A wastewater analysis has indicated that in Europe, cocaine from South America is now being consumed in smaller towns, as well as major urban areas.
The report, published on March 20 by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), is the institution’s latest annual overview of drug residues used to estimate cocaine consumption across participant cities in Europe. This year, the report analyzed results from approximately 90 cities and towns, though several major cities, including London, Madrid, and Berlin, did not participate.
It found that the Belgian city of Antwerp, a vital port for the arrival of drugs from Latin America to Europe, remains the continent’s cocaine consumption capital, while eastern European states — particularly the Czech Republic and Slovakia — continue to dominate in methamphetamine consumption, though that is changing slowly.
The report also looked beyond the European Union for the first time to compare residues at a global level, including cities in the United States and Brazil in its analysis.
Researchers tested the cities’ sewage systems for indications of how much cocaine the population is consuming, which they estimate in milligrams per 1,000 inhabitants per day (mg/1000p/day).
Wastewater studies measure only drugs that have been consumed, not those that were dumped, João Matias, a scientific analyst at the EMCDDA and one of the authors of the study, told InSight Crime.
“Once inside our bodies, the drug is metabolized. Once excreted to the sewage system, researchers can take samples before the water is treated. We look for the metabolites produced after the use of a specific substance,” said Matias.
Here, InSight Crime analyzes the report’s findings on the increasing prevalence of cocaine and methamphetamine outside of major cities in Europe, as well as new data from non-EU cities.
Disparities Between Urban and Non-Urban Consumption Dissolve
This year, researchers noted that differences in residue readings between urban and non-urban settings in Europe no longer exist, suggesting that traffickers have flooded the continent with cocaine, and it is now available almost everywhere.
“Contrary to previous years, in most countries with multiple study locations, no marked differences were found when comparing large cities to smaller locations,” according to the report.
Record coca cultivation and cocaine production in nations on the supply side of the cocaine trade have enabled this spread.
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Authorities in Colombia, the world’s largest cocaine producer, seized 739.5 tons of the drug in 2023, an increase from the 659 tons seized in 2022. Peru saw a 4.4% drop in seizures of cocaine but 53% more cocaine base, while Bolivian seizures jumped by 62%.
The Colombian government’s announcement in March that it would reduce eradication efforts to 10,000 hectares, half of 2023’s target, is likely to see coca cultivation increase still further this year.
Even with these record seizures in Latin America, seizures in Europe also continued to climb. Europe’s traditional entry points — Belgium, the Netherlands, and Spain — all increased their seizures. Sweden and Russia, countries not known for receiving cocaine, saw large single seizures of 699 kilograms and 460 kilograms respectively, while Norway made its largest-ever cocaine seizure of 800 kilograms.
The report also found that cocaine residues have doubled since 2011 among the seven cities that have participated in the study each year.
From 2011, the daily value of cocaine residue across Antwerp in Belgium, Zagreb in Croatia, Milan in Italy, Eindhoven and Utrecht in the Netherlands, and Castellón and Santiago in Spain, rose from 341 mg/1,000p/day to 747 mg/1,000p/day in 2023. Last year, the rate in these cities was slightly higher, at 800 mg/1,000p/day.
The increase in consumption is “definitely related to the increased availability [in Europe] and the increased production of cocaine in South America,” Matias said.
Methamphetamine’s Slow Spread
The report also found that methamphetamine use has spread into new areas of the continent, while seizures of the drug both in Latin America and Europe have made the news.
“Methamphetamine use, generally low and historically concentrated in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, now appears to be present also in Belgium, Cyprus, the east of Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Turkey and several northern European countries,” said the report. However, overall, the study found that the amount of methamphetamine consumed remained stable.
“One of the highlights of last year’s report was that we were seeing an increase in methamphetamine use over most of Europe,” said Matias. “This year we found use in many countries, but we didn’t see the same increase in use we saw in the previous years.”
SEE ALSO: South America’s Cocaine Supply Boom Shows Up in European Wastewater Analysis
Methamphetamine, a synthetic drug, has traditionally been supplied to the European market by local actors, including in the consumption heartlands of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
However, in 2019, multiple arrests of Mexican or other Latin American methamphetamine cooks in the Netherlands and Belgium suggested that the “Mexican method” — the production of methamphetamine used in Mexico which produces a high-quality drug — was being learned by European producers. Since 2019, there have been no other arrests, implying that a transfer of knowledge has taken place.
The vast majority of methamphetamine production in Mexico usually takes place in the northwestern state of Sinaloa, and is then trafficked to the United States. Significant amounts of methamphetamine have arrived to European shores recently, though the majority was intended for onward travel.
In February 2024, Ireland made its largest-ever methamphetamine seizure of 546 kilograms, worth some $35 million. The drugs had come from Mexico and were on their way to Australia, police said. The shipment was traced back to the Sinaloa Cartel.
At the beginning of September, Mexican authorities discovered 20 tons of suspected methamphetamine aboard a ship in Veracruz, on Mexico’s Atlantic coast, according to a press release. The ship was headed for Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Non-EU Cities Rival European Cocaine Habits
For the first time, the EMCDDA report included wastewater results from non-European Union cities. Cities in the United States, Switzerland, and Brazil “show similar levels of use as the cities in Europe with the highest loads,” found the report.
Seattle in the United States recorded a daily mean of 647 mg/1,000p, while Geneva in Switzerland recorded 812mg/1,000p. The northeastern Brazilian city of Recife had a daily mean of 670 mg/1,000p.
These results are around the same as European cities like Utrecht (744), Paris (616), and Barcelona (619), but still far below the big hitters like Antwerp (1,722), the highest of all participant cities by a distance, or Amsterdam (1,210).
While cocaine consumption may be entrenched in many regions of the world, Oceania remains relatively untouched, according to residue findings. The daily mean of 102 mg/1,000p across Australia’s 55 sites suggests a dearth of the drug, and provides plenty of reasons for organized crime groups to continue, and perhaps even increase, their attempts to move cocaine to this untapped market.
Featured image: Lines of cocaine. Credit: EuroNews Health