Irish cannabis users top EU list of those who buy drugs via social media and receive delivery by post

More cannabis users in Ireland buy the drug via social media, and have it delivered to them through the postal service, than in 29 other countries surveyed for a significant new report.

The EU Drug Market: Cannabis report, released by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction and Europol, also warns cannabis products were becoming more potent and diverse.

More cannabis herb and resin was seized in 2021 in EU than at any time in the last decade; some 256 tonnes of herbal cannabis, 816 tonnes of cannabis resin and 4.3 million plants.

“Cocaine seizures might be grabbing the headlines, but trafficking of cannabis is just as important a threat,” said Europol’s executive director, Catherine De Bolle. “The cannabis trade yields a staggering €11.4 billion annually, which is still a minimum estimated value of the market.”

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Criminals involved in the trade “increasingly veer into extreme violence to further their criminal goals and use these proceeds to fund other criminal activities and infiltrate economies and societies”, underlining the need to “fight” against them.

The EU Drug Market: Cannabis report states “commercial marketing strategies” were being used both “offline and online to advertise and sell products”. Irish cannabis users were especially keen on buying the drug via social media, including Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram.

The findings for Ireland are based on a survey of 8,104 respondents in 2021. The data was collected from 48,469 drug-user respondents, between March and April 2021, living in 21 EU and nine non-EU countries

Headline data from the surveys was first published in late 2021. However, the report launched yesterday is the first time drug purchasing trends in the 30 surveyed countries are compared, putting cannabis users in Ireland at the top of some purchasing trends.

A total of 22 and 21 per cent of respondents in Ireland said they had bought cannabis herb and resin via social media, more than any of the other 29 countries surveyed. Some 17 per cent of cannabis resin users in Ireland had the drug delivered to them via the postal service, also the highest of the countries surveyed.

The average potency of herbal cannabis in the EU rose by “about 57 per cent between 2011 and 2021″ while the potency of cannabis resin had increased 200 per cent in the same people “raising additional health concerns for users”.

While cannabis herb and resin “still dominate the market”, other cannabis products were also growing in popularity. The increasingly wide range of products being produced and offered for sale in the EU included “oil, a variety of other high-potency extracts known as ‘concentrates’, vaping products and edibles”, including sweets.

The report notes that over an eight-week period beginning March 17th, 2021, “six children aged 3-10 were treated in Dublin for THC poisoning after consuming cannabis edibles”.

Overall, most survey respondents – 93 per cent – across the 30 countries reported using cannabis during the previous 12 months. Some 35 per cent of respondents had used MDMA/ecstasy in the previous year, 35 per cent had used cocaine and 28 per cent had used amphetamine.

“The most commonly reported motivations for cannabis use were relaxation, getting high and aiding sleep,” the report notes. “Home was reported as the most common setting for drug use during the period.”