This is, according to observers, the undeniable sign that, despite the multiplication of police operations, stocks seized and the dismantling of structured networks, the supply of drugs seems practically inexhaustible. A detailed note from the Ministry of the Interior devoted to the resale price of narcotics in 2023 demonstrates this better than any economic analysis and more effectively than any political speech. In summary, retail resale prices did not increase, when it was reasonable to expect their increase due to a market affected by significant seizures (128 tonnes of cannabis and 27.7 tonnes of cocaine in 2022).
Resin and herb of cannabis or cocaine: their market value in “ovens” cities or on dematerialized call centers remained unchanged between 2022 and 2023, i.e. a price per gram of 8 euros for resin and 10 euros for weed – stable for five years for both – and a tiny increase in the price cocaine, which goes from 65 to 66 euros per gram. For the latter product, the wholesale price has even recorded, since 2014, “a downward trend” and in certain areas such as Guadeloupe, located in the immediate vicinity of producing countries, its price per gram defies all competition: 19 euros.
Even more worrying: the price of heroin has fallen slightly, from 30 to 28 euros per gram even though production in Afghanistan, the world leader, has collapsed, divided by 18 between 2022 (6,200 tonnes produced ) and 2023 (333 tonnes). In the meantime, under the effect of an almost instantaneous rehabilitation of the market, Burma took over the production of opium poppy, increasing from 790 tonnes in 2022 to more than 1,000 tonnes the following year.
Profit multiplication
The document also offers a perspective on the multiplication of profits generated by trafficking. Purchased in Morocco at 645 euros per kilo, cannabis resin sells for almost five times more at the wholesale price once it arrives in France, for an average resale price of 8 euros per gram at retail, i.e. a final multiplier coefficient. of 12.2.
The example is even more striking with cocaine. The expansion of cultivated areas in Latin America – which is reaching countries such as Venezuela, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador –, associated with the modernization of production and processing techniques for coca paste, generates production costs relatively low and, consequently, a very cheap purchase price per kilo, of the order of 1,000 euros.
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