Europe’s Cocaine Map Is Changing. Are Testing Strategies Changing with It?
Cocaine residues in European wastewater increased by 22% in one year. The important part is not only the size of the increase – it is the changing geography behind it.
The finding comes from the European Union Drugs Agency’s latest multi-city wastewater study. In 2025, the project analysed samples from around 115 cities and towns in 25 countries. Among the 85 cities with comparable data for both 2024 and 2025, 48 recorded an increase in the cocaine metabolite benzoylecgonine, while 21 were stable and 16 showed a decrease. Across the comparable locations, the overall load increased by 22%.
The highest levels remain concentrated in western and southern Europe, particularly in cities in Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain. But the wider pattern is becoming harder to describe as a problem belonging only to a few major urban centres or established nightlife destinations. Benzoylecgonine was detected in every participating European city, and the latest data continue to show signs of increase in eastern European locations where levels have historically been lower.
This does not mean that cocaine use is rising at the same speed everywhere. It does mean that testing and prevention strategies built around yesterday’s geography may no longer be sufficient.
What does a 22% increase in wastewater actually tell us?
Wastewater analysis does not test for individual cocaine use. Researchers collect composite samples from the inflow to wastewater treatment plants and measure benzoylecgonine, the main urinary metabolite used as a biomarker for cocaine consumption. The results are then adjusted against the estimated population served by the treatment plant, allowing changes to be compared across locations and over time.
For the 2025 monitoring campaign, most raw samples were collected over one week between March and May under a shared protocol. This gives researchers a comparable snapshot of community-level drug consumption. It can reveal whether measured loads are rising or falling, identify geographical patterns and show how consumption changes across the week. More than 75% of the participating cities, for example, recorded higher cocaine-metabolite loads from Friday to Monday than during the rest of the week.
But the method has important limits. As EUDA makes clear, wastewater analysis cannot tell us how many people used cocaine, how frequently they used it, who they were, whether they were residents or visitors, what the street product contained, or whether any individual was impaired. A 22% rise in the measured load must not be translated into a claim that there were 22% more users. For some cities, the wastewater catchment is not fully representative of the entire population.
Those limitations do not make wastewater data less valuable. They define what the data is for: understanding changes at population level, not making decisions about individuals.
Why does the changing geography matter?
The 2025 result is not an isolated fluctuation. EUDA reports that cocaine indicators in many participating cities were relatively stable between 2011 and 2015, but that 2016 marked a turning point. Since then, increases have been observed in the majority of cities in most annual monitoring rounds. All ten cities with data extending from 2011 to 2025 showed an overall increase across that period.
The geography is still uneven. In roughly half of the countries with more than one study location, the largest city recorded a higher cocaine-metabolite load per 1,000 people than smaller participating cities. Yet the data does not support a simple division between a small number of high-use capitals and everywhere else. EUDA’s broader assessment is that cocaine is becoming more widely distributed geographically and socially, even while the highest measured loads remain concentrated in familiar western and southern European markets.
That distinction matters for planning. A fixed idea of where cocaine use “belongs” can influence where prevention campaigns are run, where specialist training is available, where toxicology capacity is expected to be needed and which operational teams have access to appropriate testing. When the underlying pattern spreads, a strategy based only on historical hotspots risks reacting after the change has already occurred.
Cocaine’s wider footprint is not only a monitoring issue
Wastewater is one part of a much larger European picture. According to the European Drug Report 2026, an estimated 4.3 million adults aged 15 to 64 used cocaine in the previous year. Among young adults aged 15 to 34, the estimate was 2.5 million. Seven of the 14 European countries that have conducted general-population surveys since 2023 reported higher estimates than in their previous comparable survey.
The health indicators also show why geographical spread deserves attention. Cocaine remains the most frequently reported illicit substance in acute drug-toxicity presentations to the sentinel hospitals monitored by Euro-DEN Plus. In the data available for 2024, it was involved in 27% of drug-induced deaths. EUDA cautions that cocaine’s contribution to mortality may be underestimated, in part because its cardiovascular effects can complicate the way deaths are recorded and interpreted.
These statistics describe different populations and use different methods, so they should not be collapsed into one headline. Together, however, they point in the same direction: cocaine is widely available, its harms are increasing and the operational need is no longer confined to a narrow set of places or social settings.
Population monitoring and individual testing answer different questions
Wastewater analysis is powerful because it can reveal a trend before conventional surveys or administrative statistics provide the same level of detail. It can help public authorities decide where more prevention, treatment capacity, community outreach or specialist training may be required. It can also challenge assumptions that have become embedded in policy simply because they were once true.
What it cannot do is identify an individual case. A city-level increase says nothing about whether a particular driver, employee or person involved in a safety incident has used cocaine. It cannot determine when use occurred, what concentration may be present in an individual sample or what action should follow under the relevant operational and legal framework.
That is where individual testing has a different role. When there is a lawful and proportionate reason to test, the operational question is no longer “what appears to be happening across this city?” It becomes “is a defined substance present in this sample, and what did the analytical method measure?” These are complementary levels of information, but they should never be confused.
What should an adaptive cocaine-testing strategy look like?
An adaptive strategy does not mean simply carrying out more tests. It means ensuring that testing capacity is not tied to an outdated map of risk. Authorities and safety-critical organisations need to be able to respond when patterns change between regions, between large and smaller cities, and between weekday and weekend environments. The location of the analytical capability becomes part of the strategy.
Portability is therefore important, but portability alone is not enough. A field test must also provide information that is useful for the next decision. A broad presumptive result can support an initial screen, but it does not necessarily identify the specific substance responsible for the response or provide a measured concentration. When the objective is to make better-informed operational decisions, substance-specific quantitative information offers more context than a simple positive or negative signal.
Quantification must also be interpreted responsibly. A measured concentration in oral fluid is not automatically a legal conclusion, a direct measurement of impairment or a substitute for every laboratory procedure. Its significance depends on the substance, the validated method, the time of collection, the testing protocol and the rules of the jurisdiction in which the result is used. A better testing strategy therefore combines deployable analytical capability with clear procedures, operator training and appropriate follow-up.
Where does Drug Hunter fit?
Drug Hunter is a portable oral-fluid analyser designed to identify selected substances in its defined panel and report their measured concentrations on site. Cocaine is included in that panel. Instead of returning only a broad drug-class indication, the system provides substance-specific quantitative information that can support the next operational decision.
This makes Drug Hunter relevant to a changing geographical picture for a practical reason: the analytical capability can be deployed where there is an operational need rather than being limited to a fixed central location. That may include roadside operations, workplace-safety procedures, transport environments, public events or other settings in which a trained team needs clearer information from an individual sample.
The boundaries are equally important. Drug Hunter does not analyse wastewater, estimate community prevalence or determine the purity of seized cocaine. It does not turn a city-level trend into evidence about an individual. Its role begins when a specific sample is collected and the question concerns a substance included in the validated panel. For cocaine, it identifies the substance and measures the concentration present in oral fluid; interpretation and any follow-up remain governed by the applicable procedure.
A changing map requires testing capacity that can move
Europe does not need one identical cocaine-testing response in every city. The wastewater results themselves show why. Some locations recorded sharp increases, others remained stable and others declined. The appropriate response will depend on local prevalence indicators, health data, operational experience and the legal context.
What the 2025 data challenges is the assumption that cocaine-related testing capacity can remain organised around a small number of traditional hotspots. Population monitoring is showing wider geographical and social distribution. Operational systems must be capable of responding without pretending that a wastewater signal identifies who should be tested or that one analytical device can solve a population-level problem.
A more resilient strategy connects the levels. Wastewater monitoring shows where patterns may be changing. Public-health and law-enforcement data help explain the consequences. Targeted individual testing, when justified, provides information about a specific sample. Laboratory analysis remains essential where confirmation, specialist interpretation or broader analytical coverage is required.
The question is therefore not whether wastewater analysis or portable oral-fluid testing is the better technology. They do different jobs. The question is whether Europe’s testing strategies connect those jobs well enough to respond to the map that is now emerging.
The cocaine map is changing. The analytical capacity used to understand it — and to act responsibly in individual cases — must be able to change with it.
FAQ
What is benzoylecgonine?
Benzoylecgonine is the main urinary metabolite used in wastewater studies as a biomarker for cocaine consumption. Measuring it helps researchers compare community-level cocaine loads across locations and time periods.
Does Drug Hunter measure the purity of cocaine products?
No. Drug Hunter analyses oral fluid, not powders, tablets or seized street products. For cocaine within its defined panel, it identifies the substance in the oral-fluid sample and reports the measured concentration.
Does a quantitative oral-fluid result automatically prove impairment?
No. A measured concentration is analytical information that must be interpreted within the relevant scientific, operational and legal framework. Drug Hunter supports substance-specific on-site testing; it should not be presented as automatically establishing impairment or replacing every form of laboratory confirmation.
