Asia has increasingly become a transit and destination region for cocaine trafficking and use over the past decade, although the growth in indicators of availability and use is moderate.

• Cocaine seizures in Asia increased more than sixfold between 2015 and 2024. Additionally, the number of seizures outside the region that implicated Asian countries as destination increased substantially: in 2023, seizures en route to Asia were 321 per cent higher than in 2015, with the largest increase recorded in seizures destined for East and South-East Asia.
• In some subregions in Asia – in particular Central Asia and Transcaucasia, the Near and Middle East and South Asia – it may be that cocaine trafficking is a somewhat latent phenomenon, as larger quantities were seized en route to these subregions than within them (based on the limited number of seizures for which information on destination is available).
• The use of cocaine in Asia has increased over the past decade, although it remains very low compared to large cocaine markets. The estimated annual prevalence has doubled from 0.05% (0.01-0.08%) in 2014 to 0.10% (0.06-0.59%) in 2024.
• Estimates of prevalence of use are often not available. That being said, data from Japan, for example, shows that the prevalence of lifetime cocaine use has increased over the past decade and past-year cocaine use has increased over the past five years.
• Other health indicators point to an increase in the number of people who use cocaine and experience its related harm. For example, in China, the number of people registered as using cocaine increased over the past decade. Moreover, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) reported a strong increase in people who use cocaine in drug-related treatment in 2024.