Cocaine and heroin supplies hit record highs globally

Cocaine supplies and heroin seizures have hit a record high, a new report finds.

Supplies of cocaine in 2016 and opium from 2016 to 2017 hit their highest ever recorded levels, according to the 2018 World Drug report released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) on Tuesday.

Non-medical use of prescription drugs, such as fentanyl, are also becoming a major threat to public health, increasingly contributing to overdose deaths, particularly in the United States.

Globally, deaths from drug use reached an estimated 450,000 in 2015. Nearly 40% of those deaths resulted from the direct result of drug use -- primarily overdoses from opioids. The remaining 60% of those deaths were attributable to the indirect use of drugs, such as HIV and Hepatitis C obtained from unsafe injections.

The report also found that fentanyl and its analogues remain particularly problematic in the United States and Canada, while the use of non-medical tramadol -- another type of opioid painkiller -- is increasing in Asia and "soaring in parts of Africa," the report finds.

"Drug markets are expanding, with cocaine and opium production hitting absolute record highs, presenting multiple challenges on multiple fronts," said UNODC Executive Director Yury Fedotov in a statement.

"The real problematic issues for us have been the increase in opium production in Afghanistan and the massive increase in cocaine production, particularly because of Colombia," added Thomas Pietschmann, a drug research expert at the UNODC, and one of the lead authors of the report.

Source: CNN