Foreword

This report on the world’s illicit drugs markets has been produced by an international team of experts on behalf of the European Commission.

The EU Strategy on Drugs 2005-2012 calls for evidence-based policies. The Action Plans on Drugs that the Commission has proposed in its Communications of 2005 and 2008 strongly emphasise this.

The European Union is relatively advanced in the understanding of the drugs problem in its own territory. Our data are getting better, and the way they are being collected and processed through the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) helps the EU and its Member States to deal with a highly complex problem. I believe that it is one of the reasons why the overall level of drug use and drug problems in most EU Member States is relatively modest compared to similar societies around the world and why it is broadly stable – even if some member states continue to face serious problems.

The situation in Europe is however far from ideal and much more work needs to be done. Drug abuse is also clearly part of a world-wide phenomenon, just as our policies are part of the multilateral drug control system.

In 1998 the UN, at a special session of the General Assembly, issued a declaration and action plans aimed at rolling back drug abuse and trafficking world-wide (UNGASS 98). In 2006, the UN’s Commission on Narcotic Drugs, in order to determine to what extent UNGASS 98 had achieved its goals, adopted an EU Resolution calling for “(..) an objective, scientific, balanced and transparent assessment by Member States of the global progress achieved and of the difficulties encountered in meeting the goals and targets set by the General Assembly at its twentieth special session (..)”

The EU is aware of the fact that what is possible at its own regional level in terms of policy analysis is not necessarily within the reach of the UN or many of its member states. For this reason the European Commission provided the finance for the expert working groups convened by the Commission on Narcotic Drugs to prepare the assessment process. It is also with this in mind that the Commission had the present study carried out: to provide a dispassionate overview of the true nature and extent of the problem today, and to assist policy makers at national and regional levels to deal with it.

The approach we have chosen is to look at the drugs issue as if it were a licit market, in order to get an objective view of the way it works. This may help us to find better ways of dealing with it.

The report before you will in the future be followed by further work on policy options and those practices and approaches that are most effective in any given setting, region or country.

Jacques Barrot
Vice-President of the European Commission Responsible for Justice, Freedom and Security