European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction

About: European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction is a government organization based out in Lisbon, Portugal. It is known for research contribution in the topics: European union & Population. The organization has 95 authors who have published 300 publications receiving 16972 citations. The organization is also known as: EMCDDA.

Estimating problem drug use prevalence at national level: Comparison of three methods

Abstract: Aims: Throughout the European Union efforts are made to obtain national estimates of problem drug use. These estimates are required for policy making. Given the importance of the estimates, much depends on their validity. Here we use two established methods for prevalence estimation, and compare it with a new one.Method: Two established methods are the treatment multiplier and the multivariate indicator method. These are used to cross-validate the outcomes from a third method: multiple imputation. The latter has not been applied before in the context of prevalence estimation. Use is made of data from the Netherlands.Results: The annual prevalence as estimated with the treatment multiplier is 0.30% (95%CI 0.24–0.36), and 0.31% (0.22–0.43) for the multivariate indicator method. The multiple imputation method came up with similar results: 0.32% (0.24–0.36).Conclusion: All estimates compare well. The application of multiple imputation in this context is novel. It makes use of the same inputs that are needed f...

Polydrug use among 15- to 16-year olds: Similarities and differences in Europe

Abstract: Aims: We describe types of polydrug use among school students across Europe and explore differences between high, medium and low drug prevalence countries. Method: Analysis is based on survey data from over 70,000 15- to 16-year-old school students in 22 European countries. Polydrug use (defined as the use of two or more listed substances during the last 30 days) is compared across three country clusters based on drug prevalences by hierarchical cluster analysis. Affinity between substances is measured by pairwise associations and regression analysis was used to assess the differences in rate ratio across the country clusters. Results: A third of all school students had consumed two or more substances. The most common combinations were: alcohol and cigarettes, followed by alcohol or cigarettes combined with cannabis, followed by alcohol or cigarettes, cannabis and at least one other illegal drug. Pairwise associations show that cannabis and cocaine users are more likely to use illegal drugs than the general student populations but least likely to do so in countries with high prevalence levels (p5 0.0005). Conclusion: Consideration of country differences and objective measures for the concept of normalization could help to inform more holistic prevention initiatives that respond to country-specific contexts.

Regulatory approaches to new psychoactive substances (NPS) in the European Union.

Abstract: As in New Zealand, three European countries (Ireland, Poland, Romania) have chosen to reverse the established control model, using effect-based definitions; the supply of any unregulated psychoactive substance that meets certain criteria is banned unless specifically permitted.

Human immunodeficiency virus among people who inject drugs: is risk increasing in Europe?

Abstract: In most European Union (EU)/European Economic Area (EEA) countries, between 2010 and 2012, reports of new human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) diagnoses among people who inject drugs have been stable or declining. HIV outbreaks in Greece and Romania, first reported in 2011, continue and economic conditions hinder provision of effective response coverage. When measured against some established thresholds, prevention coverage remains inadequate in at least one-third of EU/EEA countries. Urgent consideration to scale up prevention efforts is merited.