Press Release: Customs: Commission welcomes Council agreement on new controls on drugs precursors

The European Commission welcomed the political agreement reached by the Council of Ministers on a proposal for a Regulation to strengthen controls on the import of the chemicals that are used to manufacture illicit narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, in particular ecstasy, 25 November 2004. The Regulation would introduce EU-wide procedures for individual import authorisations to allow the monitoring of consignments imported into the European Union. The existing legislation in this area had to be modernised because in recent years the Community had become one of the world's leading ecstasy manufacturers and exporters, using imported drug precursors. One litre of some of these key drug precursor chemicals can produce drugs with a street value of more than €600,000.

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