Director-General/Executive Director
Dr. Gupta,
Distinguished Panellists,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
I am very pleased to join this panel on detecting emerging drug threats and use patterns.
Today, identifying emerging drug trends is more critical, and more challenging, than ever before.
Drug threats are evolving like never before, in every part of the world, and synthetic drugs are driving this pace of change.
The 2023 UNODC World Drug Report, which we launched only last week, showed that synthetic seizures continue to hit new record highs.
In 2021, seizures of pharmaceutical opioids rose by 154 percent over the previous year.
Amphetamine seizures increased by 54 percent, reaching 114 tons, while 393 tons of methamphetamines were seized in the same year.
Meanwhile, 19 tons of synthetic New Psychoactive Substances were seized, up by 40 per cent from the previous year.
All regions of the world are impacted by the growing threats of synthetic drugs, and the regions represented on today’s panel reflect this.
In North America, a growing drug crisis is dominated by illegally manufactured fentanyl.
In South-east Asia, the threat of methamphetamine is on the rise.
In Africa, the non-medical use of tramadol continues to cause great harm.
And in Latin America, the markets for MDMA and ketamine are growing.
Other regions are also greatly affected, such as the Middle-East, where captagon production remains a major challenge.
Synthetic drugs are relatively easy and cheap to produce compared to plant-based drugs.
Unlike cocaine or heroin, synthetic drugs are not dependent on soil conditions and seasons, and their production is not constrained by geography.
Manufacturing labs for synthetics are easy to conceal and can be set up close to destination markets, and the chemicals required are often legally accessible and readily available.
The barriers to entering this criminal market are low, as instructions for synthesis can be found online.
Easy to make and easy to hide, synthetics are enabling traffickers to evade law enforcement responses, including through the use of the internet.
The end result is a highly potent product that can be sold for less money with wider profit margins, flooding markets, expanding the number of users, and multiplying deadly health threats.
The danger is made worse by barriers to accessing services.
Only one in five people with drug use disorders are in treatment, and there is a gender gap within the treatment deficit.
For example, women account for half of all people using amphetamine-type stimulants, but only a quarter of those who are in treatment for it.
Meanwhile, young people are using more drugs than ever before, reflecting a real danger for children and future generations.
Excellencies,
While the synthetic drug threat manifests itself in different forms in different regions, we can only hope to meet this threat if we work together, across borders, based on the principle of shared responsibility.
Traffickers exploit vulnerabilities and regulation gaps, and this danger is exponentially higher with synthetic drugs, which can be produced anywhere.
The threats to international peace and security posed by synthetic drugs, including in crisis situations such as in Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Myanmar, have been widely recognized.
The potential for increased synthetic drug production in Ukraine also represents a major concern, with its proximity to major consumer markets.
This gathering can help countries work more closely together on these rapidly growing challenges, including through swift, agile, and global threat detection.
Improving threat detection requires shared systems of global data collection and analysis.
UNODC is well placed to support your efforts.
We are supporting over 45 countries through our Synthetic Drugs Strategy, in which early warning is a key pillar.
Through our Early Warning Advisory, we are currently monitoring over 1,212 substances that have been reported by 141 countries and territories, and actively providing capacity building and technical assistance directly to a network of over 317 laboratories across 91 countries and territories.
Our Office is also mandated by Member States to collect drug-related data from around the globe.
Our the yearly World Drug Report covers regional and global trends, and the 2023 edition includes a dedicated chapter on synthetic drugs.
We also operate the Drugs Monitoring Platform, an online tool featuring data collected by our Office through Individual Drug Seizure reporting as well as other sources.
The platform, which is under continuous development, currently contains more than half a million seizure events and offers the possibility to map, visualize and analyse drug trafficking trends in near-real time.
UNODC has a network of national data focal points around the globe who collect and report drug data through the Annual Report Questionnaire.
In recent years, we have increased the focus on building capacities of countries in Africa and other regions with low data coverage, and we are starting to see some positive results.
This year’s World Drug Report features information received from 125 countries, which represents a 12 percent increase in reporting countries.
Nevertheless, our work with Member States has highlighted a number of training needs.
National forensic drug analysis laboratories need stronger capacities to identify drugs and precursor chemicals used in their manufacture.
Collecting data on the use of synthetic drugs and its impact can also be challenging due to the multiple substances, street names and speed with which new substances come to the market.
To help responses keep pace, we need to provide more support to countries with limited resources and capacities to identify and record more granular information on different synthetic substances.
The countries participating in this Coalition could consider supporting better data and early warning through the establishment of regional networks of national experts on drug data; the development of training tools and methodological guidelines; and support for national communication and coordination mechanisms.
Furthermore, UNODC stands ready to support Member States with a global synthetic drug threat assessment that would examine the different regional facets of synthetic drug challenges.
We will need your support for this undertaking.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Going forward, the working groups that will be established in the context of this Coalition will help translate commitment into action.
This includes the working group on detecting emerging drug threats and use patterns, as well as the remaining working groups on preventing manufacture and trafficking, and on promoting public health interventions.
Indeed, for sustainable and impactful responses, we need to not only detect emerging threats, but also prevent harms, provide health services and interdict illicit activity.
UNODC stands ready to support Member States, in all of these areas, for a balanced and comprehensive response to synthetic drugs challenges.
Thank you.