EU’s new drug tsar calls for ‘sharper science’

Date: 14/07/05

THE European Union's drugs agency needs to "sharpen" its scientific profile for research on drugs policy, in part by studying youth and music magazines, its new director has said.

Wolfgang Götz, of the Lisbon-based European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, said: "Among my top priorities will be to safeguard and enhance the scientific quality of our output and demonstrate scientific independence.

"We will be forging ever-closer ties with the scientific and research community which will help further enhance our role."

Götz said that in addition to more traditional data sources, the agency should also follow emerging drugs trends by studying Europe's burgeoning youth media.

He believes that, in the past, policymakers have neglected this source, which could have contributed to reducing drug-related harm among young people.

"The first accounts of ecstasy-use in recreational and dance music settings, for example, were initially published in the mid-1980s by journalists working for youth, music and lifestyle magazines.

"However, it was not until the 1990s that drug information agencies began to collect and report data related to the drug."

Götz said that youth magazines "can reveal a great deal about young people's drinking and drug habits and add value to the picture we acquire from more routine data sources".

They could potentially be "harnessed" to help develop drug strategies, said Götz.

But while it was clear that the youth media provided valuable insights into the lifestyles of the young, he said "the jury is still out" on the extent to which they actually influenced young people's behaviour.

"More work is required to determine how to constructively engage with media-makers to explore the possible role of the youth media in communicating factual information on drugs to young people," he said.

Götz, who is German, has worked for the agency in several roles since 1996, and previously worked for Eurostat, the EU's statistics office.

Wolfgang Götz, Executive Director of the Lisbon-based European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, said that the agency needed to 'sharpen' its scientific profile for research on drugs policy, in part by studying youth and music magazines.

European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction: Homepage http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/

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