Global cocaine market hit new record highs: UNODC

Illegal production jumped to 3,708 tons, nearly 34 percent more than in 2022, and more than four times higher than 10 years earlier, when it was at a low, the Vienna-based UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in its annual report. The current surge is mainly due to an increase in the size of the area under illicit coca bush cultivation in Colombia and updated yield data, it added. Global cocaine seizures, too, recorded a high of 2,275 tons, marking a 68 percent rise in the four years to 2023.