Cocaine use is still spreading widely in Europe, the United Nations anti-drugs office and Interpol said on May 12 2011 in a joint statement after a meeting in Paris that included government ministers from the G8.

In light of the growing problem, there is a demand for a more effective and coherent global co-operation and intelligence-sharing against drug trafficking. In particular, the statement highlighted the pivotal role of Interpol and the exchange of intelligence concerning transatlantic cocaine trafficking.

The forum was headed by France’s presidency of the G8, including Interpol secretary general Ronald K. Noble and the G8's interior ministers as well as other international organisations including Europol and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Emphasis will now be placed on enhanced international intelligence-sharing, co-operation against the cocaine trade and the role played by Interpol in facilitating access to key information through its international database, the report said.

"Despite a declining market in the USA, the use of cocaine continues to rise in Europe. In 1998, the US cocaine market was four times higher than that of Europe," Yury Fedotov, Executive Director of (UNODC) told the meeting, cited by the UN.

Fedotov added that the fight against transatlantic drug trafficking is a joint responsibility that requires united efforts and political commitment by all countries.

The anti-drugs agency believes that global cocaine sales generated about $84 billion in 2009 and that figures are rising.

"Our common vision should be that of a world where intelligence is gathered at the scene, and then systematically shared via existing global police platforms to trace trafficking networks and dismantle them. Yet we are facing a landscape where regions chosen by traffickers often lack fundamental capacity to rapidly store and share intelligence," Noble said, cited by the Interpol website.