“We have seen an unprecedented spike in new types of drugs on the market, and worryingly, some are more potent or dangerous than before,” said Monica Juma, Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
An estimated 331 million people used drugs in 2024, equivalent to 6.2 per cent of the world’s population aged 15 to 64, up from 5.2 per cent a decade ago.
Cannabis remained the most widely used drug, with 256 million users, followed by opioids (63 million), amphetamines (32 million), cocaine (25 million) and ecstasy (21 million).
The report also highlights the rapid evolution of synthetic drugs. In 2024, authorities identified 755 new psychoactive substances, including 118 reported for the first time, while the number of different drugs detected in seizures is now five times higher than before the year 2000.
“The market is becoming very diverse, but also perhaps more dangerous,” said Chloé Carpentier, lead researcher for the report, in an interview with UN News.
“We don’t always know what we are taking, and first responders don’t know what they are responding to.”
Reshaping the global market
UNODC said the global opioid market is reaching a turning point. Following Afghanistan’s 2022 ban on opium cultivation, illicit heroin production has fallen sharply.
Although opium production in Myanmar increased from 420 tonnes in 2021 to more than 1,000 tonnes in 2025, together with production in Laos and Mexico it has not replaced the more than 6,000 tonnes Afghanistan produced in 2022.
Instead, traffickers appear to be increasingly turning to synthetic opioids such as fentanyls, nitazenes and orphines.
The report warns that a shift away from plant-based opiates could permanently transform the global opioid market, with potentially greater health risks as some synthetic opioids are even more potent than fentanyl.
“We see a lot of nitazenes now,” Ms. Carpentier said. “The worry is really that synthetic opioids might replace heroin and lead to much more harm.”
Changing trafficking patterns
Methamphetamine has become a truly global market, with new trafficking routes expanding across the Near and Middle East, Africa and parts of Europe.
Seizures have grown by an average of 13 per cent each year, while suppliers have expanded beyond Myanmar to include North America, West and Southern Africa, and Southwest Asia.
At the same time, cannabis trafficking has become increasingly international, with 57 countries and territories outside North America identifying the region as a source of seized cannabis between 2015 and 2024, compared with just 11 during the previous decade.
Effects of inequality
The report stressed that the harms associated with drug use are shaped not only by the substances themselves but also by poverty, homelessness, poor mental health and unequal access to healthcare.
Women remain significantly less likely than men to receive treatment despite progressing more rapidly to drug dependence.
Globally, only one in 23 women with drug use disorders receives treatment, compared with one in nine men. Women who inject drugs are also 20 per cent more likely to be living with HIV than men.
Young people remain another major concern.
“Adolescence is really a critical period when the brain is still developing,” Ms. Carpentier said. “Drug use during adolescence will have long-lasting effects on cognition and behaviour.”
Conflict compounds the crisis
People displaced by conflict and humanitarian emergencies face heightened risks.
According to the report, refugees and internally displaced people are more vulnerable to drug use disorders while often struggling to access treatment, as humanitarian responses understandably prioritize food, shelter and other immediate needs.
Conflict and drug trafficking reinforce one another, creating a cycle in which instability fuels illicit markets while trafficking profits help finance further violence.
As drug markets become increasingly complex and interconnected, Ms. Carpentier said international cooperation remains essential, emphasising that “we cannot achieve anything without international cooperation.”
