Director-General/Executive Director
Secretary Blinken,
Assistant Secretary Robinson,
Dear Dr. Gupta,
Distinguished delegates,
Ladies and gentlemen,
It is a great honour to join you and the distinguished panel at this side event on protecting global public health and safety from synthetic drugs.
Cheaply sourced, easily made, and even more easily concealed and trafficked, synthetic drugs are truly a 21st century threat.
It is a threat that is rapidly accelerating and evolving, feeding on fragile states and vulnerable people in all regions.
Synthetic drugs are posing cross-border, global challenges while causing local harms to health, safety, stability, and development, and destroying families and communities.
These challenges and harms are interconnected and manifold.
The number of new psychoactive substances is rising once again globally.
Increasingly dangerous drug combinations are appearing on retail markets, posing unknown risks to health.
These drug cocktails may contain synthetic drugs like fentanyl, which are astonishingly lethal in the smallest of doses.
Nowhere can treatment services keep up, and women and vulnerable groups are disproportionately suffering, as they lack access to treatment and are stigmatized.
Law enforcement and supply reduction efforts are also struggling to keep pace as criminals become more violent.
Criminal groups are employing new means of manufacture in labs that can be assembled quickly almost anywhere, using any number of chemicals that can be diverted from legitimate sectors or which remain outside existing controls.
Detection is more difficult when it comes to synthetics, and seizures may be less effective in reducing supply when traffickers can replace product and production cheaply and easily.
And the synthetic drug threat continues to grow exponentially everywhere.
Seizures of methamphetamine, the most widely produced and used synthetic drug, have tripled in just six years, according to the 2023 UNODC World Drug Report.
In the EU, just yesterday Commissioner Johanssen informed me that they had dismantled 400 synthetic drug labs in 2023 in the EU;
That children aged 10 and 11 in the EU are being recruited by organized criminal groups engaged in drug trafficking;
And that wastewater analysis reveals alarmingly high levels of synthetic drug consumption.
In East and South-East Asia, we have seen a record seizure of 175 tons of methamphetamine and 20 tons of ketamine this year.
Along with North America, these regions remain the hotspots, but seizure data suggests that markets are growing in South-West Asia, as well as in the Near and Middle East, South-East Africa, and West Africa.
Areas which used to be trafficking routes have now become production and consumption centres.
Methamphetamine, captagon, fentanyl, tramadol – these are different and sometimes deadly forms of a common global challenge.
With this in mind, I am very pleased to see that throughout this week, many side events are tackling this topic.
I have to congratulate the US and Secretary Blinken’s personal leadership of the Global Coalition to Address Synthetic Drug Threats, which has been able to galvanize in a record time more than 150 countries into joint action, along with 14 international organizations.
I also commend the excellent work being undertaken through the expert groups.
UNODC is committed to supporting the implementation of the Coalition’s objectives.
Our Global Synthetic Drug Strategy is fully aligned with these goals, and we count on the support of the US in turn for its effective implementation.
UNODC has been at the forefront of global cooperation to prevent and address synthetic drug challenges, providing research and technical assistance to help countries identify emerging threats and improve early warning, counternarcotic interventions, and health responses.
We are working on the ground in 150 countries and territories. Our efforts are further supported by the UN Toolkit on Synthetic Drugs, which is available in all six official languages of the UN and offers over 400 practical resources and tools to over 156,000 active users from around the world.
To strengthen identification of emerging drug threats, UNODC has also enhanced its Early Warning System, which is currently monitoring over 1,230 unique substances reported from 141 countries and territories.
In support of the Coalition’s objectives, UNODC recently led an open-ended expert group meeting on synthetic drugs here in Vienna.
This meeting gathered 106 experts from 44 countries from around the world to discuss best practices and lessons learned and to identify gaps.
These platforms bring together Global Coalition members with other Member States, and UNODC will continue supporting such forums for dialogue, with a follow up meeting planned for September of this year.
Distinguished delegates,
Ladies and gentlemen,
We need common and shared responses if we hope to prevent further escalation of synthetic drug threats and save lives. We must be united in this common cause.
UNODC is proud to support you.
It is a pleasure to stand alongside Secretary Blinken to welcome you to this high-level event and wish you productive and insightful discussions.
Thank you.