GNV News. 28 June 2026

According to the World Drug Report 2026 released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) on 26 June, 2026, the number of people who used drugs in 2024 reached approximately 331 million worldwide, the highest on record. They account for 6.2% of the population aged 15–64, a sharp increase from 5.2% in 2014. Cannabis, whose interregional trade has rapidly globalized with North America as a hub, has seen the number of users increase by 40% over the past 10 years, reaching 256 million users in 2024. This is followed by opioids (63 million), amphetamines (32 million), cocaine (25 million), and ecstasy (21 million).

Within these traditional drug categories, new substances are constantly emerging. In 2024, 755 types of new psychoactive substances were identified, and the number of different drugs seized has increased fivefold compared with before 2000. In the opioid category, which has the second-largest number of users, new synthetic opioids such as fentanyls and nitazenes are on the rise.

Behind the increase in users and the appearance of new substances lies a transformation in the very structure of drug production and distribution. In the depressant opioid market, heroin production has been drastically reduced as a result of Afghanistan’s ban on opium poppy cultivation—its largest raw material—in 2022, and increased production in other countries such as Myanmar has not been able to fill the gap. This contraction in production is one factor driving growing dependence on synthetic opioids, heightening concerns that drugs more potent than traditional heroin will spread. As for methamphetamine, used in the stimulant amphetamine market, which has the third-largest number of users, the movement of North American products across the Pacific to the western Pacific coast has triggered an expansion of trafficking and use in Pacific Island countries. Furthermore, in Syria, considered a major production and trafficking hub for captagon, a type of amphetamine, the collapse of the former Bashar al-Assad regime in December 2024 has disrupted the captagon market, leading to increased methamphetamine use in the Middle East, and raising the possibility that captagon users are shifting to methamphetamine.

The harms caused by these drugs are also shaped by social factors such as poverty and limited access to health services, and particular vulnerabilities among women, young people, and conflict-displaced refugees have been highlighted. In the face of this complex drug market, stronger international cooperation is required.

Learn more about international reporting on drugs → “Drugs in the World and International News Coverage”

Learn more about concrete examples of drug markets → “The Deepening Drug Crisis in Balochistan, Pakistan”