NCJ Number
207888
Journal
Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy Volume: 11 Issue: 6 Dated: December 2004 Pages: 437-448
Date Published
December 2004
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This article examines preparations for the accession of 10 new countries to the European Union (EU) May 2004, with attention to illicit drug policy.
Abstract
Eight of the acceding countries are Central and Eastern European countries. Despite the lack of a cohesive European drug policy, this issue has had an important role in accession talks. A subgroup was created for the exclusive purpose of negotiating illicit drug policy. The purpose of the negotiation was to ensure that anti-drug measures already adopted in EU member states were adopted by candidate countries. These anti-drug measures have been prohibitive and have focused on drug detection, disrupting drug supply channels, dismantling drug-trafficking organizations, and arresting and prosecuting drug traffickers, since these are the major areas of consensus in European drug policy. Another trend has recently been noted in European drug policy, however, i.e., the tendency to treat drug users leniently and adopt policies that are designed to reduce the amount of harm to health and social conditions that drugs cause users. In these controversial areas of harm-reduction and leniency toward drug use and drug users, there are no concrete EU guidelines in place, and policy is left up to the governments of individual member states. In some candidate countries, HIV prevalence rates are approaching epidemic proportions. If harm-reduction measures are not fostered, this situation may become a crisis. The increased mobility of problematic drug users caused by a lack of services in their own countries poses a possible scenario that jeopardizes the low levels of HIV in many western European countries. New member states must be encouraged to develop an illicit drug policy that meets the needs of problematic drug users while complying with minimum standards for countering drug trafficking and production. 28 references