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Annual report 2009: the state
of the drugs problem in Europe
NB Embargo 5 November 2009 10:00 CET (Brussels time)
Latest on the drugs problem across Europe
• Overview of the European drug
phenomenon in 30 countries
• Data and analyses: across Europe and
by country
• Latest trends and responses
• Selected issues 2009
• Polydrug use: patterns and responses
• Drug offences: sentencing and other
outcomes
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A multilingual information package
Annual report 2009 in 23 languages
• http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/events/2009/annual-report
• Additional online material
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Statistical bulletin
Country overviews
Selected issues
Reitox national reports
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Overview 2009
• Drug use levels still high in Europe
• But no major increases for most forms of use
• Amphetamine and ecstasy use: overall steady
• Cannabis: evidence of a decline in use, particularly in young
people
• Cocaine and heroin maintain firm hold on Europe’s drug scene,
with little sign of any recent improvement
• Polydrug use: now widespread and a growing issue for
services
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Overview 2009
• New drugs: market innovation and sophistication
• Increasingly complex and volatile synthetic drug market
• Synthetic cannabinoids: latest in ‘designer drugs’
• Changes in the ecstasy market
• Signs of methamphetamine edging into new territory
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Part I
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Cocaine
Heroin
Cannabis
Polydrug use
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Cocaine, still Europe’s most popular stimulant
• Some 13 million European adults (15–64 years) have tried
cocaine in their lifetime; some 4 million adults have used it in
the last year
• Still concentrated in western EU countries, but elsewhere in
Europe consumption is low
• Most reporting countries show a stable or rising trend in
last-year use among young adults
• In Denmark, Spain, Ireland, Italy and the UK, last-year
prevalence (15–34 years) ranges from 3.1 % to 5.5 %
• Seizures and studies raise concerns about potential for further
diffusion
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Trends in last year prevalence of cocaine among young adults
(aged 15–34), measured by population surveys
Countries with three or more surveys
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Cocaine — more figures…
• Cocaine seizures rose to 92 000 in 2007 (84 000 in 2006)
• But the quantity seized dropped: to 77 tonnes in 2007
(121 tonnes in 2006)
• 22 % of those entering drug treatment for the first time
cite cocaine as their primary drug
• Some 500 cocaine-related deaths were reported in 2007
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Heroin — trend no longer declining
• New data confirm last year’s analysis of ‘a stable, but no
longer diminishing, problem’
• Concerns raised by three indicators of heroin use:
• treatment demand
• drug-induced deaths
• seizures
• Not the epidemic spread of heroin problems seen in Europe
in 1980s and 1990s
• But vigilance needed — heroin is still responsible for the
largest share of drug-related health and social costs
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Warning signs (i): treatment demand
• Between 1.2 and 1.5 million problem opioid users
(EU + Norway)
• New recruitment to heroin use is still occurring
• Number of new demands for treatment (heroin as the primary
drug) was 6 % greater in 2007 than in 2002
• Eight countries reported that, between 2006 and 2007, users
entering treatment for primary heroin use increased:
• in number and
• as a percentage of all clients
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Trend in estimated number of new clients entering treatment by
primary drug used, from 2002 to 2007
Numbers of clients by primary drug
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Warning signs (ii): drug-induced deaths
• In the period 1990–2006, between 6 400 and 8 500
drug-induced deaths were reported each year in Europe
• Most fatal overdoses are associated with opioids
(typically over 85 %)
• Following an overall falling trend in drug-induced deaths
between 2000 and 2003, subsequent data show an increase
• In 2007, 13 of the 18 reporting countries showed a rise
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Warning signs (iii): seizures
• Number of reported heroin seizures (EU + Norway) rose on
average by around 4 % per year between 2002 and 2007
• Estimated 56 000 seizures in 2007 (51 000 in 2006)
• Amount of heroin seized (EU + Norway) declined after
2002, but increased from 8.1 tonnes in 2006 to 8.8 tonnes
in 2007
• Turkey, important transit country for heroin entering EU,
reported a record 13.2 tonnes seized in 2007
(2.7 tonnes in 2002)
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Cannabis — declining use
• Around 74 million Europeans (15–64 years) have tried
cannabis in their lifetime; 41.5 million are young adults
(15–34 years)
• 17 million young adults have used it in the last year
• But new data confirm last year’s assessment of overall
declining popularity, particularly among young people
• The falling trend is particularly noticeable among
schoolchildren
• School survey data from the USA and Australia also point
to a decreasing trend since the early 2000s
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Cannabis — school students
• Different patterns in cannabis use among school
students (15–16 years) across Europe (ESPAD surveys
1995, 1999, 2003, 2007)
• West European countries, as well as Croatia and
Slovenia — a fall or stabilisation in lifetime cannabis
use in 2007
• Central and east European countries — the increasing
trend to 2003 may be levelling out (only Slovakia and
Lithuania report a rise of over 3 %)
• Northern and southern Europe — overall more stable
and low lifetime prevalence estimates of cannabis use
from the mid to late 1990s to 2007
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Different patterns in trends in lifetime prevalence of
cannabis use among 15- to 16-year-old school students
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3
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Cannabis prevalence rates. Comparison of trends in average
(unweighted) lifetime prevalence of cannabis (%) among 15-16 year
old school students in Europe, USA and Australia
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Cannabis — young adults
• Last year cannabis use among young adults (15–34 years):
generally a stabilisation or decline between 2002 and 2007
• But less encouraging is the number of regular and intensive
cannabis users in Europe
• Up to 2.5 % of all young Europeans could be using cannabis
on a daily basis
• A large population at risk and in potential need of treatment
• One example of innovative responses: Internet-based drug
treatment interventions
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Trends in last year prevalence of cannabis among young adults
(aged 15–34), measured by national surveys
Countries with three or more surveys
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Polydrug use — patterns and responses
• Polydrug use, widespread in Europe
• Combined use of different substances is ‘responsible
for, or complicates, most of the problems we face’
• Increases risks and complicates treatment delivery
• Alcohol present in almost all polydrug use repertoires
• ‘Selected issue’ — overview of this behaviour in:
• schoolchildren (15–16 years)
• young adults (15–34 years)
• problem drug users
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Polydrug use — schoolchildren
• Of schoolchildren (15–16 years) surveyed in 22 countries:
• 20 % reported use in the last month of alcohol with cigarettes
• 6 % cannabis with alcohol and/or cigarettes
• 1 % cannabis with alcohol and/or cigarettes plus at least one
other illicit drug (ecstasy, cocaine, amphetamines, LSD or
heroin)
• Polydrug use can increase the risk of toxic effects and is
associated with a greater risk of developing long-term
problems
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Polydrug use — young adults
• Among young adults (15–34 years), polydrug use can
reflect established patterns of substance use, potentially
carrying long-term health problems, but also acute risktaking during leisure time
• Frequent or heavy alcohol users in this age group were
between two and six times more likely to have used
cannabis in the last year than the general population
• And between two and nine times more likely to have used
cocaine during that period
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Polydrug use — problem drug users
• Particularly prevalent among problem drug users
• Can aggravate their already difficult health conditions,
leading to increased risk-taking and sometimes severe
consequences
• In a recent analysis, over half (57 %) of those entering
treatment reported problems with at least two different drugs
• Toxicology reports following fatal overdoses often show the
presence of more than one substance
• Management of polydrug use among problem drug users is a
complex task
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Part II
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Difficulties of ‘hitting a moving target’
Detecting new drugs
Monitoring the Internet
‘Spice’
Ecstasy
Methamphetamine
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Difficulties of ‘hitting a moving target’
• Market innovation and sophistication challenge drug
policies
• Increasingly complex and volatile synthetic drug market
• Suppliers now ‘highly innovative’ in their production
processes, product ranges and marketing
• ‘Growing sophistication’ in marketing legal alternatives to
illicit drugs (so-called ‘legal highs’)
• Wide range of substances and growing use of the Internet
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Detecting new drugs
• Europe is making headway in detecting new drugs
• EU early-warning system (rapid-response mechanism set
up in 1997), has tracked over 90 substances to date
• In 2008, 13 new psychoactive substances were reported
by EU Member States to the EMCDDA and Europol
• For the first time, a synthetic cannabinoid, JWH-018, was
among the reported drugs
• Synthetic cannabinoids — latest stage in the
development of ‘designer drugs’
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Monitoring the Internet
• Monitoring the Internet — an ‘increasingly important
element in identifying new drug trends’
• Now a major marketplace for psychoactive substances
• In 2009, the EMCDDA surveyed 115 online shops in 17
European countries
• Majority of the online retailers’ websites were registered in
the UK (37 %), Germany (15 %), Netherlands (14 %) and
Romania (7 %)
• Innovations of the online market include the creation of
distinct brands and attractive packaging, a prime example
being ‘Spice’
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Is ‘Spice’ the taste of things to come?
• Products marketed under the ‘Spice’ brand have been
monitored through the early-warning system since early
2008
• Packaging information claims these are a blend of plant or
herbal materials (often sold as incense), but some batches
contain synthetic cannabinoids (e.g. JWH-018)
• These ingredients do not feature in the product information
and may therefore be consumed unknowingly
• Some 48 % of the 115 online retailers surveyed were
offering ‘Spice’
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Changes in the ecstasy market
• Most ecstasy tablets analysed until 2007 typically
contained MDMA or another ecstasy-like substance
(e.g. MDA, MDEA)
• This may be changing in some EU countries: around half
of the ‘ecstasy’ tablets recently seized or sold in
Denmark and the Netherlands contained no MDMA
(instead tablets contained mCPP)
• Changes in the ecstasy market may be the result of more
successful efforts to prevent the diversion of precursors
• The shortage of PMK, a key precursor used to make
MDMA, could be one explanation for the recent changes
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Methamphetamine edges into new territory
• Methamphetamine is yet to make significant inroads into the
stimulant drug market in western Europe (cocaine or
amphetamine still dominate)
• But some signs that methamphetamine is starting to edge
into new territory (beyond Czech Republic)
• Methamphetamine problems have developed in Slovakia and
the drug appears to be becoming more available in parts of
northern Europe, such as Norway and Sweden
• Some new production sites appear to be located in
Lithuania, whose geographical position may facilitate the
importation of the methamphetamine precursor BMK from
outside the EU
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Methamphetamine — Norway and Sweden
• In 2007, almost 4 500 seizures of methamphetamine, amounting
to approximately 340 kg, were reported in Europe
• Norway, by far the highest number of seizures (1 284) and the
largest amount of methamphetamine recovered (167 kg)
• The second largest amount of methamphetamine seized in
Europe (51 kg) was in Sweden
• Methamphetamine production in Europe has traditionally taken
place in small-scale kitchen laboratories in the Czech Republic
• Europol now reports some larger sites in other parts of Europe
(e.g. Germany, the Netherlands)
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Seized methamphetamine
production
facilities in
2008 and
main
trafficking
flows
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Part III
• Treatment today
• Selected issue: Drug offences
• Development of effective drug policies in
Europe and beyond
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Treatment
From ‘one size fits all’ to targeted solutions
• Services for drug users are increasingly diversified and offered
as part of an integrated package of care
• Harm-reduction and treatment interventions are often linked and
offered by the same providers
• In 2007, some 650 000 opioid users were estimated to have
received substitution treatment in Europe
• Treatment coverage is still uneven (e.g. limited access to
treatment outside metropolitan areas, small proportion of
substitution treatments are in eastern EU Member States)
• Integration of drug treatment into general health care can
contribute to a broader provision of treatment
• More projects address needs of stimulant and cannabis users
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Trend in the number of clients receiving opioid substitution
treatment from 1993 to 2007 in the EU-27
Clients in substitution treatment
700000
600000
500000
400000
300000
200000
100000
0
1993
1995
1997/1998 2001/2002
2003
2005
2007
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Drug offences: sentencing and other outcomes
• Little is known about the outcomes of drug offences
• Selected issue — a step towards filling this information gap
• Explores what happens to those who violate drug laws in 26
countries
• Examines national statistics (police, prosecutors, courts)
according to:
• type of offence (personal use, supply)
• type of outcome (fine, custody, treatment, community work)
• Custodial sentences are rarely handed out for drug use or
possession but are common for supply-related offences
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Development of effective drug policies
in Europe and beyond
• The European Union and the United Nations have both
renewed their drug action plans
• Both highlight the importance of monitoring and
evaluation to improve drug policies
• Almost all EU Member States have a national drug
strategy or action plan
• Two thirds of them plan to evaluate these policy
documents
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