Trend Supply shocks pushing drug markets towards synthetics

Summary

In the short term, the report expects climate events, global economic crises and persistent conflict to affect the supply of traditional plant-based drugs, which could lead to more synthetic drug production and trafficking. Drug use, seizures and offences in the UK are already rising, with an annual cost to society of more than twenty billion pounds. Drug-related deaths in England and Wales have also reached their highest level since records began in 1993. Serious and organised crime is strongly international because goods or offenders are often overseas, and the report sees crime groups exploiting and disrupting global supply chains through smuggling and theft. It adds that reducing drug and firearms offences would make vulnerable people less likely to be exploited by organised crime.