South Africa‘s cocaine seizures reached record levels during the Covid lockdowns in 2021, with nearly 5000kg of cocaine seized.
This solidified South Africa’s reputation as a cocaine transit country, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in its 2023 Global Report on Cocaine.
During 2018-2021, 13 countries including Australia, Hong King, China, and Timor-Leste reported that their drugs were trafficked from South Africa. South Africa is at number four of the top African countries for cocaine trafficking to Europe, with Kenya, Nigeria and Ethiopia being first, second and third respectively.
The UNODC relies on treatment data by primary drug categories to observe patterns of use, due to absence of recent drug use prevalence reports. Treatment of cocaine abuse disorders in the country peaked in 2007 at over 1600 treatment episodes, and fell to half that number in 2021. The halving of cocaine use treatment has seen the growth in the treatment of other drugs such as heroine, methamphetamine and ‘new psychoactive substances’ over the same period.
KwaZulu-Natal reported the country’s highest share of patients receiving care for cocaine use (including crack) between June and December 2020, with a sharp upwards trajectory in the province between January and June 2020, which coincides with the country’s first Covid lockdown.
Nearly 15% of patients in KZN are reportedly receiving care for cocaine use. This number climbs a few percentage points for patients who are under the age of 20.