Authors: EMCDDA and EUROPOL

The EU drug markets report is the first comprehensive overview of illicit drug markets in the European Union. It covers issues such as production, consumer markets, trafficking, organised crime and policy responses, along with a review of the markets for heroin, cocaine, cannabis, amphetamine, methamphetamine, ecstasy and new psychoactive substances. It concludes with concrete action points for the areas where the current EU response to the drug market and its consequent harms may be improved.

An essential reference tool for law enforcement professionals, policymakers, the academic community and the general public, the report combines Europol’s strategic and operational understanding of trends and developments in organised crime with the EMCDDA’s ongoing monitoring and analysis of the drug phenomenon in Europe and beyond.

Authors: Björn Hibell (CAN), Ulf Guttormsson (CAN), Salme Ahlström (THL), Olga Balakireva (NASU), Thoroddur Bjarnason (University of Akureyri), Anna Kokkevi (University Mental Health Research Institute), Ludwig Kraus (IFT)

Overall, the use of illicit drugs among 15–16-year-old school students appears to have stabilised in 2011, according to the latest European study of this group published by the European school survey project on alcohol and other drugs (ESPAD). The report, based on a 2011 survey in 36 European countries, also reveals a reduction in ‘heavy episodic drinking’ (five drinks or more per occasion). But the survey highlights country differences and the need for vigilance where cannabis, inhalant and tobacco use has been seen to rise.

Authors: Alan Brennan, John Holmes, Yang Meng and Robin Purshouse (University of Sheffield)

This document is the response from the University of Sheffield (Shiefield Alcohol Research Group) to a recent report by the Adam Smith Institute (ASI) critiquing the Shieffield Alcohol Policy Model which applies to the effectiveness of minimum pricing.

Authors: Ari Rosmarin and Niamh Eastwood (Release)

'A Quiet Revolution: Drug Decriminalisation Policies in Practice Across the Globe' is the first report to support Release's campaign 'Drugs - It’s Time for Better Laws'. This report looks at over 20 countries that have adopted some form of decriminalisation of drug possession, including some States that have only decriminalised cannabis possession. The main aim of the report was to look at the existing research to establish whether the adoption of a decriminalised policy led to significant increases in drug use - the simple answer is that it did not.
More information about the campaign can be accessed at:
www.release.org.uk/decriminalisation

Edited by Peter Reuter (RAND) and Franz Trautmann (Trimbos Institute)

This document, produced by Rand Europe and Trimbos Institute for the European Commission Directorate-General for Freedom, Justice and Security, provides the key findings of a project assessing how the global market for drugs developed from 1998 to 2007 and describing drug policy around the globe during that period. To the extent data allows, the project assessed how much policy measures, at the national and sub-national levels, have influenced drug problems.