Cocaine, synthetic drugs proliferation raises security, public health threats in West Africa

The proliferation of synthetic drugs across West Africa represents one of the most urgent and complex public health and security challenges facing the region, a new report has warned.

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The report, published by Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, said the illicit drug landscape has been fundamentally reshaped in recent years, moving away from traditional plant-based substances controlled by hierarchical criminal networks towards a fragmented, decentralised market for man-made psychoactive compounds.

The harms driven by synthetic drug markets, including overdoses, chronic and severe mental health conditions, and community fragmentation, are escalating, the report notes.

Researchers said the burden of consumption and its consequences falls disproportionately on young people; in the worst-affected countries, this poses a serious threat to future stability and economic development.

“The crisis has grown so severe that since 2024, two countries have declared states of emergency in an unprecedented response previously reserved for deadly epidemics and pandemics,” the report said.

The report examines the emergence and rapid expansion of the synthetic drug economy in West Africa, detailing how low barriers to entry, the convenience and anonymity afforded by online platforms, and the minimal capital required for production have enabled a diverse array of new criminal actors to enter the trade.

The influx of substances such as synthetic cannabinoids, nitazenes, and other novel compounds of unknown composition, alongside the expansion of pre-existing synthetic drug markets such as methamphetamine, presents a multifaceted threat that is rapidly outpacing the response capacity of regional governments, the research shows.

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Growing, evolving threat

The breadth and depth of synthetic substance presence globally have grown enormously over the past decade. Increasingly, synthetic substances are being detected in local illicit drug markets with no prior record of their presence, often as contaminants of or substitutes for more traditional substances.

“The expanding use of synthetic opioids, particularly tramadol, tramadol derivatives such as tapentadol, and nitazenes, is identified as a particularly alarming trend. Some of these substances, vital to public health institutions for pain relief and palliative care, have been responsible for a significant increase in drug-related illness and death worldwide. Their potency and availability pose unprecedented challenges to public health systems and law enforcement agencies alike,” the report said.

Across West Africa, the study observes the sheer diversity of substances being synthesised, the inability of existing surveillance systems to effectively identify many of them, and the challenges of interdiction significantly impair the capacity of health and security services to respond.

“Organised criminal networks are also leveraging profits from synthetic drug production and trafficking to fund broader criminal operations and purchase protection, fuelling corruption,” the report added.

Digital technology, global supply chains

The report explores the mechanisms driving the rapid expansion of synthetic drug markets in West Africa, with particular focus on the roles of digital technology and globalised supply chains.

“Internet penetration across the region has facilitated the online purchase of precursor chemicals and finished products, often from suppliers in Asia and Europe, smuggled into the region through difficult-to-monitor channels such as postal and courier services,” the report said.

It also examines the profound economic incentives that make the synthetic drug trade so attractive, describing it as a “bridge” market that allows new entrants to accumulate capital rapidly.

Through case studies and market trend analyses, the report illustrates how these dynamics have allowed synthetic drugs to capture a growing share of the retail market with alarming speed, with potentially devastating social and public health consequences.

Methodology

The baseline study draws on an extensive review of academic and grey literature published in several languages, as well as an analysis of international and local media. Secondary datasets include judicial and law enforcement investigations in West Africa.

Open-source intelligence techniques were used to deepen analyses of key actors, trading data and routes, vessel movements, company registration and shareholder structures, and to sketch the contours of West Africa’s online drug markets.

The research also draws on years of ongoing data collection on synthetic drug markets by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC) and its affiliated researchers in West Africa. In 2025 alone, data collection included more than 190 semi-structured interviews with investigative journalists, law enforcement officials, judicial representatives, public officials, port and airport employees, actors within the synthetic drug trade, people who use drugs (PWUD), health professionals, researchers, academics, and community members.

Surveys were also conducted with PWUD across focus countries to confirm pricing, consumption trends, and ensure their perspectives remained central to the report.

Field testing of drugs — conducted using a Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometer — was carried out in Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau in 2024, with laboratory confirmatory testing conducted on a selection of samples from Sierra Leone. The report also draws on test results shared by government forensic laboratories across the region.

The report focuses on illicit synthetic drugs rather than the misuse of pharmaceutical products, though tramadol is included because most of what is available on West African retail drug markets exceeds legally permitted dosages in the region. Other pharmaceutical products — including benzodiazepines, codeine, and pregabalin — fall outside the scope of this research, though their misuse nonetheless poses significant challenges across the region.

Key findings were shared with civil society and government stakeholders for challenge and validation, including at a roundtable with Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) representatives and national focal points of the West African Epidemiology Network on Drug Use (WENDU).

The findings were also presented at a high-level dialogue titled Mapping the Future of Drug Markets in West Africa: Synthetics, Cocaine, Criminal Money and Strategic Responses, jointly convened by the governments of Ghana and the Netherlands and the GI-TOC, held in Accra on 27 and 28 November 2025.

The dialogue drew approximately 160 participants, including high-level representatives from West African states, the Dutch government, and leading regional and international bodies. Every country in West Africa was represented.

Key findings

The report’s key findings show that West Africa’s synthetic drug markets are expanding, diversifying, and driving escalating harms. Synthetic opioids are at the forefront of increasingly devastating public health consequences, concentrated among young people and marginalised communities.

Low barriers to entry are facilitating the emergence of new criminal actors, fragmenting the criminal landscape and complicating the regional response. Digital technology and globalised supply chains are tying West Africa’s synthetic drug markets to global trends, underpinning the emergence of new psychoactive substances and driving market expansion.

Critical data gaps remain a key obstacle to evidence-based public health and criminal justice responses, while the regional response is falling behind the fast-paced evolution of the market, leaving security and public health officials struggling to keep up.

The report concludes that coordinated regional action, drawing on multi-stakeholder coalitions, is urgently needed.

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Conclusion and recommendations

The rise of synthetic drugs in West Africa is evolving into a complex regional threat, representing a critical challenge to public health, security, and social stability. Low barriers to entry, the anonymity of online markets, and the high-profit, low-capital nature of synthetic drug production have fundamentally fragmented and democratised the illicit drug trade, empowering a new and more diffuse generation of criminal entrepreneurs and flooding local markets with a dangerous array of novel substances.

The result is a rapidly evolving challenge that traditional law enforcement and public health models — designed to combat hierarchical, plant-based drug trafficking networks — are not equipped to handle. The public health and societal harms caused by methamphetamine and synthetic opioids, in particular, are multiplying.

The region’s ability to respond appears dangerously behind the market’s rapid expansion. While many governments are beginning to recognise the severity of the threat and considering legal and policy reforms — including alternatives to incarceration and updated legislative frameworks for new psychoactive substances — the ground-level reality in many countries remains grim. Drug-testing capabilities are severely limited, leaving authorities and health officials largely unable to identify the chemical compositions of substances circulating on their streets. This information gap is a major obstacle to effective public health messaging, clinical interventions, and targeted law enforcement. The situation is further compounded by a scarcity of resources for drug treatment and rehabilitation, leaving a growing user base — particularly among young people — without adequate support.

Addressing synthetic drug markets in West Africa requires immediate, consolidated, and strategic regional leadership. No single nation can effectively combat a threat that is fluid, transnational, and technologically enabled. The way forward must be built on evidence-based, coordinated responses that transcend national borders, requiring significant investment in forensic capacity, intelligence-sharing on trafficking routes and online suppliers, and the harmonisation of legal frameworks.

Crucially, the report calls for a balanced approach — one that enhances law enforcement’s ability to disrupt the trade while simultaneously scaling up public health infrastructure to treat addiction and mitigate its human cost.

Without such a unified and multifaceted strategy, the report warns, West Africa risks being overwhelmed by the profound and lasting damage of synthetic drugs.