Portugal:More Europeans are using cocaine following a sharp fall in the street price, the head of the European Union's drugs agency said.
Wolfgang Goetz said trafficking through Africa had helped increase the supply to Europe, where consumption has reached record levels.
"It's a serious problem," Mr Goetz said. "Cocaine used to be a drug for high society. Today it's on the street and you have it at many different levels (of society). It goes in all directions."
The Lisbon-based European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction reported in 2006 that about 3.5 million Europeans had used cocaine in the previous year, roughly 1 per cent of the EU's population.
Cocaine is Europe's second most-consumed illegal drug after cannabis. United Nations figures show its use in Europe has almost tripled over the past decade.
The centre said last year that the price of cocaine had fallen 22 per cent between 1999 and 2004, although it still costs almost twice as much in Europe as in the US, according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration.
The centre will release its 2007 annual report on European drug use on November 22.
Mr Goetz said cocaine use in Europe could rise further.
"There are elements like fashion, like copying other's lifestyles. I think that plays an enormous role (in the spread of cocaine use)," he said.
"The other element is that cocaine has become cheaper all over Europe in the last five years, and more and more people have money to afford it."
High demand has prompted Latin American drug cartels to find new ways into Europe.
Mr Goetz said there was information that traffickers were relying more on West African countries to store their cocaine before sending it to Europe.
"We have information, good information, that other traffic routes are being used more and more - via south and central American countries and going through Africa," Mr Goetz said.
"Guinea Bissau is an example, a serious example, but it is clearly not the only country being involved in drug trafficking. Nigeria is another case in point." Spain and Portugal, which have strong geographical and cultural ties with Africa and historic links with Latin America, where cocaine is produced, seized about 70 tonnes of cocaine in 2006, about the same as was seized in all of Europe in 2004.
A UN official warned this week that former Portuguese colony Guinea-Bissau could "explode" within months unless the international community helps stop Latin American drug traffickers from overrunning the west African country.
Mr Goetz said the EU, of which Portugal is currently president, was discussing ways to combat drug trafficking with the Economic Community of West African States, a regional group of 15 countries. Security issues will also be on the agenda in December, when Portugal hosts the first EU-Africa summit in seven years.
On Sunday, Portugal will open the EU Maritime Analysis and Operation Centre for Narcotics, aimed at curbing drug trafficking into Europe by sea.