Source: https://www.emcdda.europa.eu/system/files/publications/13745/TD0321143ENN_002.pdf

Summary

Since early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a dramatic impact on the way we live, with European countries having to introduce unprecedented measures to protect public health. As with all areas of life, drug consumption, related harms and drug markets have been impacted, as have the services established to respond to drug-related problems. During the first weeks of the pandemic, the EMCDDA instigated two rapid assessment studies to identify the initial impact and implications of COVID-19.

Objective: -

• To present results from studies carried out to collect insights from people who use drugs and service providers on how COVID-19 control measures have affected their lives, as well as the drug market 
• To discuss how some of the changes observed are worth becoming a ‘new normal’

Background: In April 2020, in the framework of the EU4Monitoring Drugs (EU4MD) project, two research teams launched a 6-month long cohort study among people who use drugs in Georgia and Ukraine. The aim was to document how the COVID-19 lockdown measures may impact their social-economic status, drug use...

The EMCDDA releases today the third in a series of rapid ‘trendspotter’ studies exploring the impact of COVID-19 on the drug situation and responses to it. Revisiting and reviewing findings from two studies in 2020 on the effects of the pandemic on drug use and services, the report identifies new trends and developments which may have implications for policy and practice.

The report explores the situation in the EU Member States from June 2020 to February 2021, particularly changes in drug markets, patterns of use, harms and drug services, both in the community and in prisons.

The EMCDDA’s...

The journal Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy has published a special edition focussing on Drug experienced young people in contact with the Criminal Justice System.

The collection of papers examines young peoples' experiences of substance use and/or offending and their impression of the support they have received. The research also explores the consequences of restrictive drug policies.

The papers in this collection are based on research from the EU funded EPPIC project (Exchanging Prevention practices on Polydrug use among youth In Criminal justice systems).

This report presents the current status of alcohol consumption, alcohol-attributable harms and the implementation of alcohol control policies in the WHO European Region, using available data from 2010, 2016 and 2019.

A detailed overview is provided of the implementation of alcohol policies described in the 10 action areas of the European Action Plan to Reduce the Harmful Use of Alcohol 2012–2020 (EAPA), including the current status of implementation of the five action areas of the WHO-led SAFER initiative:

1. Strengthen restrictions on alcohol availability;
2. Advance and enforce drink–driving...

This report presents new findings from the ESCAPE (European Syringe Collection and Analysis Project Enterprise) network, based on the chemical analysis of the contents of used syringes across sentinel sites in Europe.

Syringes were collected in 2018 and 2019 from the bins of street automatic injection-kit dispensers and at harm reduction services in eight European cities: Amsterdam, Budapest, Cologne, Helsinki, Lausanne, Oslo, Paris and Vilnius.

This report provides a brief summary of some of the challenges, old and new, that women and girls face in the context of the tobacco epidemic in the WHO European Region, outlining the gendered nature of tobacco use and exposure and how the tobacco industry continues to target them through gendered messaging. It also provides recommendations for approaches and policy interventions that take a gender lens to tobacco control.

The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) strongly underpins gender equality and highlights the importance of addressing gender-specific risks. This report...

This report reviews how opioid substitution treatment (OST) is implemented in European countries and examines the public health consequences of the diversion and misuse of prescription OST medications.

It looks at how OST medications are diverted to the illicit market, the motivations behind diversion and misuse, and considers the measures to prevent diversion and how they must ensure that the treatment remains available and accessible for those who need it.

Objective: To explore innovative programmes providing solutions in the field of homelessness and drugs.

Background: The association between long-term homelessness, problem drug use and alcohol dependence are well documented. Evidence suggests that a relatively small, long-term and recurrently homeless population has a high prevalence of mental health problems and substance dependence. In the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic, there is much concern that the health and social wellbeing of members of this population will worsen. Addressing their diverse and complex needs is...