The African continent remains a major transit zone for drug trafficking, but also a place of increasing consumption of illicit substances. This is what the new world report on drugs produced by the United Nations reveals on Wednesday June 26 in Accra, Ghana.
1 min
With our correspondent in Accra, Victor Cariou
120 tonnes of cocaine seized in Africa since 2019, mainly in the Gulf of Guinea, but also in Cape Verde and Senegal. For Cheikh Ousmane Touré, head of law enforcement at the regional office in Dakar of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, there is no doubt: the continent remains an important transit zone for drugs produced in South America favoring the development of local criminal activity.
“ There is evidence of laboratory processing of cocaine for a local market. So this report points us to the fact that, apart from being transit countries, certain countries in the sub-region are gradually also becoming areas of substance consumption. »
Another problem pointed out by the report : the emergence of mixed drugs, consumed locally, such as kush, Gaddafi, and the Monkey Tail. “ The difficulty is that we do not know exactly the composition of these concoctions, and generally, when we do not have a very good mastery of these compositions, inevitably, there are repercussions in terms of mental, physical and behavioral health. individuals who use it. »
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime is therefore encouraging African governments to invest more in research and prevention, in order to best respond to what the report identifies as a growing public health problem on the continent.
Read alsoDrugs in West Africa: more prevention required in the face of increasing consumption