English Archives - Drug Policy Network SEE

Global Organized Crime Index reports about SEE

The Global Organized Crime Index, produced by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), is the first tool of its kind designed to assess levels of organized crime and resilience to organized criminal activity. The Index is the result of a two-year endeavour to evaluate levels of crime and resilience. It includes in its rankings all the UN member states – 193 countries.

The results, which draw from a comprehensive dataset informed by experts worldwide, rank countries according to two metrics: their criminality on a score from 1 to 10 (lowest to highest organized crime levels), which in turn is based on their criminal markets score and criminal actors score; and their resilience to organized crime, from 1 to 10 (lowest to highest resilience levels).

Key findings of the report include:

More than three-quarters of the world’s population live in countries with high levels of criminality, and in countries with low resilience to organized crime
Of all the continents, Asia has the highest levels of criminality
Human trafficking is the most pervasive of all criminal markets globally
Democracies have higher levels of resilience to criminality than authoritarian states
State actors are the most dominant agents in facilitating illicit economies and inhibiting resilience to organized crime
Many countries in conflict and fragile states experience acute vulnerability to organized crime

The Global Organized Crime Index is available following this link>>>.

DPNSEE extracted segments from this report related to drugs in countries of South East Europe. Here is the document we created>>>.

Curriculum for working with youth at risk

One of the outcomes of the “No risk, no borders for young people” project, coordinated by the Drug Policy Network South East Europe (DPNSEE) together with the project partners Aksion Plus (Albania), Margina (Bosnia Herzegovina), Juventas (Montenegro), Prevent and Re Generation (Serbia) and supported by the Regional Youth Cooperation Office (RYCO) within its 4th Open Call co-financed by the European Union, is the regional Curriculum for working with youth at risk.

The Curriculum was developed using a comprehensive educational approach, fully based on principle “youth for youth”. By including the youth in its design, testing and applying, it enabled the full match of the Curriculum with the present youth interests and issues of both the youth at risk as its beneficiaries and “other” youth.

It includes sections on Terms and definitions, Course delivery mode, Educational tools and materials (from international level) for working with youth at risk, Online tools for organizing educational activities, and four modules on The issues, The communities, The approaches and Systemic approach with 15 different topics.

The Curriculum was produced by external experts appointed through an open call: Megi Xhumari, Ioanis Papadopoulos and Aleksandar Trudić. Young people which participated in the project implementation, participating in a focus group, project team and trainers contributed with their expertise, ideas and comments.

The Curriculum was produced in English and is available in Albanian and Bosnian – Montenegrin – Serbian versions.

Kurrikula për të punuar me të rinjtë në rrezik

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Curriculum for working with youth at risk

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Kurikulum za rad sa mladima u riziku

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Drug-induced deaths in Serbia

The Drug Policy Network South East Europe published the Analysis of the data on drug-induced deaths in Serbia 2008 – 2019.

DPNSEE has prepared the analysis using statistic about the drug-induced deaths managed by the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia. The data used are segmented using codes of the causes of death, agreed with the Ministry of Health and the Institute for Public Health “Dr Milan Jovanović Batut”, in accordance with the standard protocol of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA).

The statistics include annual tables presenting number of those passed away by different indicators: gender, age, location, substance that caused death, consequence of long term use or accidentally, etc.

The key data from the Analysis include:

735 people died from drug use in Serbia in the period 2008 – 2019
13,60% of them were female
After sharp drop in 2010 and 2011 and the lowest number of deaths in 2017, last two years we have an increase of 72,73%
Serbia is in the bottom of the European scale of drug-induced deaths per million people (8,21)
2/3 of deceased was in the age range 25 to 40
150 deaths were consequence of long-term use of drugs. Out of them 97 was connected with opioids, 2 with cocaine, 4 with hallucinogens and 47 with multiple substances
585 were consequence of intoxication, with 212 accidental, 48 intended and 325 with unclear intention
206 intoxications were related to heroin use, 81 to other opioids and 122 with psychodysleptics; only one with cannabis derivatives and none with LSD
By far, most of the intoxications happened at home
In 2018, two people aged 17 – 19 died; in 2019, two aged 65+

DPNSEE emphasized controversies and questions with reliability of the data:

Ministry of Health has no updated data on causes of death. We must wait until mid-next year to get the data from the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia to know which they were.
Drug-induced deaths are not always reported. Instead, they are classified as stroke, heart attack, heat stroke or suffocation by vomiting.
Other causes of death are also not registered, including AIDS and Hepatitis caused by using infected sterile equipment for injecting drugs (registered earlier), chronic pneumonia, liver damage, random injuries and violence and suicides caused by drug use.

There are no yet data about coronavirus influence to drug-induced deaths in Serbia. But, the Analysis envisages that it may result in more deaths due to additional risk of overdose and intoxication caused by depression, anxiety, stress, isolation and loneliness, use of whatever drug is available and mixing them (also with alcohol and legal drugs), lack of support (doctor visits, group counselling, treatments, emotional support, etc.), lack of basic income, lack of proper nutrition, etc.

Naloxone is legally used in Serbia only by emergency ambulance staff. Civil society organisations have proposed wider availability of naloxone, but this proposal was rejected during the process of amending the Law on Psychoactive Controlled Substances.

To read the Analysis, please follow this link>>>.

The presentation with bilingual data (Serbian and English) is available following this link>>>.

Two years after the Analysis was published, the Drug Policy Network South East Europe published the document with new updated data. It indicates that the number of drug-induced deaths in the last two years have decreased by 9%, but it is still high. Data also show that average age of those deceased has increased from 8,36 to 46,04, including 12 persons aged over 60. Number of females have increased for 43%. A worryng data is that the number of those who died because of use of methadone doubled.

The updated document with data from 2020 and 2021 is available following this link>>>.

Open Budget Survey 2017 in SEE

The Open Budget Survey, prepared by the International Budget Partnership (IBP), is a comprehensive analysis and survey that evaluates whether governments give the public access to budget information and opportunities to participate in the budget process at the national level. The Survey also accesses the capacity and independence of formal oversight institutions. The IBP works with civil society partners in 115 countries to collect the data for the Survey.

The Survey is the world’s only independent, comparative assessment of the three pillars of public budget accountability: transparency, oversight and public participation.

This publication includes segments from the Executive summary and information available from the Survey about several countries of South East Europe: Albania, Bosnia Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia.

The document is available following this link>>>

Statements

The Drug Policy Network South East Europe aims to promote objective and open debate on the effectiveness, direction and content of the national, regional and international drug policy and to advance constructive recommendations for policy makers.

The Network issues Statements to present our join views on issues of importance for drug policies.

The DPNSEE statement on Drug checking

DPNSEE is publishing this statement on the occasion of 31 March – The International Drug Checking Day, in order to stress the importance of implementation of drug checking services as an early intervention in different drug use settings.

This statement outlines the attitudes of the Network following that drug checking represents an essential aspect of public health policy as recommended by the World Health Organization and has been further developed by both EU agencies and various European nations.

Download PDF of the statement

The DPNSEE statement on Drug checking<<<

Version in Serbian is also available

Izjava o dostupnosti servisa za testiranje droga>>>

European Union Enlargement Country Reports

Traditionally, the European Commission adopted its annual assessment of the implementation of reforms in the Western Balkan partners and Turkey, together with recommendations on the next steps for those countries, and published its annual country reports.

Accession negotiations have been opened with candidate countries Montenegro (2012), Serbia (2014), and Turkey (2005). North Macedonia is a candidate country since 2005 and Albania since 2014. Bosnia and Herzegovina (application to join the EU submitted in February 2016) and Kosovo* (Stabilisation and Association Agreement entered into force in April 2016) are potential candidates.

DPNSEE extracts segments related to drugs from each of the country reports and pack them in one document.

The document we prepared with reports for 2017 is downloadable following this link>>>

Full versions of the Commission’s documents from 2017 are available following this link>>>

The document we prepared with reports for 2018 is downloadable following this link>>>

Full versions of the Commission’s documents from 2018 are available following this link>>>.

The document we prepared with reports for 2019 is downloadable following this link>>>.

Full versions of the Commission’s documents from 2019 are available following this link>>>.

The document we prepared with reports for 2021 is downloadable following this link>>>.

Full versions of the Commission’s documents from 2021 are available following this link>>>.

The document we prepared with reports for 2022 is downloadable following this link>>>.

Full versions of the Commission’s documents from 2022 are available following this link>>>.

Addressing the acute funding crisis facing harm reduction services in South-East Europe

The Drug Policy Network South East Europe published the document Addressing the acute funding crisis facing harm reduction services in South-East Europe with the aim to emphasize the acute funding crisis facing harm reduction services in Balkan states and South-East Europe, to influence the policies and actions of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and other donors. It is a complementary part of a larger body of work being done by a wide range of partners – including the Open Society Foundation and the International Drug Policy Consortium – to document the consequences of changes in donor eligibility policies, and to urgently try and influence donor policy away from a withdrawal from middle-income countries in South East Europe.

DPNSEE worked with their partners and members across the region to gather case studies of Opioid Substitution Therapy stock-outs or shortages, service closures or reductions in coverage, and other critical issues experienced by civil society partners in South East Europe related to transitions away from Global Fund support. Through interviews with key stakeholders and desk-based research, DPNSEE gathered information, experiences, feedback and recommendations from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo*, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania and Serbia.

The material was collected in November – December 2017. Since then, it was used only internally. The document was published and shared with the participants of the South East Europe pre-Conference meeting, held in November 2018 in Bucharest, Romania.

Click here to download the document >>>

Glossary of terms used in drug policy

Glossary is an alphabetical list of terms used in a domain of drug policy, with the definitions for those terms. It contains explanations of concepts and terms related to the field of drugs and relevant related matters. We hope that it will contribute to better understanding the drug problem in a more empathic manner.

The Glossary should serve firstly to member organisations in a way that will help in process of harmonization of opinions and attitudes. This material will also serve a wider range of groups of people including policy makers, stakeholders, activists, the media, police, judiciary and others.

The Glossary will be updated from time to time. If you find difficulties in understanding some other terms used in drug policy, please don’t hesitate to contact DPNSEE and we shall be more than happy to find a definition and add it to the Glossary.

With the support of the member organisations, DPNSEE will prepare versions in various local SEE languages.

At our webpage, you can access interactive version where access to terms will be quicker and translations available promptly here>>>

Download the Glossary in various languages: