Cocaine demand has never been so strong: 1.1 million people have consumed it at least once in the year in 2023 in France, shows the latest study of the French Observatory for Drugs and Addictive Trends (OFDT) published on Wednesday.
This figure has almost doubled since the previous report of the Dressing of Dressing, with the most recent data, the panorama of demand, supply and public response in drugs and addictions. According to this report published in 2022, France had 600,000 users in the year.
Several factors explain this increase.
World production has never been so high in Colombia, Bolivia and Peru – the three main producing countries – with 2,700 tonnes of cocaine in 2022 against 1134 tonnes in 2010, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
This availability is also reflected in repression: the French authorities seized 23.5 tonnes of cocaine in 2023, against 4.1 tonnes in 2010. Over the first 11 months of 2024, nearly 47 tonnes of cocaine were seized by the French services responsible for the anti-structure control.
To “hold on to work”
Another factor: “the evolution of working conditions, with assets that use it to” hold on to work “, either to support intensive rates (catering), or to cope with the arduousness of working conditions (fishermen),” underlines Ivana Obradovic, assistant director of DODT.
Finally, there is “diversification of consumption forms, with the dissemination of cocaine base (crack) and the trivialization of the image of cocaine, a drug which would have become” familiar “and perceived as” less dangerous “than 20 years ago”, continues Ms. Obradovic.
New this year: France now occupies the 7ᵉ European row of cocaine consumption.
If the price of the cocaine gram remained almost stable – 60 euros in 2011, 66 euros in 2023 – the content followed an exponential curve, with a pure cocaine at 73% in 2023 against 46% in 2011.
The figures remain relatively stable on cannabis, the most consumed drug in France, with 5 million users in the year in 2023, 1.4 million regular users (10 times in the last 30 days) and 900,000 daily consumers.
Increase among young people
“It is among young adults that there were the strongest increases in experimentation and use during the year”, especially for stimulants like cocaine and ecstasy/MDMA, comments Ivana Obradovic.
The use of MDMA/Ecstasy jumped it, going from 400,000 to 750,000 people between 2019 and 2023 having consumed the product during the year at least once.
The heroine experimentation, powerful opioid, continues to progress in France, with 850,000 experiments (+350,000 since the previous study).
If the heroine historically obtained in bastions such as the Meuse, consumers can now find them everywhere in France.
In addition, “the uses of heroin no longer affect only the most precarious, there are more socially inserted people who consume them in a” sniff “, details Ms. Obradovic.
The turnover of drug trafficking is estimated between 3.5 and 6 billion euros per year in France. In a recent study, the OFDT has measured the social cost – the value of lost human lives, loss of quality of life, cost for public finances – that illicit drugs represent at 7.7 billion euros.
