Documenting failure, avoiding solutions: Reflections on the World Drug Report 2026

The latest World Drug Report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), published today, once again provides a wealth of data on global drug markets and drug use trends. And yet, despite documenting, year after year, the expansion of the illegal drug trade, the persistence of health and other harms, and the ineffectiveness of punitive responses, the report yet again falls devastatingly short of condemning the egregious human rights abuses resulting from prohibition, nor does it engage seriously with the policy alternatives and potential solutions that are increasingly being adopted by governments and endorsed by other parts of the UN system.

A thriving, constantly evolving illegal market

The 2026 World Drug Report paints a familiar picture. The global drug market remains as resilient, adaptable and profitable as ever. An estimated 331 million people used drugs in 2024 – with cannabis remaining the most commonly used drug. This, we are told, represents a 34% increase over the past decade. Coca and opium poppy cultivation, as well as cocaine production, have all increased, while 755 new psychoactive substances were reported globally in 2024 - the highest number ever recorded in a single year.

Far from shrinking, illegal drug markets continue to evolve in response to law enforcement pressure. As the UNODC itself acknowledges, global trafficking networks are ‘expanding production, shifting routes and the increasing diversification of substances’, supported by adaptive strategies that exploit new technologies, online platforms and smaller consignments to evade detection.

The report also highlights profound changes in the illegal drug trade. Restrictions on Captagon production in the Middle East appear to be shifting demand towards methamphetamine. Meanwhile, the consequences of Afghanistan’s opium ban continue to unfold. While the ban dramatically reduced opium cultivation within Afghanistan, cultivation seems to have shifted to neighbouring countries, while the market is being infiltrated by synthetic opioids such as fentanyls and nitazenes – substances which are associated with significantly higher risks of overdose.

This dynamic is hardly new. UNODC themselves acknowledged as early as 2008 that when one drug becomes less available, markets quickly adapt and new, potentially more harmful products emerge to meet the demand. The Report underscores that synthetic drugs are increasingly positioned to supplant plant-based substances because they are cheaper to produce, easier to transport and less vulnerable to interdiction efforts. As a result, despite decades of increasingly punitive policies and costly enforcement, the scale of the illegal drug market continues to grow.

The Report underscores, once again, alarming health impacts

The health consequences also remain devastating. Nearly half a million people died from drug use-related causes in 2023, representing a 29% increase compared to a decade ago. Of the 14 million people who inject drugs globally, nearly 7 million are living with hepatitis C and 1.7 million are living with HIV.

At the same time, access to drug dependence treatment services remains woefully inadequate – and when available, these services may not meet international quality standards and evidence, an issue that is not mentioned in the Report. The UNODC does, however, explain that only 8.2% of people requiring drug dependence treatment receive it, with women facing particularly severe barriers, especially in Africa and Asia. The Report remains silent on access to harm reduction services, and chooses not to mention the devastating funding cuts that have drastically shrunk the availability of services globally.

While dedicating significant attention to drug use among adolescents, the Report fails to meaningfully discuss the structural barriers that prevent young people from accessing support – including requirements for parental consent, age-inappropriate services, criminalisation and stigmatisation, which continue to impede access to care.

In parallel, the Report also underscores that access to controlled medicines for pain relief and palliative care remains ‘extremely low’ across most low- and middle-income countries.

People who use drugs remain the main target of the criminal legal system

The Report dedicates a whole section to the criminal legal impacts of drug policies globally. The UNODC reports that 5.9 million people came into formal contact with law enforcement for drug offences, 63% of whom for drug use or possession for personal use. Of the 2.2 million people convicted for drug offences globally, over half were convicted for drug use or simple possession.

These figures are difficult to reconcile with the overwhelming evidence demonstrating that criminalisation does not deter drug use, but does significantly undermine health and social outcomes. The data are clear – punitive responses continue to drive stigma, discrimination and exclusion, while wasting public resources at a devastating scale.

Later on, the report explains how 83% of reporting countries have adopted alternatives to conviction or punishment for ‘drug use offences’, and about half for drug production and trafficking offences. Considering the huge number of people that continue to enter the criminal legal system for drugs (whether for simple possession or for supply offences), much more clearly needs to be done globally to apply such alternatives to punishment, where they do exist.

The Report remains silent on human rights

As in previous years, the Report remains entirely silent about the catastrophic human rights toll of punitive drug control. While the UNODC refuses to speak out, millions of people continue to be denied basic healthcare essential medicines and life-saving harm reduction services, that 35 countries continue to retain the death penalty for drug offences, with an unprecedented reported number of executions in 2025, that over 200 people were killed by the US military in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific on mere suspicion of drug trafficking, and that people continue to be arbitrarily detained, tortured, abused, and discriminated against simply because they may be engaged in drug-related activities.

In stark contrast, 19 UN human rights experts released a joint statement today condemning punitive and militarised drug control approaches, and concluding that 'the case for harm reduction and evidence-based legal regulation has never been more urgent'.

The UNODC's ongoing reluctance to take a strong stance on the human rights impacts of drug policy severely undermines its role and mandate, and risks sidelining it while other UN agencies and entities - in particular from the UN human rights system - are taking an increasingly prominent role in the area of drug policy.

Despite overwhelming evidence of failure, the Report fails to promote alternatives to punitive policies

As has been the case in the past, the Report refuses to engage in any thorough analysis or discussion on alternative policy options that would mitigate the harms of criminalisation. The Report does not meaningfully discuss decriminalisation. And there would have been a lot to say: 69 jurisdictions in 39 countries have now adopted some form of decriminalisation, it is promoted in the UN System Common Position on drugs to which UNODC are a sponsor, the UNODC released an ‘internal policy note’ on the subject in 2025, and UNAIDS released the UN’s first-ever Guidance note on decriminalisation just a few months ago.

Interestingly, the Report does contain a useful overview of cannabis regulation models adopted in jurisdictions including Canada, Germany, Malta, Luxembourg, South Africa, Czechia and 28 US states. This means that, as of today, more than 380 million people now live in jurisdictions that have adopted some form of legal regulation for non-medical cannabis – a policy option now fully supported by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Development Programme, and the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health. While the main report’s analysis of legal cannabis markets is perhaps more nuanced than in previous years, the Report’s ‘Special Points of Interest’ summary on legal regulation focuses disproportionately on concerns regarding the ‘normalisation’ of cannabis use, while largely avoiding discussion of the potential benefits of responsible regulation, including reductions in criminalisation and incarceration, improved public health oversight and outcomes, and weakened illegal markets.

Even more striking is the absence of any meaningful analysis of harm reduction. This, in a way, is unsurprising considering that even the 2024 Report’s thematic chapter on the right to health had shied away from using the term. However, considering the Report’s constant warnings over the severe consequences of synthetic drug markets, high rates of overdose deaths and unsafe drug use, the failure to mention, let alone promote, harm reduction interventions such as naloxone distribution, drug checking services and drug consumption rooms is egregious. The UNODC’s silence is incomprehensible considering that they are supposed to be the lead agency for HIV and drug use within UNAIDS, that ‘harm reduction’ is promoted in the UN System Common Position on drugs, that it is recognised by the UN human rights system as an essential component of the right to health, and that this issue was once again front and centre at this year’s Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) - being included in a new resolution on public health that was adopted by an overwhelming majority of Member States.

Analysing the Report’s thematic chapter on the ‘impact of drug use on safety and security’

The announcement that the Report’s thematic chapter would, this year, focus on the ‘Impact of drug use on safety and security’, became a subject of great concern for many civil society advocates. Funded by Singapore – a country well-known for having one of the world’s harshest drug policies and for its ongoing executions of people for drug offences – the chapter was clearly intended as a counterweight to the 2024 World Drug Report’s thematic chapter on the right to health. And indeed, the chapter opens with a highly questionable assertion - that ‘consumption of any psychoactive substance is inherently risky’.

Thankfully, the thematic chapter does go on to provide a more nuanced analysis than originally anticipated. Throughout, the chapter acknowledges that many of the harms associated with drug use and dependence are caused, shaped and exacerbated by broader social and structural determinants, including poverty, homelessness, inequality, racial and gender inequality, inadequate access to healthcare, mental health challenges, and social exclusion.

The report includes a number of case studies from cities across the globe, all of which reach a similar conclusion. Across Bangkok, Dakar, Delhi and São Paulo, respondents all highlighted how criminalisation, policing practices and stigma were major drivers of harms, exacerbated poverty, inequality, racial and gender discriminations, and deterred people from accessing the health services they needed.

Yet despite these realities, the thematic chapter falls short of drawing the logical policy conclusions – as is the case for the rest of the Report. While the chapter briefly touches on the benefits of opioid agonist therapy and housing first programmes, it fails to mention or promote any other harm reduction interventions, decriminalisation or responsible legal regulation, nor does it promote greater investment in social protection, community development, measures aimed at ending racial and gender discrimination and inequality, and other social determinants of health.

Conclusion: Another missed opportunity

The World Drug Report 2026 once again provides compelling evidence that punitive drug control has utterly failed to achieve its stated objectives. While illegal drug supply continues to expand, markets continue to adapt, and deaths and harms continue to mount, the UNODC has declined yet again to discuss any meaningful changes to the punitive paradigm.

The challenge is no longer a lack of evidence. It is whether the international drug control system – and the UNODC itself – is willing to show true leadership in promoting urgently needed change. This makes the work of the Expert Panel established to review the UN drug control ‘machinery’ all the more critical – and we can only hope that the Panel will come up with ambitious and far-reaching recommendations that will truly put health, rights and development front and centre in drug policy.

Today, as advocates around the world mobilise for the Support. Don’t Punish Global Day of Action, taking place in more than 230 cities across over 70 countries, the message remains as relevant as ever: effective drug policy must be grounded in evidence, health, human rights, social justice, community wellbeing and empowerment – not in punishment.