Constituting the second part of the World Drug Report 2022, the present booklet contains an overview of the global demand for and supply of drugs.
The first chapter of the booklet begins with the latest estimates of the number of people who use drugs, the distribution of those users by type of drugs, age and sex, and recent trends in the use of drugs. The chapter also reviews the impact of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic on drug use patterns and service provision. Other issues examined in the chapter are the health consequences of drug use, including the number of people in treatment for drug use disorders and the extent of drug injecting and of HIV and hepatitis C among people who inject drugs. The chapter concludes with a review of the extent to which strategies, policies and interventions are in place to respond to the drug use problem.
The chapter on drug supply provides an overview of the extent of illicit crop cultivation and trends in drug production and trafficking at the global level. In addition, it reviews the latest evidence regarding the supply of drugs through the Internet, with a special focus on trafficking on the dark web. Finally, the booklet ends with an analysis of the relationship between illicit drug economies and situations of conflict and weak rule of law.
