Cocaine use in France has almost doubled, with 1.1 million people taking the illicit drug at least once in 2023, according to a study published on Wednesday.
By comparison, the French Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (OFDT) previously estimated annual cocaine use in the country at 600,000 when it released its previous report in 2022. France is now the 7th largest cocaine user in Europe.
The explosive growth in consumption is attributed to a number of factors, including record levels of global cocaine production and the drug’s changing image.
According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Colombia, Peru and Bolivia – the world’s three largest cocaine producers – will produce 2,700 tonnes of the drug in 2022, up from 1,134 tonnes in 2010.
Another factor in the increase in consumption is the “evolution of working conditions”: people use cocaine to cope with intense workloads (such as in catering) or harsh working conditions (in fishing), Ivana Obradovic, deputy director of OFDT, told AFP. Finally, experts note a “diversification of consumption patterns.” The use of crack, a hard form of cocaine, is spreading and cocaine is now increasingly perceived as “less dangerous” than it was 20 years ago, Obradovic said.
A drug that stimulates the central nervous system, cocaine is made from the leaves of the coca plant in South America.
While prices have barely changed – a gram of cocaine costs 66 euros in 2023, up from 60 euros in 2011 – the purity of cocaine is on the rise: 73 per cent in 2023, up from 46 per cent in 2011.
Authorities said drug crime was undermining daily life in France, and Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau pledged to step up the fight against drug crime.
Causes of increased cocaine use
French authorities seized 23.5 tonnes of cocaine in 2023, up from 4.1 tonnes in 2010.
In the first 11 months of 2024, authorities seized almost 47 tonnes of cocaine.
Europol, the EU’s police service, sees the reason for this increase as the price of cocaine has fallen by 40 per cent over the past 10 years, while its quality (purity of the substance) has conversely improved: “Europe is therefore flooded with cocaine.”
If in the 80s cocaine was available only to the wealthy strata of society (in the 80s up to 1 kg of cocaine per year could be found), now it has become massively widespread, and from the unemployed to the top of the state everyone uses the same substance. Fishing sailors, truckers, labourers, etc. Schengen has largely favoured the free circulation of drugs, analysts say.
