Time frozen by CoViD-19 has not stopped drug dealing and consumption. He has changed the modalities and reinvented the places, accentuating the loneliness of those who fight addictions and cultivating a market that promises to be flourishing, thanks to the broken relationships and the economic difficulties of the last year and a half.
We need to talk about it. Every year, June 26 is the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, called by the UN General Assembly to strengthen measures and international cooperation towards a society free from substance abuse. The theme chosen for 2021 is Share Facts On Drugs, Save Lives, a reminder of clear information on the trafficking and consumption of illicit substances.
The data to know are those of the 2021 Annual Report on Drugs of the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention: an updated photograph of the impact of the pandemic on the production and use of substances.
Vie alternative. Drug trafficking suffered a setback in the first phase of the pandemic, due to the closure of air traffic, but recovered quickly by striving for modes of transport: larger ships, greater use of road and sea routes , use of private and cargo planes, use of postal parcels and home delivery methods …
Cannabis: perception and reality. During lockdown periods, the use of cannabis and drugs used without a medical indication, such as benzodiazepines, increased. Several cannabis products have seen their effect enhanced because the percentage of THC, their main psychoactive component, has increased, but this increased danger has not been accompanied by an increased perception of risk, quite the contrary. Heavy and prolonged THC intake is associated with an increased risk of developing psychotic disorders (delusions, hallucinations, schizophrenia), yet in the last 25 years the percentage of adolescents who consider cannabis dangerous has dropped by 40%.
Cocaine and opioids. Cocaine production slowed down in the first phase of the pandemic, but quickly returned to its former pace. On the contrary, there is an evolution in traffic between South America and Europe, with greater competition between suppliers, an increase in the quality of drugs and a reduction in prices, with deleterious repercussions on final consumers.
There was a net increase in opioid overdose deaths in Canada and North America after the onset of the pandemic (in Canada, between April and June 2020 they were 58% higher than in the same quarter in 2019). Overdose deaths are mainly attributable to synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, up to 100 times more potent than morphine, a substance that can be lethal even in very limited quantities.
Economic hardship and social isolation have contributed to increased use of opioids, while the economic crisis has made populations where these substances are grown even more vulnerable – particularly those in Afghanistan, where the pandemic came after two years of drought followed by floods that undermined agriculture, and opium crops have become an even more attractive source of income.
The greatest harm done by drugs, in terms of years of life lost, is mainly caused by opioids, whose users often end up with HIV or hepatitis C through unsafe injections. In 2019, 18 million people died of diseases related to drug use; 70% of these deaths are attributable to opioids. Substance abuse deaths have nearly doubled over the past decade and are growing disproportionately to the increase in users. Drugs are becoming more dangerous.
What the future holds. Poverty, food insecurity, inequality and the repercussions of covid on mental health will push more and more people to use drugs: changes in substance use have already been observed during lockdowns. A renewed market will be established on this increased vulnerability with a more widespread distribution, house by house, and with the shop on the street destined to give way to online orders and deliveries.
The pandemic has encouraged new forms of treatment and support for those who want to get out of addictions, which will also be encouraged after the covid: consultations, remote visits and prescriptions, listening lines, online training; home delivery of needles, syringes and naxolone (a drug used to block the effects of opioids), mobile medical teams visiting home, sterile needle machines and drug treatments, door-to-door delivery systems.
275 million – the number of people in the world who used drugs in 2020 (in 2010 it was 226 million): an increase of 22%, only in part due to population growth over the same period (+ 10%)
In our country. In Italy, the pandemic has not stopped the business of drug trafficking. According to the Annual Report of the Central Directorate for Drug Services of the Department of Public Security, in 2020 the seizures of cocaine marked an absolute record and never reached before in terms of volume: 13.4 tons, + 62.2% compared to the previous year, after the + 127.8% already recorded in 2019.
Hashish and marijuana seizures have dropped (29.6 tons: in 2019 they were 44.7), even if cannabis remains the most seized drug in Italy, and those of heroin (-17.17% compared to 2019), while there is a surge in synthetic drugs (+ 13,896%, even if the quantity of synthetic drugs seized in our country still appears to be contained). Also in 2020, the authorities blocked 33 new substances not yet classified in the national tables (mainly cannabinoids, amphetamine-like alkaloids, opiates). The arrival of fentanyl is also feared in Italy.
Pause and restart. As predicted by industry experts, after a first slowdown due to lockdowns and the interruption of international traffic, in the second half of 2020 there was an increase in drug imports in the recipient countries: it is the result of the “storage and accumulation” policy. “in view of better shipping times. Already in the World Drug Report 2020, experts had warned against the increase in stocks due to the forced pause, which would have caused an increased availability of ultra-pure and low-cost drugs, and an increase in overdose episodes. The rise in cocaine seizures in Italy could, authorities say, be the result of this stop and go, or reflect a transformation of the market that affects our country, increasingly influenced by the trafficking of Balkan, Albanian and Serbian-Montenegrin organizations.
Consumption in Italy. According to a survey by the San Patrignano Drug Addiction Observatory carried out among young people who had access to the structure in the last year, the lockdown did not create problems in finding the substances, often made to arrive home for use in solitude, and not necessarily purchased on the web. The consumption of cocaine would be preponderant (they concern 96% of the children who turn to the structure) thanks to the spread of cocaine to smoke (crack) capable of causing greater addiction and often taken together with alcohol and cannabis. The latter is sought by over 90% of young people who ask for help, and in 8.3% of cases (the highest figure since 2015) it has become a source of primary addiction due to the very high doses of active ingredient in the substances moment doomed.