Cocaine use nearly doubles in France: study

PARIS: Cocaine use in France has nearly doubled and consumption of hard drugs like heroin and ecstasy is also rising, a study said on Wednesday, the increase taking place as drug-related violence spreads across the country.

Some 1.1 million people used cocaine at least once in 2023, according to a report published by the French Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (OFDT).

The previous report, released in 2022, put the number of users at 600,000.

The new figures put France in 7th place in Europe in terms of cocaine consumption.

Record levels of global cocaine production and the drug´s changing image were among the factors behind the increase, it said.

People are now using cocaine not just as a recreational drug for the well-off, but to cope with intense workloads or rough working conditions in blue-collar industries like fishing, Ivana Obradovic, deputy director at OFDT, told AFP. The use of crack -- a solid form of cocaine -- is also spreading and cocaine is now increasingly perceived as “less dangerous” as opposed to 20 years ago, said Obradovic.

A drug that stimulates the central nervous system, cocaine is made from the leaves of the coca plant in South America.

While its price has remained virtually unchanged -- a gram of cocaine cost 66 euros in 2023, compared with 60 euros in 2011 -- the purity of cocaine is on the rise, with 73 percent in 2023 compared to 46 percent in 2011.

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Colombia, Peru and Bolivia -- the world´s three biggest cocaine cultivators -- produced 2,700 tonnes of the drug in 2022, compared with 1,134 tonnes in 2010.