Organised crime adapted to pandemic restrictions rte.ie - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from rte.ie Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Drug dealers took their business online to meet the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic, an EU report said Wednesday, adapting quickly to restrictions imposed across Europe to beat the virus. We are witnessing a dynamic and adaptive drug market, resilient to COVID-19 restrictions, said Alexis Goosdeel, director of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drugs Addiction.
The pandemic accelerated the uberisation of the market, said Goosdeel. Ads could be placed online allowing people to order using encrypted messaging apps for home delivery. To ensure we are well-prepared to meet the future consequences of this hyper-availability, we need urgently to recognise that not only is a wider variety of people now personally experiencing drug problems, but drug problems are impacting on our communities in a wider variety of ways, he added.
The report - titled European drug report 2021: trends and developments - states that Forensic Science Ireland (FSI) reported around a fourfold increase in analyses of cocaine seizures between 2018 and 2019.
The FSI s analysis of seizures containing cocaine in the period between 2016 and 2019 shows the content of cocaine in these samples has remained broadly consistent over this time period with a steady increase at street level .
According to the EMCDDA, this is consistent with European data and the observed increase in the supply of cocaine in Europe.
The data also shows that cannabis herb has been the most prominent drug seized in Ireland since 2010.