How prepared are monitoring systems to respond to rapidly changing drug markets in regions bordering the European Union?

The session will present the latest data on the drug market developments in three regions sharing border with the European Union: (1) countries in North Africa and Middle East of the Southern European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) region; (2) Western Balkans and (3) countries in the Eastern (ENP) area. The presenters will highlight a number of emerging trends and related monitoring challenges, such as the rising consumption of illicit substances in the South ENP region, changing patterns of consumption and dynamic development of new drug markets in the Western Balkans and expansion of the online drug sales in the East ENP. Follow-up discussions will focus on preparedness of professionals and policy makers to keep up with the dynamic and observed changes in drug markets. The session will be the occasion to launch three EMCDDA products dedicated to the drug situation and responses in each of the above-mentioned regions. The content of this session is developed with financial support from ‘EMCDDA-IPA7’ and ‘EU4Monitoring Drugs’ projects. Both are the technical cooperation projects funded by the European Union and implemented by the EMCDDA.