World Drug Report 2005 - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

1. Trends in world drug markets The dynamics of the world drug market
Fig.16: Global drug seizures in unit equivalents,
1985-2003
Fig. 18: Regional breakdown of drug seizures in unit
equivalents, 1985-2003
35
31.3
35
31.3
billion units equivalents
30
25
20
14.3 13.7
15
10
5
20.0
26.1
in billion units equivalents
30
25
20
14.3
15
2.2
10 2.7
1.1
5
8.2
13.7
1.3
2.9
2.4
7.2
20.0
2.4
5.1
4.8
7.6
26.1
4.4
5.5
6.7
9.4
4.2
5.1
9.4
12.5
0
1985 1988 1991 1994 1997 2000 2003
Cannabis
Cocaine
Others
Opiate
ATS
Grand Total
0
1985 1988 1991 1994 1997 2000 2003
Americas
Europe
Asia
Africa
Oceania
Grand Total
Source: UNODC, Annual <strong>Report</strong>s Questionnaire Data / DELTA.
Source: UNODC, Annual <strong>Report</strong>s Questionnaire Data / DELTA.
Fig. 17: Proportion of drug categories in seizures, in
unit equivalents, 1985-2003
billion units equivalents
100%
4%
4%
80%
60%
90%
40%
20%
0%
7%
21%
1%
11%
16%
70% 71%
6% 3%
14%
14%
66%
9%
16%
70%
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
CANNABIS
OPIATE
Others
COCAINE
ATS
Source: UNODC, Annual <strong>Report</strong>s Questionnaire Data / DELTA.
The global production trend is rather stable for opium,
and declining for coca but seems to be increasing for
cannabis and, following some declines, for ATS .
UNODC, in collaboration with selected governments,
uses a sophisticated monitoring system based on the use
of modern satellite technology with on the ground verification
(‘ground truthing’) and yield surveys. This
method produces some of the most rigorous data on the
drug problem, because the measurement is direct and
quantifiable. Production data for opium and coca leaf
are thus probably the most reliable indicators of how the
drug problem is evolving at the global level. Information
on the final output – heroin or cocaine – is more difficult
to obtain and subject to a higher degree of uncertainty
as direct access to the operators of clandestine
laboratories is difficult. Existing transformation ratios
are usually based on rather small samples of case studies
in which operators demonstrated the cocaine/heroin
transformation processes to law enforcement bodies.
How representative the results of these case studies are
for the clandestine manufacturing process as a whole is
unknown but they are the best estimates currently available.
While production is clearly linked to trafficking and
consumption, sometimes the links are less direct than
they appear. There can be, for example, important time
33