Report | Anti-drug | Veneto | Verona
Yesterday, 24 June, at the Viminale, the Central Directorate for Drug Services (DCSA) presented its annual report related operations completed in 2021. The relative step with the recovery of drug sites in Italy. Substances that remain in our country or remain on their journey to other nations, with diversified transfer methods and easily adaptable routes. Routes that cross the Northeast and in particular the Veneto.
Drug trafficking has therefore recovered after the pandemic period and this has been accompanied by a surge in drug seizures at the national level: from 59 tons blocked in 2020, it has risen to 91 tons in 2021, with a percentage increase of 54.04. %.
Analyzing the figures of the individual substances, the amount of cocaine seized in Italy went from 13.6 tons in 2020 to 20.07 tons in 2021. The strong growth in drug seizures including cannabis, both in terms of hashish% from 2020 to 2021) and marijuana (+ 135% from 2020 to 2021), which remains the most seized drug in Italy: 67.7 total tons, over two thirds of all drugs seized by the police. Heroin seizures amounted to 567.52 kilograms (+ 10.61% compared to 2020). On the other hand, the decrease in seizures of synthetic drugs is drastic (-99.03%), but the impact of the extraordinary discovery in the port of Salerno in 2020 of 14 tons of amphetamine. In absolute terms, the quantity of synthetic drug intercepted in 2021 is equal to 137.95 kilograms. And a worrying fact is the significant increase in seizures of liquid substances: 90 gbl and almost 6 liters of ghb.
Finally, 32 new psychoactive substances were intercepted by the police in 2021, of which 5 were never identified before in Italy and which were reported to the National Early Warning System (Snap). And it is confirmed in the trend of deaths from overdose. In 2021 there were 293, while in 2020 there were 309.
In 2021, anti-drug operations in Veneto decreased compared to the previous year and amounted to 1,295. The two provinces with the highest number of operations were that of Padua and that of Verona. But the Verona area is the one with the greatest quantity of drugs seized. In practice, last year, about half of the drugs seized in Veneto were seized in the Veronese area: 2,108.77 kilos of substances seized throughout the region, of which 1,065.74 kilos in the Veronese area.
The province of Verona, on the other hand, is in second place in Veneto for the number of people reported for drug trafficking offenses. In the Verona area there were 385 last year and only in the Paduan area more were reported (465).
Finally, the deaths from overdose in Veneto are practically stable. In 2020 there were 33, in 2021 there were 34, of which 6 in the Verona area.