In the first days of February 2022, 23 people were reported lifeless and about 70 others were hospitalized in Buenos Aires due to the consumption of adulterated cocaine. This unprecedented event and the recent cases of drug-related violence in Rosario, the country's third most populous city, reopened the conversation about Argentina's drug policy. According to Baisotti (2022), since the COVID-19 pandemic the drug trafficking landscape has been shifting, confrontations among criminal organizations have resurfaced, the drugs sold on the streets are of alarmingly low quality, and there is a higher demand for illicit psychoactive substances.

Argentina is taking a more important role in the political economy of illicit drugs. The psychoactive substances enter the territory through two main routes. Cocaine comes mainly from Bolivia through the northern area, passing through the provinces of Jujuy and Salta, and then is distributed in the south to major cities and tourist destinations. Argentina was for many years considered only a transit country for drugs trafficked to feed the European market particularly. Yet, in recent years, drug violence in certain provinces and increases in illicit drug consumption have presented important public health and security challenges. Like other countries in South America, Argentina departed slightly from the long-established drug prohibitionist regime. Under the Supreme Court of Justice's Arriola ruling of 2009, the personal use of all illegal drugs was partially liberalized.