Heroin use is on the decline in the U.S., but continues to increase in Europe, according to a new United Nations report.
In its annual World Drug Report, released earlier this week, U.N. officials found that global opium cultivation -- which is used to make heroin -- has dropped 13 percent overall, to 657 tons.
Yet with users smoking or injecting an estimated 26 percent of 340 metric tons of the drug consumed worldwide, heroin use remains solid in Europe. Consumption is particularly strong in Western countries such as the United Kingdom, Italy and France, and as demand for both heroin and cocaine has grown within those nations, trafficking routes for both drugs have shifted, with West Africa essentially the crossroads, the report states.
See the U.N.'s breakdown of the world's heroin consumption by geographical region, from lest to most, here:
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