The booming drug trade is claiming more than 8300 lives per year, across Europe, with heroin and fentanyl remaining a significant problem.While the 2020 European Drug Report found the number of fatal drug overdoses was stable, it claims many nations are under-reporting the number of deaths.It found opioid-related (heroin) deaths were particularly predominate in the north of Europe in countries including Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom.In Portugal, where drug use was decriminalised in 2001, the report found there was a 93 per cent increase in number of fatal drug overdoses, with 29 lives lost this year.However that was less than Germany, with 405 deaths, Italy at 155 deaths and Sweden, 98 deaths.Portugal has some of the most liberal drug laws in Europe, with people caught with small amounts of drugs diverted to health programs, which the country claimed had reduced drug harm.
The Netherlands also has lax drug laws but has become a key production hub for ecstasy tablets. The laws, combined with drug testing, mean that drug users monitor purity and as a result it has increased in strength.The European Drug Report also warns that high strength cocaine was becoming a bigger problem. “The purity of cocaine at retail level has increased almost every year since 2009, and in 2018 it reached the highest level in the last decade,” the report found.“Collectively, the high purity of the drug, along with data from treatment services, emergency presentations and drug-induced deaths, suggest that cocaine is now playing a more important role in the European drug problem.”And cocaine users were also driving up drug-related violence, the report found.There has also been a 75 per cent spike in drug deaths for those over 50, which suggested that longer-term users were falling victim. The European Cities Against Drugs forum, which has members in 250 cities across 20 countries, has called for more education to prevent drug use, rather than liberal laws.“Parenting skills, community policing, and recovery-oriented treatment systems should form building blocks of primary prevention strategies to bring down demand for drugs,” the group said.
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