The News
The cocaine trade is bigger and more international than ever.
Whereas the drug had primarily been consumed in the US in prior years, cocaine seizures in Europe increased fivefold in the decade to 2021 and overtook America the following year, The Washington Post reported.
Nearly all of Latin America’s major nations either produce or smuggle the drug, South America produces double the amount of cocaine it did 10 years ago, and the record amount of cocaine manufactured in 2022 was a 20% increase on the figure from a year prior.
“A few years ago, people were saying the future was synthetic drugs,” a United Nations official said. “Right now, it’s still cocaine.”
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