Cocaine Market Outlook

"Cocaine use is on the rise at the global level. The number of people who use cocaine has been increasing at a faster rate than population growth. The main markets for cocaine worldwide are North America, Western and Central Europe, followed by South and Central America and the Caribbean.

"The current increase in cocaine supply at source in Latin America coupled with the expansion of trafficking of the drug eastward may potentially lead to an expansion of the still limited markets in Africa and Asia. From an estimated 21.5 million users of cocaine in 2020, that number would increase to 55 million, should the prevalence in Asia, Africa and the rest of Europe increase to the level of Western and Central Europe, and by an additional 24.5 million should it increase in those (sub) regions to the level of North America. Asia, where cocaine use is comparatively very low, has the largest potential for an increase in the number of cocaine users, largely due to its population size, in a scenario whereby the prevalence jumps by 1.32 percentage points to align with that of Western and Central Europe, the number of users would increase to over 40 million in Asia from the current 2 million."