More than a million people used cocaine in France in 2023, according to a study on drugs

This figure has almost doubled since the previous report from the French Observatory on Drugs and Addictive Tendencies: in 2022, 600,000 people reported having used it.

The demand for cocaine has never been so strong: 1.1 million people will have used it at least once a year in 2023 in France, according to the latest study by the French Observatory of Drugs and Addictive Tendencies ( OFDT) published Wednesday January 15. This figure has almost doubled since the previous report on drugs: in 2022, France had 600,000 users per year. It now ranks 7th in Europe in terms of cocaine consumption.

Several factors explain this increase. Global production has never been higher in Colombia, Bolivia and Peru – the three main producing countries – with 2,700 tonnes of cocaine in 2022 compared to 1,134 tonnes in 2010, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and crime. The OFTD also points out “the trivialization of the image of cocaine” and an evolution of uses, “with active people who use it to stay at work”.

This increase in consumption is also reflected in repression. The French authorities seized 23.5 tonnes of cocaine in 2023, compared to 4.1 tonnes in 2010. Over the first 11 months of 2024, nearly 47 tonnes of cocaine were seized.

The figures remain relatively stable for cannabis, the most consumed drug in France, with 5 million users in 2023, 1.4 million regular users (10 times in the last 30 days) and 900,000 daily users. The use of MDMA/ecstasy has jumped from 400,000 to 750,000 people having used the product at least once in the year between 2019 and 2023.

Experimentation with heroin, a powerful opioid, continues to progress in France, with 850,000 people having used it (+350,000 since the previous study). If heroin was historically obtained in strongholds such as the Meuse, consumers can now find it everywhere in France.

“Heroin use no longer only affects the most vulnerable, there are more socially integrated people who consume it in a ‘snorted’ manner.”

Ivana Obradovic, deputy director of the OFDT

à l'AFP

The turnover from drug trafficking is estimated between 3.5 and 6 billion euros per year in France. In a recent study, the OFDT measured the social cost – value of human lives lost, loss of quality of life, cost to public finances, etc. – that illicit drugs represent at 7.7 billion euros.