Tag: EU Drugs Strategy

Open letter on the proposed EU Drugs Agenda

Posted on by Milutin

A sign-on letter of the International Drug Policy Consortium’s (IDPC) members, raising our very serious concerns regarding the new EU Agenda and Action Plan on Drugs, recently published by the European Commission was prepared and sent to the German presidency of the EU Horizontal Working Party on Drugs.

We have serious concerns regarding both the process for its development as well as with the substance of the document and urge the German Presidency to propose to the EU Horizontal Working Party on Drugs (HDG) that this draft cannot be accepted, and to outline an appropriate and inclusive strategic development process for the next EU drugs strategy.

The new EU Agenda proposes a drastic and negative change in EU drug policies that could also end up impacting funding priorities and national policies.

  • It puts a disproportionate focus on supply control,
  • It deprioritises public health and harm reduction,
  • It reduces the role of civil society and people who use drugs
  • And it risks weakening EU support for balanced, evidence-based, and rights-compliant drug policies in global drug debates.

The 2021-25 EU Drugs Agenda appears to be the result of a hasty, opaque and non-participatory policy-making process, and represents a drastic departure from agreed EU policies. It also comes within a deeply troubling stigmatising frame, as it was published in a press release together with EU strategies on child abuse and firearm trafficking.

The key flaws in the draft Agenda we identified include:

  • Losing the balanced approach
  • Deprioritising human rights and public health
  • Dropping support for key international documents
  • Reducing the space for civil society and people who use drugs
  • Weakening the external dimensions of drug policy
  • Deprioritising scientific evidence
  • A stigmatising document

The letter has now been sent to Germany as the Council Presidency, inviting them to take political leadership and encourage the HDG to reject the draft proposed by the European Commission.

An advocacy campaign follows. The first event is the meeting of EU Member States on Wednesday 9 September 2020! We encourage you to share the letter with your government contacts, so that they are aware of our concerns ahead of this important meeting.

The letter is available following this link>>>. Don’t hesitate to distribute it freely.

 

EU drugs strategy 2013-20 evaluation

Posted on by Milutin

The European Commission launched a consultation to gather stakeholders’ feedback on the EU Drugs Strategy 2013-2020 and the EU Action Plan on Drugs 2017-2020, as they are approaching the end of their cycle.

The consultation addresses all main policy areas of the Drugs Strategy, including drug demand and drug supply reduction and three cross-cutting themes, namely coordination, international cooperation and information, research and evaluation. Similar to the entire evaluation exercise, the consultation looks at the effectiveness, efficiency, relevance and coherence of the actions undertaken to cover the areas mentioned, as well as at the achieved EU added value.

The Commission seeks to gather input from a broad range of stakeholders, including public authorities and administrations at national, regional and local levels including customs and law enforcement, academia, anti-drugs and health related civil society and non-governmental organisations, chemical and medical industry representatives, practitioners involved in the drugs or health policy fields and private individuals. Anyone affected by illicit drug use is especially welcome to respond to this public consultation.

You can contribute to this consultation by filling in the online questionnaire. Questionnaires are available in some or all official EU languages. You can submit your responses in any official EU language.

The final results of the evaluation will be used by the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council and Member States in the future decision-making process regarding drug policy.

To get more information and contribute to the consultations, please follow this link>>>

EU drugs strategy 2013-20 – evaluation

Posted on by Milutin

The European Commission launched a process of evaluation of the current EU drugs strategy. The Commission seeks to gather input from a broad range of stakeholders, including public authorities and administrations at national, regional and local levels including customs and law enforcement, academia, anti-drugs and health related civil society and non-governmental organisations, chemical and medical industry representatives, practitioners involved in the drugs or health policy fields and private individuals. Anyone affected by illicit drug use is especially welcome to respond to this public consultation.

The objective of this consultation is to gather stakeholders’ feedback on the EU Drugs Strategy 2013-2020 and the EU Action Plan on Drugs 2017-2020, as they are approaching the end of their cycle.

The consultation addresses all main policy areas of the Drugs Strategy, including drug demand and drug supply reduction and three cross-cutting themes, namely coordination, international cooperation and information, research and evaluation. Similar to the entire evaluation exercise, the consultation looks at the effectiveness, efficiency, relevance and coherence of the actions undertaken to cover the areas mentioned, as well as at the achieved EU added value.

A synopsis of the responses received will be included in the Staff Working Document that will be produced to summarise the findings of the evaluation. The final results of the evaluation will be used by the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council and Member States in the future decision-making process regarding drug policy.

Questionnaires are available in some or all official EU languages. One can submit your responses in any official EU language.

For reasons of transparency, organisations and businesses taking part in public consultations are asked to register in the EU’s Transparency Register.

The deadline for consultations is 4 February 2020.

To respond to the questionnaire, please follow this link>>>