Swedish fight against drugs set for Parliament’s approval

Date: 26/04/01

MEPs are set to approve Swedish plans to make it easier for forensic laboratories involved in the fight against illegal drugs to cooperate across EU borders.

The Parliament is next week expected to endorse proposals which will allow police labs in one member state to send samples of illegal drugs to those in any other, without the risk of them being intercepted by foreign law-enforcers.

If member states join MEPs in backing the plans, they will also see the creation of a common Union-wide system for the analysis of 'designer' drugs.

"With this proposal the current council presidency, under the kingdom of Sweden, is again breaking new ground and taking a giant step forward in the fight against drugs," said centre-right MEP Charlotte Cederschiöld, the Parliament's rapporteur on the subject.

The proposed new laws put forward by Stockholm are designed to help police combat drug traffickers on two fronts.

Firstly, they would simplify the procedure by which member states can send samples of drugs to foreign laboratories for testing. They would force police in one EU nation to permit the passage through their territory of samples of any kind of drug when requested to do so by authorities in another.

Secondly, Sweden's plans would make it easier for police scientists in different countries to compare samples by setting up a common system for profiling synthetic drugs, such as ecstasy and LSD, which are chemically produced rather than being derived from plants.

"The result of this analysis will enable police forensic experts to ascertain whether two samples of synthetic drugs share the same origin when they present similar features," said Cederschiöld.

"This can be of vital importance, when combined with conventional real-time police data, to successfully combat organised international drug trafficking and production."

In her report, due to be adopted at a full meeting of the Parliament next Wednesday (2 May), Cederschiöld calls for the cooperation between crime fighting scientists to be developed still further into a "closely knit network of laboratories throughout the European Union".

MEPs are set to approve Swedish plans to make it easier for forensic laboratories involved in the fight against illegal drugs to cooperate across EU borders.