“Everywhere, every day”: how the EU drugs agency tackles a new wave

Across the European Union, there is a growing diversification of illicit drugs and violence linked to organized crime is on the rise. But there are also new solutions and improved forms of cooperation, he said Alexis Goosdeelexecutive director of the European Union Drugs Agency. He outlined these in detail Isabel Marques da Silva in The global conversation.

Goosdeel started by clarifying that new illegal substances, including so-called ‘pink cocaine’ are not classified as drugs. “This is why we also call them new psychoactive substances,” he says. “They have a psychoactive effect on the brain, but are not yet classified as a medicine. So over the last 27 years we have set up and developed a European drug alert system for these substances, and we have discovered more than 950 of them, which have never before appeared on the European market. And some of them can be harmful to health or even have fatal consequences.

“So the ‘pink cocaine’ is also called 2C in Latin America or Spain, for example. It comes from the chemical name, which is 2C-B.” Goosdeel continues. “But what we observe is that in many cases there are other substances – for example ketamine, a specific substance that is becoming increasingly problematic – that are somewhat ubiquitous. For example, we created a survey on the internet among people who reported using substances, and up to 10% of them reported using ketamine at least once in the past two months.

“The most important trend and the biggest risk is, as we describe it, ‘everywhere, everything, everyone’. Drugs are everywhere nowadays, whether they are smuggled into Europe or produced on EU territory,” Goosdeel emphasizes. “Anything can be the subject of addictive behavior. The distinction between hard drugs and soft drugs, illegal and legal, therefore does not encompass all the complexity, and there is polydrug use. And as a result, anyone can personally or indirectly experience an episode – acute or chronic – of addictive behavior to any of those substances.”

Chemsex drugs

The emergence of new narcotics does not mean that the use of ‘traditional’ hard drugs is decreasing. It is a complex picture that is constantly changing, says Goosdeel. “It is a market that is constantly changing. Cannabis and cannabis derivatives are still the first drug used in Europe. Cocaine is now much more widespread due to the dramatic increase in production and availability.

“But we are also seeing an increase in the production of amphetamine and ‘chemsex’, that is the use of substances to maintain long-term sexual activity and have sexual intercourse with many partners – especially men who have sex with men. But what we see in that case is that they can usually use methamphetamine, for example, which was not so widespread in Europe before. But what we see is that over time they can become an extension of the population that uses the substances. So this means that we have important risks and important problems and challenges, and we also have to be much more agile compared to the situation twenty or thirty years ago.”

Increase in drug-related violence

The increasing use of illegal drugs is directly linked to an increase in gang activity across the continent, as they are criminal organizations that import and distribute illegal products from Latin America and other parts of the world. More gangs involved in this underground trade inevitably mean more violence, as Goosdeel has seen.

“There is a threat to the rule of law, yes. And what for me is certainly the most worrying development of the last seven to eight years is the huge increase in drug-related violence in the EU. This means that when we worked with the European Commission ten years ago and helped the Commission design a strategy against drug-related violence, it was about Central America. Today we talk about the European Union.

“What I think we will see today is also the result of an evolution that has probably lasted ten years and was stimulated, among other things, by the Covid pandemic. Because now Most medicines arrive via containerswhich was not the case before. But I think what we are seeing now is the tip of the iceberg, which was not visible before. And previously we also had enormous challenges, for example with the fight against terrorism. So this probably means that we haven’t really seen the first signs of organized crime groups changing the way they organize. And what we’re seeing is that it’s unfortunately everywhere now. It is almost every day, if not every day, every week, in all or most EU Member States.”

Click on the video above to watch the interview in full