MEPs demand wider remit for EU’s drugs monitoring centre

Date: 30/07/1998

By Rory Watson

THE EU's special drugs monitoring centre in Lisbon is facing criticism from MEPs and demands that it widen its remit, as new ways are sought to tackle one of the scourges of modern society.

As the centre, which opened its doors in 1995, embarks on a new three-year programme up to the year 2000, members of the European Parliament's civil liberties committee believe that it has so far failed to meet one of its primary objectives.

In a resolution on the centre's activities last year, the committee notes that it is still impossible to draw a clear picture of the drug problem throughout the Union. It says that the information the centre has collected from national focal points is not comparable "since basic definitions have not been standardised and data are not collected on the basis of uniform criteria".

The full Parliament, which appoints two experts to the centre's management board, is likely to discuss the committee's report in October. It is expected to endorse its view that the centre should step up efforts to standardise the collection of key data on reducing health risks and the demand for drugs by examining drug-related deaths, infection rates, crimes committed by drug addicts, and details on current drug consumption.

At the same time, the committee argues that the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction must do more than act as a collection point for national data without trying to analyse the various trends which emerge.

French Union for Europe MEP Anne-Marie Schaffner, who has prepared the committee's report, argues that there is an urgent need for the centre to compare data, assess the results of individual policies and appraise the effectiveness of different strategies.

That view is shared by her colleagues who have specifically avoided becoming embroiled in a debate on whether repressive or liberal policies are the most effective way of tackling drug addiction.

But they are advocating that the centre carry out a cost-benefit assessment of drug policies and pilot projects being implemented in member states, taking account of the health, socio-economic and public order aspects.

Such an exercise, Schaffner believes, will help establish "whether the respective national drugs policies have a verifiably different impact".

The parliamentary report also emphasises the necessity for the network of national focal points, which are in the front line of data collection, to be financially secure and free of political interference and to be extended into central and eastern Europe.

As the Parliament tries to increase the centre's effectiveness, its legal affairs committee has highlighted the full extent of the drug problem facing developed societies. It points out that the economic cost of drug abuse in Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, including spending on law enforcement, prevention programmes and health care for related diseases, amounts to some 120 billion ecu. In comparison, profits generated from drugs range from 300 to 500 billion ecu.