While the cocaine market continues to grow around the world, a new report by the French Observatory of Drugs and Addictive Tendencies (OFDT) found that consumption has been steadily increasing across Europe and especially in France.

The circulation of cocaine in the world, Europe and France has increased since the 2010s, the OFTD report found, adding that the drug now represents a third of the narcotics market in Europe.

On Wednesday (28th March), the EU Council presidency announced that the role of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) will be strengthened to be better able to tackle new health and security challenges.

France is one of the biggest cocaine users in the EU, with 600,000 users per year, according to OFDT’s 2017 estimates. Numbers reached five million for cannabis users and 400,000 for MDMA/ecstasy users.

“For several years, signals have shown an increase in cocaine use, whatever its form (powder or cocaine base: wafer, crack),” said France’s health agency, Santé Publique France, which also participated in the report.

Cocaine use has increased among adults, though there has been a “diversification of consumer profiles”, with cocaine, traditionally seen as the drug of the rich and wealthy that is consumed in festive atmospheres, now being taken across a wider section of society, Santé Publique France also said.

“This plurality of user profiles is also reflected in the diversification of modes of consumption, in snorted form (powder cocaine), smoked/inhaled (base cocaine or crack) or injected,” the OFDT wrote in the report, published Monday (27 March).

At the same time, consumption among young people is decreasing.

Between 2000 and 2014, cocaine use more than tripled among 17-year-olds (0.9% in 2000 and 3.2% in 2014), but by 2022, only 1.4% had ever used the drug.

In addition, law enforcement agencies have increased their seizures, according to the Anti-Drug Office, which estimates a seizure of 27.7 tonnes of cocaine in 2022 in France, compared to 10.8 tonnes in 2011.

Belgium, Netherlands among Western Europe’s main cocaine hubs

Belgium and the Netherlands have become Western Europe’s main import centres for cocaine, a report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) presented in Vienna on Thursday reads.

“The points of arrival in Europe have changed, with Belgium and …

Emergency room visits triple

The health risks associated with cocaine use are significant, however, as France saw a threefold increase in emergency room visits for cocaine use between 2010 and 2022, according to the French national public health agency.

In total, 23,335 people ended up in emergency rooms after using cocaine from 2010 to 2022, a figure that averages 72 emergency room admissions per week in 2022.

“The majority of emergency room admissions [after cocaine use] were male (75%) and the median age was 32, which corresponds to the profiles of the general population that usually use cocaine the most,” the report states.

The three main reasons are intoxication (65%), addiction (13%) or withdrawal (7.5%).

Most emergency room visits related to cocaine are also associated with the use of alcohol, benzodiazepines, cannabis or opioids – patients Santé Publique France calls “poly-drug users”.

The rise in substance intoxication can be explained in particular by the fact that cocaine with a higher active ingredient content has been on the market for nearly ten years or by the emergence of new, more powerful and toxic synthetic products (NPS).

Polydrug use, especially mixing alcohol and cocaine, also increases the risk of intoxication.

Cocaine: One-third of European drug trafficking

Cocaine use is also expanding rapidly across the EU, with an estimated 3.5 million users in 2020, according to OFDT figures.

The surge in supply that comes with growing demand has led to increased coca cultivation in several countries around the world. From 2020 to 2021, cultivation went up 35% – a record high and the sharpest year-to-year increase since 2016, the UN office for drugs and crime (UNODC) warned in a report published on 16 March.

The same report also points to the emergence of new cocaine hubs in Europe in recent years, in particular through south-eastern Europe and the ports of Antwerp, Rotterdam and Hamburg.

In 2021, a record volume of nearly 70 tonnes was seized in Rotterdam, a 74% jump from 2020, Ger Scheringa, a customs official at the Dutch port told AFP.

The problem has “become bigger in recent years”, he admitted.

As for the port of Antwerp in Belgium, more than 100 tonnes of cocaine were seized in the same year, accounting for 40% of drugs seized by the police.

Belgium, Netherlands among Western Europe’s main cocaine hubs

Belgium and the Netherlands have become Western Europe’s main import centres for cocaine, a report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) presented in Vienna on Thursday reads.

“The points of arrival in Europe have changed, with Belgium and …