Global drug use reaches record high as increasingly potent synthetic drugs spread

More people are using drugs than ever before, while synthetic substances are reshaping illicit markets and exposing vulnerable communities to greater health risks, according to the UN World Drug Report 2026, released on Friday.

“We have seen an unprecedented spike in new types of drugs on the market, and worryingly, some are more potent or dangerous than before,” said Monica Juma, Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). 

An estimated 331 million people used drugs in 2024, equivalent to 6.2 per cent of the world’s population aged 15 to 64, up from 5.2 per cent a decade ago. 

Cannabis remained the most widely used drug, with 256 million users, followed by opioids (63 million), amphetamines (32 million), cocaine (25 million) and ecstasy (21 million). 

The report also highlights the rapid evolution of synthetic drugs. In 2024, authorities identified 755 new psychoactive substances, including 118 reported for the first time, while the number of different drugs detected in seizures is now five times higher than before the year 2000. 

“The market is becoming very diverse, but also perhaps more dangerous,” said Chloé Carpentier, lead researcher for the report, in an interview with UN News.  

“We don't always know what we are taking, and first responders don't know what they are responding to.” 

UNODC said the global opioid market is reaching a turning point. Following Afghanistan’s 2022 ban on opium cultivation, illicit heroin production has fallen sharply.  

Although opium production in Myanmar increased from 420 tonnes in 2021 to more than 1,000 tonnes in 2025, together with production in Laos and Mexico it has not replaced the more than 6,000 tonnes Afghanistan produced in 2022. 

Instead, traffickers appear to be increasingly turning to synthetic opioids such as fentanyls, nitazenes and orphines.