EMCDDA 2018 Drug Report
Last week (7 June 2018), the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) published its annual report on drugs in Europe. I’ve already covered the UK specific findings; this post looks at some of the main trends across the continent by way of a series of data visualisations.
Prevalence
The visualisation below reminds us that although cannabis is by far the most popular club, the numbers using cocaine, MDMA, amphetamines and opioids remain substantial:
Overdose deaths
The graphic below shows trends in overdose deaths in the eight countries with the worst rates, including the UK where drug-related deaths have been rising since 2012.
Price and Purity
The visualisation below shows that while the price of cocaine has been going down over the last decade. its purity has shot up – perhaps partly explaining why it is Europe’s second favourite drug.
Heroin users in treatment
The graphic below shows that there remains an average gap of 11 years before Europeans’ first use of heroin and their entry into treatment.
Needle exchange
The map below shows the large variation in the availability of needle and syringe exchange throughout Europe.
These charts are just a very small selection of the data available. If you want to investigate further, then this page will allow you to look at a wide range of issues in up to 15 countries at a time on such issues as prevalence, overdoses, infectious diseases, drug seizures and prison drug use.
