Drug Market

Although significant expansion took place in critical regions, the pharma market’s long-term steadiness persisted into 2007. Though short-term variations are less significant and informative than long-term trends, the stabilization of the markets that have been observed since 1990 is not undermined by this year-over-year expansion. Although both coca and opium cultivation increased, overall cultivation levels stayed below annual peaks in the previous two decades (1991 for opium and 2000 for coca). Comparably, there was a minimal shift in the worldwide annual prevalence rates, even though there appeared to be a rise in the total number of users of cannabis, cocaine, and opiates (Drug Abuse Research, 1996).

While cocaine production remained relatively consistent in 2007, opium and coca cultivation increased in Afghanistan, Myanmar, Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru in 2007. Both the overall number of opiates produced and the total number of people using cocaine, cannabis, and opiates grew. In every pharmacological market, annual prevalence levels have stayed largely unchanged (Drug Abuse Research, 1996).