The supply and consumption of drugs, slightly slowed down in 2020 by the health crisis, returned in 2021 to their pre-pandemic high level, warns the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) in its annual report.
Ecstasy down
The analysis of wastewater from 75 cities in 25 countries (23 from the European Union, Turkey and Norway) revealed “an overall increase in detections” of cannabis, cocaine, amphetamines and methamphetamines.
Ecstasy (and its active ingredient, MDMA) is the only drug “for which residues have decreased in the majority of the cities studied”, perhaps because nightclubs in many countries were still closed in the spring of 2021 when this extensive study has been carried out.
Cannabis in the lead
Cannabis remains by far the most widely used substance, with “more than 22 million European adults reporting” having taken it in 2021, according to the report. This is followed by cocaine (3.5 million), MDMA/ecstasy (2.6 million) and amphetamines (2 million).
The supply of drugs “remains high across the EU” and even exceeds “pre-pandemic levels” for cocaine: a “record volume of 213 tonnes” was seized in the EU in 2020, the year of the latest data available even though it was marked by travel restrictions and closures of festive places linked to Covid-19.
Drugs increasingly accessible
In general, “conventional drugs have never been so accessible and new high-dose substances continue to appear”, the report warns.
“Almost everything that has a psychoactive potential today is likely to appear on the market”, develops the Observatory. In 2021, 52 new drugs were “reported for the first time”, including “15 new synthetic cannabinoids”.
These molecules produced in the laboratory, sometimes very highly dosed and toxic, imitate the high effect of THC (the psychotropic substance of cannabis) and are often sprayed on grass, sometimes without the knowledge of consumers.
An alarming new report
The 2021 report was already alarmed by the growth of these products. That of this year is also worried about the increase in “synthetic cathinones” (6 new ones detected), emerging from a mixture of cocaine, MDMA/ecstasy and amphetamines.
The two most common are “3-MMC” and “3-CMC”, which can be sold legally and are diverted for recreational purposes. The Netherlands found that the number of poisonings suspected of involving 3-MMC rose from 10 in 2018 to 64 in 2020, the report noted.