On Wednesday 12 January the European Commission proposed in a regulation strengthening the mandate of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, which will become the European Union Drugs Agency.
This will include “issuing alerts when dangerous substances are knowingly sold for illicit use, monitoring the addictive use of substances taken together with illicit drugs, and developing EU-level prevention campaigns. The EU Drugs Agency will also play a stronger international role”.
The Agency will also be able to set up a network of forensic and toxicological laboratories bringing together national laboratories to facilitate information exchange.
According to the European Drug Report 2021, 83 million adults in the EU (28.9% of the adult population) have used illicit drugs at least once in their lifetime.
In 2019, at least 5,150 overdose deaths occurred in the EU, with a steady increase every year since 2012. At the same time, the volumes of cocaine and heroin entering the EU are at an all-time high and drug production, especially of synthetic drugs (amphetamines and ecstasy), is taking place in the EU, both for domestic consumption and for export, the Commission recalls.
The drug market has an estimated minimum retail value of €30 billion per year.
Link to the proposal: https://bit.ly/3qhRznc (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)