The map above, which you can navigate interactively here, confirms what many people learned from the TV series Breaking Bad. The Czech Republic and Slovakia are indeed the European heartland for methamphetamine, aka crystal meth. Its prevalence there is partly due to the countries’ long history as a source of production. It’s not just that the territory’s chemical industries provided the necessary precursors in abundance for illicit production. Official manufacture also continued as a stimulant for soldiers on active duty, after it had been largely discontinued elsewhere after World War II.
As the map above shows, the drug is now spreading, notably to eastern Germany and Finland. Beyond the three Czech and Slovak cities in the centre of the map (Bratislava, České Budějovice and Piešťany) the largest circle belongs to Dresden. This is not great surprise given Dresden’s close proximity to the Czech border. But what could explain the new constellation of cities showing evidence of meth use in Finland, a country absent from the meth map as recently as 2013? EMCDDA analysts themselves are wary of providing simplistic answers, but suggested in conversation with CityLab that one possible answer is that this is not necessarily a case of users consciously switching to a new drug. Dealers may have switched the substances they sell without necessarily alerting users to the fact that what they are buying is anything more than a standard amphetamine. [...]
As the map above reveals, European cities with apparently high levels of cocaine use have something in common. Almost without exception they’re on the continent’s western half. The one major exception is Cyprus which, beyond being on major sea routes, also receives large numbers of tourists from Western Europe.
By contrast, Europe’s users of amphetamine (commonly known as speed) are mostly located away from the Mediterranean, clustered in Scandinavia, Central Europe, Germany and the Low Countries. This drug divide, it seems, is part cultural and part caused by the logistics of smuggling.
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