Progress on strengthening the prevention and treatment of substance abuse – as formulated in SDG target 3.5 – remains limited.Coverage of treatment interventions for substance use disorders remains low globally, with new estimates for this indicator suggesting that, at the minimum, 8.2 per cent of…
Responses to drug use vary widely across countries; drug trafficking usually results in longer sentences.Responses to the non-medical use of drugs range from no penalty to a custodial sentence. The offence rarely carries a custodial sentence among reporting countries in the Americas, while…
Socio-economic profiles of people in drug-related treatment vary between regions, although this likely also partly reflects broader regional socio-economic differences.Based on data from 56 countries, employment status varies by region and subregion: in Asia, people in treatment are more likely to…
Stimulant drug use varies across countries and regionsAmphetamines are the most commonly used stimulant drug globally, followed by cocaine and "ecstasy"-type substances. Men show higher use across all stimulant drugs, though the ratio of men to women is lower for "ecstasy"-type substances.Cocaine…
Synthetic drug markets vary widely, with different substances dominating across countries and regionsThe most commonly used synthetic drugs differ by region: non-medical use of tramadol dominates West and Central Africa and methamphetamine is most prevalent in East and South-East Asia.New…
Men account for the vast majority of drug offences, though some gender differences exist in outcomes.Globally, about 9 out of 10 people in contact with the criminal justice system for criminalized drug offences were men in 2024. For both drug trafficking and possession for personal use, the share…
Fentanyls continue to account for the largest share of harm from the non-medical use of NPS synthetic opioids, in particular in North America, but the arrival on the market of nitazenes and orphines , which are often more potent than fentanyls, has led to a number of acute emergencies and fatal…
Between 2000 and 2020, cannabis in Western and Central Europe and parts of South-Eastern Europe became more potent, more affordable and more frequently used in a number of countries, although these trends have stabilized in recent years.Despite this stabilization, the number of cannabis-related…
Limited data suggest stable or declining NPS use among young people, with some exceptions.Time-series data on NPS use among young people are scarce and largely limited to high-income countries.Where data are available, the use of NPS is generally stable or declining, as corroborated by recent…
Globally, the use of synthetic NPS continues to be lower than most internationally controlled drugs.Based on the available data – mainly from high-income countries – the use of synthetic NPS is generally lower than the use of drugs under international control. By contrast, the scarce data on plant-…
