By The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Research and Trend Analysis Branch

The Afghanistan Drug Insights are a series of reports that provide the latest data and in-depth analysis on aspects of the evolving drug situation in Afghanistan. This fourth volume provides an assessment of drug seizure trends near Afghanistan and estimates potential opium stocks within the country by the end of 2022, just before the start of the ban. The remaining reports in the series will cover a range of topics related to the drug situation in Afghanistan, including the socioeconomic situation of farmers after the drugs ban, and drug use. Given the unprecedented nature of the ongoing drugs ban in Afghanistan, which has continued for a second year, UNODC sought to examine different aspects of the drug situation in that country. Taken together, the reports in the series paint a comprehensive picture of the effects of the enforcement of the ban on production, trafficking and consumption of all drugs and delve deep into the impacts of the ban on the Afghan economy, as well as on Afghanistan’s neighbors and the wider region. The insights are aimed at informing international engagement in Afghanistan in an objective and timely manner, using the latest data of the highest quality standards, presenting it in an evidence-based, coherent, coordinated, and structured manner as foreseen in Security Council resolution 2721 (2023). The present Insight has been produced under the project “Monitoring of Opium Production in Afghanistan” (AFG/F98). Information and data contained in this report, unless otherwise stated, are based on data collected by UNODC by remote sensing, through rural village surveys and other tools; as well as through global data collections on drugs (UNODC Annual Report Questionnaires and the UNODC Drugs Monitoring Platform). Data on opium cultivation and production are based on the Afghanistan Opium Surveys 1994-2020 jointly published by UNODC and the Government of Afghanistan, as well as the Afghanistan Opium Surveys conducted by UNODC in 2021, 2022, and 2023. Other data used in this report to model stock estimates come from UNODC’s Afghan Opiate Trade Project published in 2020.

Kabul/Vienna: UNODC, 2025. 52p.

By Vanda Felbab-Brown 

Over the past several decades, the U.S. opioid epidemic has spanned four phases:  Oversupply of prescription opioids in the 1990s.. A significant increase in heroin supply and use in the 2000s.  A supply-driven explosion of fentanyl use after 2012.  Most recently, polydrug use, with fentanyl mixed into/with all kinds of drugs. Since fentanyl entered the U.S. illegal drug market, more than a million people in the United States have died of opioid overdose. The costs of fentanyl use go beyond the tragic deaths and drug-use-related morbidity, however. In addition to having significant implications for public health and the economy, the fentanyl crisis intersects in many ways with U.S. foreign policy. U.S. overdose deaths began declining in 2023. But there is little certainty as to which domestic or foreign-policy interventions have been crucial drivers. The wider availability of overdose-reversal medication is fundamental, as is expanded access to evidence-based treatment. It is also possible that the Biden administration’s actions toward international supply from Mexico and China are contributing to this reduction in overdose deaths: since the start of 2024, China has become more active in suppressing the flow of precursor chemicals, and Mexican cartels, perhaps purposefully, are now trafficking a less lethal version of fentanyl. A wide array of policy measures as well as structural factors outside of policy control could be cumulatively and interactively reducing mortality. The fact that the declines in mortality are not uniform across U.S. ethnic, racial, and social groups or geographic areas suggests the importance of access to medication for overdose reversal and the treatment of opioid use disorder, as well as the influence of structural factors. There is strong bipartisan support for preserving access to medication-based treatments. But crucially, access depends on medical insurance coverage, such as that provided through Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. There are strong ideological divides about the financing and structure of the U.S. insurance industry as well as other aspects of drug policy. On February 1, President Donald Trump imposed a 25% tariff on imports from Mexico and Canada and a 10% tariff on imports from China until each country stops the flow of fentanyl (as well as migrants, in the cases of Mexico and Canada).1 He gave all three countries a month-long reprieve before implementing the tariffs in March to see if they satisfied his counternarcotics demands. Canada adopted a robust package of anti-fentanyl measures. Mexico too tried to appease the United States through a set of law enforcement actions, though it held out on perhaps the most important form of cooperation—expanding the presence and mandates of U.S. law enforcement agents in Mexico to levels at least approaching those enjoyed during the Felipe Calderón administration. Unlike Mexico or Canada, China did not take any further counternarcotics actions and instead responded with counter-tariffs of its own, even as Trump threatened to add additional tariffs on imports from China of up to 60%.2 On March 4, 2025, Trump dismissed Canada’s and Mexico’s law enforcement actions as inadequate, implementing the 25% tariffs. He also added an additional 10% tariff on China, meaning the second Trump administration has now placed a 20% tariff on Chinese goods.3 Apart from increasing the cost of goods for U.S. customers and driving up inflation, these tariffs will have complex effects on anti-fentanyl cooperation. Any large U.S. tariffs on China will likely eviscerate Beijing’s cooperation with the United States, resetting the diplomatic clock  back to the bargaining of 2018 and noncooperation of 2021-2023. As crucial as it is to induce the government of Mexico to start robustly and systematically acting against Mexican criminal groups, whose power has grown enormously and threatens the Mexican state, Mexican society, and U.S. interests, Mexico has no capacity to halt the flow of fentanyl. Mixing the issues of migration and fentanyl risks Mexico appeasing the United States principally on migration while placating it with inadequate anti-fentanyl actions. Further, U.S. military action in Mexico, which has been threatened by Republican politicians close to Trump, would yield no sustained weakening of Mexican criminal groups or fentanyl flows. It would, however, poison the political atmosphere in Mexico and hinder its meaningful cooperation with the United States. Strong law enforcement cooperation with Canada is crucial. Canada has been facing law enforcement challenges, such as the expansion of Mexican and Asian organized crime groups and money laundering operations in Canada. But disregarding the domestic and collaborative law enforcement efforts Canada has put on the table is capricious. At home, Trump’s favored approach, which renews focus on imprisoning users and drug dealers, and dramatically toughening penalties for the latter, would be ineffective and counterproductive. And while providing treatment is very important, the dramatic effect of treatment modality on effectiveness cannot be overlooked. Approaches to treatment should be designed based on evidence, not ideology.

Washington, DC: Brookings Institute, 2025. 49p.

By Rima Ah Toong, Shelby Grauer, Katherine Tallan

  The Criminal Justice Commission (CJC) has administered the Illegal Marijuana Market Enforcement Grant since 2018 and is required to issue an annual report concerning the status and effectiveness of the program and to provide future funding recommendations to the Oregon Legislature (legislature). The Legislature funds this grant program with $6 million on a biennial basis. In response to a sharp increase in reports of unaddressed illegal grow sites and associated worker abuse in 2021 and 2022, the Legislature infused the grant program with an additional $26 million in emergency one-time funding, which the CJC awarded to grantees in 2022. In 2023, the legislature supplemented the $6 million in base funding with an additional $5 million, for a total of $11 million in biennial funds that will be awarded through a competitive grant solicitation process in 2024. This report examines the status of the grant program and grantee expenditures from 2021 to 2023. The CJC, with input from grantees, other agencies, and interested parties, also changed its program data reporting structure, in 2022, to better gauge the problems being addressed with these grant funds. Described in this report, among other things, are the following findings: • Since April 1, 2022, grant-funded law enforcement operations reported 424 illegal cannabis incidents, occurring in 96 unique zip codes. • Eleven zip codes saw 10 or more incidents involving grant-funded law enforcement activities during the reporting period. The zip codes experiencing the highest number of incidents were 97523 (the greater Cave Junction area, with 35 incidents) and 97526 (Grants Pass and areas north, with 17 incidents). • The number of incidents in which law enforcement observed or suspected labor trafficking and/or worker abuse decreased from 39 (20 percent) in 2022 to eight (3.5 percent) in 2023. However, the number of survivors of human trafficking served by grant funded community-based organizations (CBOs) increased from 100 to 344 during the same time period. • Survivors served by CBO grantees were primarily male (41.4 percent), Hispanic (48.9 percent), and ages 18-35 (28.8 percent). The majority received legal assistance (63.5 percent) and/or referrals to other needed crisis or long-term support services (56.8 percent). • Grantees reported that the 424 incidents resulted in 184 felony case filings in Oregon circuit courts. • Of the 424 reported incidents, 54.2 percent involved a land, natural resource, or civil code violation. • Law enforcement grantees seized approximately 1.8 million illegal cannabis plants and 351,781 pounds of illegal processed cannabis, as well as other illegal narcotics and substances, firearms, and equipment used to operate illegal grows off-grid. Based on the best available information, the projected cost for e  

Salem, OR: Oregon Criminal Justice Commission. 2024. 31p.

By The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) . Southeast Asia and the Pacific

  The transnational organized crime threat landscape in Southeast Asia is evolving faster than in any previous point in history. This change has been marked by growth in the production and trafficking of synthetic drugs and cyber-enabled fraud, driven by highly sophisticated syndicates and complex networks of money launderers, human traffickers, and a growing number of other service providers and facilitators. Despite mounting enforcement efforts, cyber enabled fraud has continued to intensify, resulting in estimated financial losses between US $18 billion and $37 billion from scams targeting victims in East and Southeast Asia in 2023. A predominant proportion of these losses were attributed to scams committed by organized crime groups in Southeast Asia. Fundamentally, the sheer scale of proceeds being generated within the region’s booming illicit economy has required the professionalization and innovation of money laundering activities, and transnational criminal groups in Southeast Asia have emerged as global market leaders. Building on existing underground banking infrastructure including underregulated casinos, junkets, and illegal online gambling platforms that have adopted cryptocurrency, the proliferation of high-risk virtual asset service providers (VASPs) across Southeast Asia have now emerged as a new vehicle through which this has taken place, servicing criminal industries without accountability. Against this backdrop, it has become clear that several countries in Southeast Asia, and particularly those in the Mekong, have been targeted as a key testing ground for transnational criminal networks looking to expand their influence and diversify into new business lines. Asian crime syndicates have rapidly integrated new service-based business models and technologies including malware, generative AI, and deepfakes into their operations while opening up new underground markets and cryptocurrency solutions for their money laundering needs. As law enforcement and regulators stepped up their efforts against casinos, illegal online gambling, and cyber-enabled fraud in Southeast Asia, organized crime have hedged and consolidated by expanding operations across inaccessible and autonomous non-state armed group territories and other criminal enclaves in and around the Golden Triangle and elsewhere in the region and beyond. It is now increasingly clear that a potentially irreversible displacement and spillover has taken place in which organized crime are able to pick, choose, and move value and jurisdictions as needed, with the resulting situation rapidly outpacing the capacity of governments to contain it. Expanding on UNODC’s past analyses of casinos, money laundering, underground banking and transnational organized crime in Southeast Asia, the development of this report has required analysis of law enforcement investigations and prosecutions which have provided insights into the region’s shifting threat landscape. More specifically, it has been developed through extensive examination of criminal indictments and case records, intelligence analysis, court documents, and corporate records, as well as consultation with both international and regional law enforcement and criminal intelligence partners. UNODC has also conducted an extensive mapping and analysis of data obtained from thousands of Telegram underground marketplaces, groups, and channels attributed to Asian organized crime networks and affiliated service providers. The report consists of three comprehensive chapters, offering insights into the latest regional developments and trends, underground banking and money laundering, and technological innovation fueling the ongoing situation. It presents information and data points that have not previously been pieced together, representing a unique attempt to further improve understanding of the region’s evolving criminal ecosystem and the convergence of cyber-enabled fraud, underground banking, and technological innovation 

Vienna: UNODC, 2024. 142p.

By The United Nations, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights 

This briefing paper sets out human rights concerns arising since early 2021 from online scam operations including their link to human trafficking in Southeast Asia as well as recommendations drawn from international human rights standards. These concerns occur in the context of wide-ranging digital criminal activity such as romance-investment scams, crypto fraud, money laundering and illegal gambling. At the time of writing this paper, the situation remains fluid: hundreds of thousands of people from across the region and beyond have been forcibly engaged in online criminality, States within the region are trying to identify actions and policies to address this phenomenon, while criminal actors are reacting by finding ways to change and relocate their operations, building new centres across the region and upgrading existing compounds. At the outset it is important to acknowledge that there are two sets of victims in this complex phenomenon. People who have been defrauded through online criminality are victims of the financial and other crimes committed by these scam operations. Many have lost their life savings, taken on debt and suffered shame and stigma for having been scammed. On the other side, individuals who are coerced into working in these scam operations and endure inhumane treatment are victims of serious human rights violations and it is their situation that is the focus of this briefing paper. People who are forced to take part in online scams are most often trafficked persons and migrants in vulnerable situations who face a range of human rights risks, violations and abuses. A human rights-based approach to this complex situation means not merely addressing organised crime or enforcing border controls, but seeks to place the victims at the centre of the response, by addressing structural factors, tackling impunity and providing protection and justice for victims of trafficking and migrants in situations of vulnerability. Human trafficking is a recognised criminal offence under international law and many of the practices associated with trafficking constitute violations under international human rights law. Violations of human rights are both a root cause of trafficking and can occur throughout the trafficking cycle. The majority of people trafficked into online scam operations are men, although women and children are also among the victims. Most are not citizens of the countries in which the trafficking occurs, however reports have indicated that at least in some countries nationals are also being targeted. People who have been trafficked into online forced criminality face threats to their right to life, liberty and security of the person. They are subject to torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, arbitrary detention, sexual violence, forced labour and other forms of labour exploitation as well as a range of other human rights violations and abuses.  This briefing paper is primarily focused on migrants who have endured trafficking and other human rights violations in the context of the scam operations, while acknowledging that the concerns and guidance contained here apply equally in most cases to citizens in this situation. The information in this briefing paper draws on primary and secondary research by the UN Human Rights Office, including victim testimony, as well as the work of the UN human rights mechanisms and information from other UN entities, supplemented by open-source information. While not exhaustive, Section A seeks to draw attention to the many serious human rights issues that result from this emerging phenomenon. Section B offers guidance to States and other stakeholders drawing from human rights standards and offers targeted recommendations aimed at ensuring responses are human rights-based. The briefing paper was transmitted to the relevant States for factual comments prior to publication

Bangkok: OHCHR, 2023. 38p.  

By Hai Thanh Luong

The Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS), including five Southeast Asian countries and China, has experienced a significant increase in the cultivation of opium, trafficking of heroin and methamphetamine, and consumption of these illicit drugs. In recent years, the GMS has been expanded considerably as supply, destination, and transit route for illegal drug trade’s networks to and through, particularly when China officially applied ‘Belt and Road’ strategy. This paper reviews historical aspects and current trends in drug production and trafficking in the GMS, with special emphasis on Mekong River areas where China is ‘located’ as the heart of the transition. Some evidence consistent with the ‘supply, destination, and transit route’ arguments is found through locating and mapping drug trafficking networks to connect with China. Finally, this paper calls for some initial recommendations to improve the process of bilateral and multilateral cooperation in the GMS within the scope of Belt and Road Initiative. 

The Chinese Journal of Global Governance 6 (2020) 20–35 

By Joseph E. Schumacher, Abdullah Ahsan, Amber H. Simpler, Adam P. Natoli & Bradley J. Cain

Conducting research within a carceral health care context offers a unique view into the nature of drug use among arrestees with potential to identify and prevent drug use consequences. The purpose of this study was to characterize the nature and extent of drug use among first-time jail arrestees to inform detection and treatment.

Methods

This study utilized a naturalistic research design to collect de-identified urine drug screens (UDS), jail characteristics, and arrestee demographic variables among arrestees indicating drug use from 25 jails across the United States in 2023 through a confidential data sharing agreement with NaphCare, Inc. using its proprietary electronic health record operating system. Descriptive statistics were used to detail the features of the dataset, Pearson’s chi-square tests of independence were performed to statistically analyze associations between UDS results and jail characteristics and arrestee demographics, and significant chi-square test results were further investigated by examining standardized residuals to clarify the nature and significance of within-group differences in proportions.

Results

Of the 43,553 UDS cases comprising the final sample (28.8% of total arrestees), 74.8% (32,561) were positive for one or more drugs, and 25.2% of UDS cases were negative for all drugs. Among those who tested positive, 69.0% were positive for cannabis, 54.8% for stimulants, 29.6% for opioids, and 12.4% for sedatives. Arrestees were positive for multiple drugs half the time, with combinations of cannabis, stimulants, and opioids most common. Significant associations between drug use and both jail characteristics and arrestee demographics were found.

Conclusions

Though drug use is not a recent phenomenon, the lethality potential of the drugs being used today is relatively new. Arrestees with positive urine drug screens are at heightened risk of adverse outcome due to sudden cessation of substance use. Findings highlight the need for objective clinical data to guide acute treatment of individuals at risk of withdrawing while detained. A

ddiction Science & Clinical Practice (2025), 15p.

By Lucia Bird Ruiz Benitez de Lugo and Kars de Bruijne

Since 2022, a synthetic drug known as ‘kush’, has killed likely thousands of people in West Africa. Kush emerged in Sierra Leone, but quickly spread across countries in the subregion, including Liberia, Guinea, the Gambia, Guinea-Bissau and Senegal, with devastating effects. By April 2024, the health impacts of kush, a synthetic drug containing nitazenes, opioids as – or more – powerful than fentanyl, as well as synthetic cannabinoids, were so acute that the presidents of Sierra Leone and Liberia had declared national emergencies over drug use – an unprecedented step.

This drug represents a turning point in West Africa’s drug landscape. The scale of its market expansion and its lethal public health effects are unparalleled. Yet, amidst widespread speculation about kush, a number of critical questions remained unanswered about the drug. What is kush? Where does it come from? Who is producing and trafficking it? And what can be done to reduce the harm posed by this drug?

This research confirms that kush is composed of potent synthetic opioids called nitazenes, some of which are 25 times stronger than fentanyl, and synthetic cannabinoids commonly found in European drug markets. The consequences have been dire, with mass fatalities overwhelming mortuary systems, forcing emergency group cremations, and leading to bodies being abandoned in the streets.

The research identifies China, the Netherlands, and most likely the UK as key sources of kush and it’s active ingredients, which are trafficked via maritime routes and postal courier services. It is unclear if the kush ingredients exported from European countries include nitazenes, or only synthetic cannabinoids. Initially controlled by a few organized criminal groups, the kush market has since fragmented, making it even more difficult to counteract. Local synthesis of the drug has increased, escalating health risks, and Sierra Leone’s street gangs for a key part of the drug’s distribution network.

Some key points highlighted in the report are:

Kush is a drug that has killed likely thousands of people in West Africa, with Sierra Leone as its epicentre;

Chemical testing finds that nearly 50% of samples contain nitazenes, a very addictive and deadly synthetic opioid comparable to fentanyl (the other half contains synthetic cannabinoids)

Some of these substances are imported from China, the Netherlands and most likely the United Kingdom through maritime routes, the air and postal courier services (It is unclear if the kush ingredients exported from European countries include nitazenes, or only synthetic cannabinoids);

The market for kush used to be more strongly controlled by large groups but increasingly fragmented, with smaller actors setting up own operations

Urgent coordinated action is needed on three fronts; a) better monitoring, early warning, testing, and information-sharing in West Africa; b) disrupting supply chains by China, the Netherlands and the UK and at Sierra Leonean points of entry; c) a strong push on mitigating the harms of kush consumption

Clingendael: 2025. 60p

By Ediomo-Ubong Nelson, Gernot Klantschnig

This article examines narratives of cannabis legalization in Nigeria. While most existing research on cannabis legalization has concentrated on the global North, we focus on one of Africa's largest cannabis markets, as well as the views of actors heavily criminalized and excluded from policy debates. Based on in-depth interviews and long-time engagement with illicit cannabis farmers and traders, the article highlights the contestations in their hidden narratives, troubling extant views of cannabis legalization which uncritically laud its socioeconomic benefits, and revealing the potential downsides of legalization in the context of an exploitative legal neo-liberal economy rife with social inequities. The findings of this study also highlight a need for open policy debate that engages criminalized cannabis producing communities who have borne the brunt of both prohibition and economic marginalization to chart the way forward for more inclusive and meaningful cannabis policy reform.

Sociological Inquiry, Vol. 0, No. 0, 2025, pages 1–17  

By Anna Sergi  

  The ‘ndrangheta is a mafa group from Calabria, Southern Italy. Considerable eforts have been made to understand the structures and the organisation of this mafa, not only in the province of Reggio Calabria where it originated, but also in other Calabrian provinces and even outside the Calabrian region. Building on judicial data from a recent maxi-trial (Rinascita-Scott) against ‘ndrangheta clans in the province of Vibo Valentia, we build a theoretical approach based on narrative criminology applied to organisational studies of secretive organisations. We fnd a ‘script of narratives’ emerging from collaborators and affiliates' stories – about socialisation, discretion, and accreditation - which reveals how recognition and constitution of ‘added’ ‘ndrangheta clans are thought to work. This script helps us understand the constitutive power of narratives in mafas and critically approach the study of such organisations.

Trends in Organized Crime (2024) 27:389–411 pages

By J. R. Nicolás-Carlock and  Luna-Pla

In recent years, the analysis of economic crime and corruption in procurement has benefited from integrative studies that acknowledge the interconnected nature of the procurement ecosystem. Following this line of research, we present a networks approach for the analysis of shell-companies operations in procurement that makes use of contracting and ownership data under one framework to gain knowledge about the organized crime behavior that emerges in this setting. In this approach, ownership and management data are used to identify connected components in shell-company networks that, together with the contracting data, allows to develop an alternative representation of the traditional buyer-supplier network: the module-component bipartite network, where the modules are groups of buyers and the connected components are groups of suppliers. This is applied to two documented cases of procurement corruption in Mexico characterized by the involvement of large groups of shell-companies in the misappropriation of millions of dollars across many sectors. We quantify the economic impact of single versus connected shell-companies operations. In addition, we incorporate metrics for the diversity of operations and favoritism levels. This paper builds into the quantitative organized crime in the private sector studies and contributes by proposing a networks approach for preventing fraud and understanding the need for legal reforms.   

Trends in Organized Crime (2024) 27: pages 412–428

By The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

The influx of weapons to Ukraine after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, added to an already large reservoir of weapons in the country (especially since the outbreak of the conflict in 2014), raised concern over the spread of these weapons in the hands of criminals further in Western Europe, and the possible effect on organized criminal activities.

Both Ukraine and Ukraine’s Western partners have been aware of the political and criminal risks of arms diversion, and have put in place strict oversight mechanisms to track the delivery of weapons. According to Vadym Dzyubynskyi, head of criminal investigation at the Ukrainian National Police:

• All lost and stolen weapons, which currently number 593 000, are all accounted for, numbered, and our European partners know about these weapons. If such a weapon emerges in any country in Europe or the world, we will immediately understand that it is a drop-in and a fake, that it is the work of Russian special services for disinformation and narratives about Ukraine.

Ukrainian soldiers interviewed in February 2024 all spoke of strict standards over weapons, both during and at the end of their service. But in this nervous climate, any official shortcomings have been heavily scrutinized. And although not directly connected to weapons diversion, corruption scandals over military procurement in Ukraine have fed into concerns over the accountability of materiel in the war. Parsing the true risk has become essential to deepen the discussion beyond the headlines.

In order to provide insight into this issue, in 2023 the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) established an arms monitoring programme (‘the Monitor’) to track the flows of weapons out of Ukraine and into Europe.

At the heart of the project was the collection of black market prices for weapons both in Ukraine and in Europe, on the assumption that a comparison of prices in different countries, and an analysis of changes in those prices, would help shed light on the nature of supply and demand at the national and transnational level. This data has been sourced from underworld contacts and law enforcement in various countries. Qualitative interviews with underworld sources, law enforcement, journalists, activists and others have helped flesh out the data picture with regard to demand for weapons among criminals, appetite for risk and potential drivers and barriers. In addition, the Monitor collected information on seizures and official reports on firearms, and commissioned a survey of dark web marketplaces.

GI-TOC ARMS MONITORING PROJECT , 2024. 76p.

By Jonathan P. Caulkins

Background and aims: Multiple countries are considering revising cannabis policies. This study aimed to measure long-term trends in cannabis use in the United States and compare them with alcohol use.

Design and setting: Secondary analysis of United States general population survey data.

Participants: The national surveys had a total of 1 641 041 participants across 27 surveys from 1979 to 2022.

Measurements

Rates of use reported to the US National Survey on Drug Use and Health and its predecessors are described, as are trends in days of use reported. Four milepost years are contrasted: 1979 (first available data and end of relatively liberal policies of the 1970s), 1992 (end of 12 years of conservative Reagan-Bush era policies), 2008 (last year before the Justice Department signaled explicit federal non-interference with state-level legalizations) and 2022 (most recent data available).

Findings

Reported cannabis use declined to a nadir in 1992, with partial recovery through 2008, and substantial increases since then, particularly for measures of more intensive use. Between 2008 and 2022, the per capita rate of reporting past-year use increased by 120%, and days of use reported per capita increased by 218% (in absolute terms from the annual equivalent of 2.3 to 8.1 billion days per year). From 1992 to 2022, there was a 15-fold increase in the per capita rate of reporting daily or near daily use. Whereas the 1992 survey recorded 10 times as many daily or near daily alcohol as cannabis users (8.9 vs. 0.9 M), the 2022 survey, for the first time, recorded more daily and near daily users of cannabis than alcohol (17.7 vs. 14.7 M). Far more people drink, but high-frequency drinking is less common. In 2022, the median drinker reported drinking on 4–5 days in the past month, versus 15–16 days in the past month for cannabis. In 2022, past-month cannabis consumers were almost four times as likely to report daily or near daily use (42.3% vs. 10.9%) and 7.4 times more likely to report daily use (28.2% vs. 3.8%).

Conclusions

Long-term trends in cannabis use in the United States parallel corresponding changes in cannabis policy, with declines during periods of greater restriction and growth during periods of policy liberalization. A growing share of cannabis consumers report daily or near daily use, and their numbers now exceed the number of daily and near daily drinkers.

Addiction, Volume119, Issue9, September 2024, Pages 1648-1652

By The International Crisis Group 

Over half a century on from the declaration of a “war on drugs”, Latin America is struggling to manage the eruption of violence tied to the narcotics trade. Though drugrelated organised crime has brought notorious peaks of violence in the past, above all in Colombia and Mexico, never has it spread so wide, and rarely has it penetrated so deeply into states and communities. Criminal groups have splintered, multiplied and diversified, adding lethal synthetics like fentanyl to the traditional plant-based supply of marijuana, cocaine and heroin, as well as moving into new rackets like extortion. Where communities are poor and unprotected, criminal groups act as employers and overlords; where state officials are present, they coerce and corrupt them. With Washington pushing for a fresh military-led crackdown on drug cartels, perhaps involving U.S. forces, Latin American leaders face difficult decisions. Despite the pressure to comply, experience suggests that a balance of improved policing, alternative livelihoods, gun control and, under specific conditions, negotiations would be more effective in reducing violence. The map of the drug trade in Latin America has been transformed in the decades since supply routes from the Andes to the U.S. first emerged. Demand for narcotics outside the region remains at record highs, with newer markets booming – particularly for cocaine in Europe and fentanyl in the U.S. At the same time, waves of U.S.- backed law enforcement, based on capture and extradition of crime bosses (known as kingpins), drug seizures and forced eradication have revolutionised the supply chain. Although Colombia and Mexico remain at the heart of the drug business, a main route to the U.S. and Europe runs down the Pacific, passing through countries that were largely untouched by illicit trafficking such as Costa Rica and Ecuador. Each of these has seen rates of violence rise sharply; in 2024, Ecuador was South America’s most violent nation. Across the region, surges of bloodshed have marked the new hubs of a fast-shifting, hyper-violent drug trade. Understanding how this rolling crime wave came about is fundamental to arresting it. Drug-related organised crime has adapted to the threat posed by law enforcement by becoming more flexible and resilient. In place of hierarchical syndicates that could be dismantled once their leaders were identified, the trade increasingly functions through networks of providers who subcontract each step of the route to lower tiers of operators. High-level financiers engage sophisticated international traffickers, who oversee drug exports to user markets. These in turn partner with national and local crime groups to meet the orders. National groups manage production or ensure safe passage of the drug along a particular trafficking corridor. At the local level, urban gangs are contracted by larger criminal allies for small-scale logistical services like smuggling drugs through ports. All the layers of these networks have learned that capturing state officials is a business asset. Using a mix of threats and payoffs, they target police officers, judges, prosecutors and politicians who can ensure that business runs smoothly, without the risk of arrest or seizure of shipments. Likewise, prisons in some of Latin America’s roughest settings are run by inmates, who manage their criminal enterprises behind bars and carry out vendettas against rivals inside and outside.

Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2025. 51p.

By Ruggero Scaturro | Giorgio Fruscione

In the Western Balkans, religious radicalization gained international attention in the early 2010s, with around 1 000 people travelling to Syria and Iraq to join jihadist groups between 2012 and 2016. The roots of this radicalization trace back to the Yugoslav wars, the presence of mujahideen networks in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Islamist charities spreading Salafi jihadism in the 1990s.

However, not all fighters from the Western Balkans are religiously motivated. Between 2014 and 2021, around 300 people fought in eastern Ukraine, mainly for political reasons, with Serbia being a major source of combatants supporting pro-Russian separatists. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, this trend has resurged, with more individuals reportedly joining mercenary units like the Wagner Group.

Instability in the Western Balkans has also fuelled the spread of organized crime beyond the region, first across Europe and later to other continents. In the 1990s, the Yugo Mafia gained significant media attention in Northern Europe. Meanwhile, violent extremists from the Western Balkans maintain transnational connections through diaspora networks and using online platforms.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2025. 45p.

By Andrés Aldana, Hernán Larralde & Maximino Aldana

Among all types of corruption, police corruption is probably the one that most directly hurts society, as those trusted with protecting the people either side with the criminals that victimize the citizens, or are themselves, criminals. However, both corruption and its effects are very difficult to measure quantitatively other than by perception surveys, but the perception that citizens have of this phenomenon may be different from reality. Using a simple agent-based model, we analyze the effect on crime rates as a result of both corruption and the perception of corruption within law-enforcement corporations. Our results show a phase transition in which crime can propagate across the population even when the majority of police officers are honest. We find that one of the parameters that strongly controls crime incidence is the probability that regular citizens become criminals. In contrast, other actions, such as arresting crime lords, or the amount of crime-associated money that is confiscated, have little impact on the long-term crime incidence. Our results suggest that in addition to combating corruption within law-enforcement institutions, to further reduce the incidence of crime, policymakers should strive to restore confidence in these institutions and the justice system.

By Laura R. Blume

Why do drug traffickers sometimes decide to use violence, but other times demonstrate restraint? Building on recent work on the politics of drug violence, this article explores how Central American drug trafficking organizations’ strategies impact their use of violence. I argue that three inter-related political factors—corruption, electoral competition, and the politicization of the security apparatus—collectively determine the type of relationship between traffickers and the state that will emerge. That relationship, in turn, determines the primary strategy used by traffickers in that country. Drawing on over two years of comparative ethnographic fieldwork in key transshipment points along the Caribbean coast of Central America, I show how co-optation strategies in Honduras have resulted in high levels of violence, evasion strategies in Costa Rica have produced moderate levels of violence, and collusion strategies in Nicaragua have generated the lowest levels of drug-related violence.

Comparative Political Studies,Volume 55, Issue 8, July 2022, Pages 1366-1402

By The International Drug Policy Consortium

In 2024, the World Drug Report broke its historical silence on the human rights dimension of drug policy with a special chapter on “Drug Use and the Right to Health.” The present analysis compares this chapter with the April 2024 report on “Drug Use, Harm Reduction, and the Right to Health” by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, Dr. Tlaleng Mofokeng, to assess whether the 2024 edition of the World Drug Report constitutes a genuine move towards integrating a human rights perspective into the global drug control regime.

The answer is negative. The World Drug Report chapter suffers from a critical and unjustifiable methodological flaw: it has been developed without any reference to the standards and recommendations on drugs and the right to health developed over the last 15 years by UN human rights mechanisms. These standards were created precisely to provide Member States with guidance on their human rights obligations. Instead, the chapter is often guided by the UNODC’s own policy preferences and its desire to manage political tensions at the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND).

The result is a flawed rendering of the right to health that omits essential elements such as a robust interpretation of harm reduction and support for the decriminalisation of people who use drugs. It also glosses over the undeniable tension between the drug control regime and the right to health, and introduces problematic concepts such as “the right to health of communities affected by drug use.” This notion is not grounded in human rights standards and risks decentring people who use drugs.

Although the special chapter pitches itself as the basis for a new framework to evaluate States’ performance with regards to the right to health, Member States should withhold support for this flawed initiative until it fully integrates the guidance developed by the UN human rights system.

London: International Drug Policy Consortium, 2025. 23p.

By Anneli Botha

Transnational organised crime is at the heart of the illicit extraction and smuggling of natural resources in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province. Is there evidence that insurgents are capitalising on the extraction of natural resources to radicalise and recruit new members, legitimise and justify their existence and attacks, or finance their activities? In the absence of interviews with militants, this study reflects on the views of community members living in areas where natural resources are extracted, and insurgents operate. Key points • Mozambique’s government needs to consider a more effective information campaign to get ahead of incorrect perceptions insurgents could capitalise on. • Words should be followed by action addressing the disparity between expected financial growth following the discovery of natural resources and the reality on the ground. • Despite efforts from extraction companies to build community relations, more is needed to address negative perceptions and strengthen community resilience through efforts to make locals more employable. Piecemeal efforts are not going to be enough

Research Paper  Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, 2025. 26p.

By Ndubuisi Christian Ani, Feyi Ogunade and John Kamma 

Gangsterism in Liberia lies at the intersection of a society ravaged by civil war, a declining economy, social exclusion of a bulging underclass, collusion between state officials and illicit markets, and inefficient law enforcement. For youths, gang involvement offers a sense of belonging, a surrogate family structure, and a means of protection and economic benefits. Gangs are also available for hire by politicians, criminal networks and business people seeking to intimidate their opponents or protect properties. Key recommendations • A policy against gangsterism and criminal groupings is urgently needed in Liberia. A comprehensive policy would offer opportunities for a holistic response that involves the improved provision of public services, including enhanced law enforcement, in communities. • Youth-focused development is a critical priority for addressing the causes of gang violence and drug abuse in Liberia. Without discounting the importance of quick-impact youth empowerment initiatives, development programmes need to be long-term. • Schools should have drug prevention programmes. • International support could help Liberia establish treatment and rehabilitation centres to address substance abuse and criminality. • The Economic Community of West African States and African Union should establish a joint task force with Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea to disrupt kush production points Research Paper and supply chains  

ENACT Africa, 2025. 28p.