 2017 that more than 35% of the 5,000 OCGs operating in the EU were involved in the illicit drug trade, making drugs the most widespread illicit activity across OCGs than any of the other major crime areas mentioned here
Structural transformations have also affected OCGs
with drug trafficking being no longer the preserve of large criminal groups
and a change from strongly hierarchical organizations, to structures adopting a looser, more horizontal, network organisation model
Technology has brought a number of changes in how to do busines, creating relatively low-risk drug markets
- The mobile communication revolution has offered new opportunities to traffickers: they no longer need personal contacts with clients; instead low-level « runners » can collect cash and dealers can let the customer know where to collect their drugs using message sent over encrypted networks
- The darknet allows users to buy drugs with a crytocurrency and have their purchase delivered in a concealed manner

37. Number of transactions and their market share on the darknet
Drugs on the darknet
Annual drug users obtaining drugs over the darknet in the past 12 months
Number of transactions and their market share on the darknet
Drug trafficking over the darknet is still small but has been growing fast in recent years, with for example a study showing an increase of 50% per year in drug transactions over
The drugs most frequently obtained would seem to be ecstasy, cannabis, LSD and NPS.
Trends in the drugs users purchasing drugs over the darknet suggest that the upward trend in the use of the darknet continues to gain momentum in some countries, and this despite various market disruptions due to closing of sites by the authorities or due to exit scams.

38. Organized crime groups active in illicit drug markets in Europe
Largely stable trends in the use of all major drug categories

39. Illicit financial flows: Originally:
synonym for “capital flight” from developing to developed countries
Nowadays:
crime-related proceeds crossing borders; and
funds crossing borders for the financing of organized crime or terrorism; and
funds crossing borders violating capital control regulations; and
funds crossing borders for purposes of tax evasion (not included: funds crossing borders for purposes of tax avoidance; but this is still being discussed among various international bodies)
Largely stable trends in the use of all major drug categories

40. Drugs and illicit financial flows
Drugs account for between a fifth and a third of the income of transnational organized crime
60-70% of global drug proceeds may be laundered
A third of drug proceeds may result in illicit financial flows
Measurement concepts
Drugs and illicit financial flows is another area that the Report looked into this year, starting with some definitions and measurement concepts.
A review of the literature available suggests that drugs account for between a fifth and a third of the income (also referred as proceeds or revenue) of transnational organized crime.
Estimates suggest that 60 to 70% of drug proceeds may be laundered
And that about 30% of drug proceeds or revenues would result in illicit financial flows, ie drug-related proceeds that crosses borders

41. Illicit drug retail sales expressed as a percentage of GDP in developed countries
1988
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
2015
Retail drug sales in constant currency units
United States
In constant billions 2010 US$
195
146 95
108
119
109
n.a.
21 European Union countries*
In constant billions 2010 Euros
13.1
15.3
19.2
18.0
Retail drug sales as a proportion of GDP
in % of GDP
2.22
1.57
0.9
0.85
0.83
0.74
n.a
0.62
0.49
0.37
0.34
0.32
Sources: ONDCP, EUROSTAT.
* EU-21: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary , Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland, Sweden, United Kingdom; i.e. EU-28 less Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Netherlands, Croatia, Malta.

42. Drugs and illicit financial flows
Estimated drug expenditure by households
in 21 European Union countries
Impact of drug proceeds and illicit financial flows may be small in the majority of countries
but may be substantial for some drug producing developing countries
Drug proceeds damage economies in the long term
What we see here is that drugs play a lesser role in the economy of the EU countries than in the past, and the same is also true for the US .although it is not represented here.
In Euros, drug expenditures have remained relative stable over the last decade
But taking inflation into account, we see that they increased until 2008, and then declined (red line)
As expressed as a % of GDP, we see they have declined by half of the 20 year period (green bars)
What is perhaps important to underline here is that while the economic impact of drug proceeds and illicit financial flows may be too small to be really significant for a majority of countries, it can still have substantial negative consequences for smaller economies, particularly in some drug producing developing countries.

44. Corruption facilitates illicit drug markets, which fuel corruption
Corruption exist all along the drug supply chain
High-level vs low-level corruption
Corruption and violence
The Report also reviewed data and information on the links between the drug problem and corruption.
From our review it seems that the drug problem and corruption have a mutually reinforcing relationship
Corruption facilitates the production an dtrafficking of drugs, which in turn benefits corruption
The wealth and power of some drug trafficking organizations can exceed that of local governments, allowing them to buy protection, and in doing so they further reinforce corruption
In this circular relationship, the rule of law is both an immediate victim and, if already weak, an underlying factor that feeds this cycle
At each stage of the supply chain there are opportunities for corruption
At the production level, farmers may bribe eradication teams, producers may bribe judges and police officers, and manufacturers may exploit workers in chemical companies to get hold of precursor chemicals
Further down the chain, traffickers may bribe customs officials and take advantage of weaknesses in transport firms
At the consumer level, users can get drugs through corrupt doctors and pharmacies
It is also important to distinguish between low-level and high-level corruption, as their interaction with drug markets and political structures may widely differ. Most of the data available are on low level corruption though, looking in particular of bribery.
The links between corruption, drugs and violence are also not simple ones that would need further research as in some context it would seem that corruption subdues violence while in others it would result in greater levels of violence.

45. Prevalence of bribery, by type of public official
and by level of income, 2013

46. THANK YOU