How much does cocaine cost around the world?

OVER THE past few decades criminal gangs in Latin America have diversified their businesses. They no longer just smuggle narcotics from South America to the United States, as Pablo Escobar, Colombia’s most notorious drug lord, did in the 1970s and 80s. Now they also are involved in illegal gold mining, human trafficking, synthetic-opioid production (particularly fentanyl), along with extorting those who operate in perfectly legal markets, such as farming avocados and limes.

Even so, drugs remain an integral part of their business model. In 2020, for example, global production of cocaine hit a record high of 1,982 tonnes, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), though that is likely to be an underestimate. North America remains the biggest consumer of the drug, with around 2% of people aged 15-64 (or 6m people) estimated to have taken it that year. But the global reach of cocaine is spreading. Guinea-Bissau has become an important route for South American cocaine bound for Europe. An attempted coup earlier this year, in which gunmen attacked the presidential palace, was blamed on drug gangs. Much European cocaine is imported through Rotterdam in the Netherlands, which has led to an increase in gang violence there. The head of a Dutch police union has warned that the country risks becoming a “narco-state”.