Police Recorded 9% More Drug Crimes in the First Half of 2026
Dutch police registered nearly 7,900 drug crimes in the first half of 2026, over 9% more than a year earlier. But such figures largely reflect police enforcement rather than drug activity itself.
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Dutch police registered more drug crimes in the first half of 2026 than in the same period a year earlier, new figures show. But the numbers say as much about how much the police are looking as about how much drug crime is actually taking place.
What the figures show
In the first six months of 2026, the police recorded nearly 7,900 drug crimes, up more than 9 percent from just over 7,200 in the same period of 2025, according to figures reported by the ANP news agency. Drug crimes are registered cases of the possession, trafficking or production of banned substances.
The most were recorded in the province of Zuid-Holland, at around 1,750, followed by Noord-Brabant with nearly 1,550. The fewest were in Drenthe.
Why the numbers need care
These figures need to be read carefully, and this is where drug statistics differ from many others. Crimes such as burglary or car theft usually become known because a victim reports them, so the records give a reasonable picture of how often they happen. Drug offences are different: there is rarely a victim to report them, so they mostly come to light through the police’s own work, such as searches, checks and investigations.
That means a rise in registered drug crimes can reflect the police devoting more attention and resources to drugs, rather than more drug crime taking place. Changes in the law can also push the numbers up: when a substance is added to the list of banned drugs, offences involving it start to appear in the figures. Research for the Ministry of Justice has linked earlier increases in registered drug crime partly to greater police investment in tackling organised drug crime since 2020 and 2021, and to such legal changes, rather than simply to more drug activity. The police have not yet given an explanation for this latest rise.
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Big regional differences
The national figure also hides large differences between areas. Registrations rose in most provinces, with the sharpest increase in Flevoland, where the number went up by more than half compared with a year earlier. Noord-Brabant and Friesland also saw notable rises.
Limburg went the other way, with the biggest fall of any province, down nearly 12 percent to 861 cases. Even so, Limburg still had the highest number of registered drug crimes relative to its population, at nearly 76 per 100,000 residents. Among the twenty largest municipalities, thirteen recorded more drug crimes; the number more than doubled in Almere, while it fell by almost 44 percent in Zoetermeer.
Because so much depends on local police activity, these swings do not necessarily mean drug crime is soaring in one town and disappearing in another.
What it does not tell us
What the figures cannot show is the true scale of the drug trade, much of which stays hidden. The Netherlands is a significant hub in the international drugs trade, and the authorities have repeatedly warned about its corrosive effects, from money laundering to violence and intimidation, something Dutch officials refer to as ondermijning, or subversion. Against that background, higher registration numbers are not straightforward to interpret: they could be a sign of a growing problem, of harder police work, or of both. In historical terms, the Netherlands remains a relatively safe country, and for a clearer view of the trend, the figures for a full year, and the explanations behind them, will be more telling than a single six-month comparison.