The UNODC Drugs Monitoring Platform (DMP) is a multi-source system for collecting, visualizing, and sharing drug data aimed at providing access to near real-time data on drug trafficking trends. One of the primary attributes of the platform is a geo-coded dataset fed by different layers and sources of information. Significant drug seizures currently provided to UNODC by Member States through the officially mandated Individual Drug Seizure data collection form its foundation, while information gaps in reporting by national authorities are addressed by using open data and data from other contributors, as relevant.

These seizure data serve as key inputs for subnational analysis and the DMP. Thus, the DMP harnesses a large amount of data to enable the identification of emerging patterns and trends in drug trafficking in a “real-time” manner. In addition, the platform draws results from text mining/text analytics to update drug seizure cases. With new data arriving on a weekly basis, the platform’s dataset is constantly evolving and expanding. For analytical purpose, the data should therefore be viewed as a “living” or “moving” assessment that, often preliminary in nature, is aimed at alerting the international community about “real-time” pictures of drug markets. This can serve as a key information base to help law enforcement agencies across the globe develop effective anti-trafficking measures. Another platform strength lies in the accessibility of its data disseminated through mapping visualizations for quick use and interpretation by analysts and other platform users.