A study by the French Observatory of Drugs and Addictive Tendencies (OFDT), published this Wednesday, June 26, shows that the rate of experimentation with this drug has almost doubled in 7 years. The reason: ever greater availability and an increase in uses.
A clearly increasing figure, which indicates the ever-increasing accessibility of this drug. In France, nearly one in ten adults (9.4%) have already taken cocaine at least once in their life, according to a study by the French Observatory of Drugs and Addictive Tendencies (OFDT), compared to 5 .6% in 2017. This survey, published this Wednesday June 26 on the occasion of the World Day against Drug Abuse and Trafficking, was carried out during the year 2023 on French territory, on a sample representative of 14,984 people aged 18 to 75.
“Cocaine is becoming more and more available. The supply has increased significantly, with record seizures, in a context of considerably increasing production, a price which is stagnating – between 60 and 70 euros per gram – while purity increases., recalls Guillaume Airagnes, director of the OFDT. The same year, 27.7 tonnes of white powder were intercepted in France, according to the authorities’ latest report, a figure multiplied by five in ten years. As for Colombia, the world’s leading producer, the country broke a new record in 2022 with 1,738 tonnes of cocaine manufactured.
Twice as many men as women
In view of this offer which continues to increase, Guillaume Airagnes underlines “the democratization of use with a greater variety of types of consumption: festive, but also in professions where the arduousness is high”. Enough to also contribute to the increase in consumption.
The study also details the profiles of these users: in 2023, men are 2.5 times more likely to have already experienced it than women (13.4% compared to 5.5%). The age groups most affected by the experiment are 25-34 year olds (13.9%) and 35-44 year olds (13.8%).
Although the consumption of white powder has exploded in France in 2023, it does not, however, exceed that of cannabis, which remains the most consumed illicit drug in the country with one in two adults having already experimented with it in 2023 (50.4 %), for regular consumption at 3.4%. Its distribution has continued to progress, with a price between 8 and 10 euros per gram, respectively for the resin and the herb. As for consumer profiles, the study specifies that “Although young adults remain the most affected, it is in this age group that consumption levels are decreasing while they are increasing among older people”.
The OFDT study includes for the first time the uses of ketamine, 3MMC and GHB/GBL, three synthetic products often popular in “chemsex” practices, in order to increase sexual pleasure, excitement or endurance. Experimentation with ketamine, an anesthetic misused for recreational purposes, reaches 2.6% among adults aged 18 to 64 and mainly concerns young people aged 25 to 34 (4.8%). For 3MMC (synthetic cathinone) and GHB-GBL (an anesthetic and an industrial solvent, both diverted from their original use), the testing rates are less than 1%.
