The European Union Drugs Agency is dealing with new challenges to the rule of law as the illegal drugs trade surges.
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00:00In the European Union, there is an increasing diversification of illegal drugs and also
00:06more violence on the part of organized crime, but there are also new solutions and new forms
00:12of cooperation.
00:13These are some key points made by Alexis Goisdil, Executive Director of the European Union Drugs
00:19Agency, our guest on the Global Conversation.
00:25Mr. Alexis Goisdil, thank you very much for accepting our invitation to the program.
00:31Thank you for the invitation.
00:33You began your role a long time ago when the institution was still a monitoring center.
00:39Since July, it has become an agency with bigger powers.
00:43We will talk about that, but I would like to start by the situation of the new types
00:48of drugs that people are consuming, including things like pink cocaine.
00:55What are these new drugs and what risks do they pose to the people who use them?
01:00Well, the new drugs are drugs or substances that are not yet classified as drugs.
01:06This is why we call them also new psychoactive substances.
01:09They have a psychoactive effect on the brain, but they are not yet classified as a drug.
01:15So over the last 27 years, we have established and developed a European drug alert system
01:22on those substances, and we have detected more than 950 of them that never appeared
01:28on the European market before.
01:31And some of them have the potential to be harmful for health or to have even lethal
01:37consequences.
01:38It's a bit surprising, this term pink cocaine.
01:41I'm sure that most people are not so familiar with these new products.
01:47What is a substance like this and why is it coming to the market?
01:51So the pink cocaine is also called 2C in Latin America or in Spain, for instance.
01:58It's coming from the chemical name which is 2C-B. But what we observe is that in many
02:03cases there are other substances.
02:06For instance, ketamine, which is a specific substance becoming more problematic, appearing
02:13a bit everywhere.
02:15For instance, we made a survey on the Internet among people who declared they are consuming
02:20substances and up to 10% of them have declared consuming at least once in the last month
02:27ketamine.
02:28How easy is it to have access to these medical substances and what risks do they pose?
02:34Well, first of all, those are not only medical substances.
02:38If we speak about fentanyl, yes, the first fentanyl molecule was created, invented by
02:45a Belgian pharmaceutical company, but it was because of the research for a more potent
02:51painkiller and anesthetic.
02:53So there was all justification.
02:55It has given its name to a family of molecules that share the core of the molecule and some
03:02of the properties, but they are illicit.
03:05And those molecules, they are being sold essentially through the Internet, not only the darknet,
03:12but also the surface web and the marketing strategies are extremely well developed.
03:17Now, there are many reasons why people start using these kinds of substances, but we can
03:22say also that the drug use is associated with some sexual experiences.
03:28There is even this term of the chemsex.
03:32People do it either consciously or because they are being abused by other people that
03:36take advantage.
03:38Do you see this as a very big trend and a risk for health?
03:42Well, I would say the major trend and the major risk is, as we describe, everywhere,
03:49everything, everyone.
03:51Drugs are everywhere today, whether being smuggled to Europe or produced on the territory
03:57of the EU.
03:59Everything can be the object of an addictive behavior.
04:02Also the distinction hard drugs, soft drugs, illicit, illicit, doesn't encompass all the
04:07complexity and there is poly drug use.
04:10And then as a consequence, everyone can personally or indirectly have an episode, acute or chronic
04:17of addictive behavior to one of those substances.
04:22And we are talking about the novelties of these substances, but that does not mean that
04:27there is a decrease in the more traditional consumption of cannabis, cocaine or heroin.
04:34Actually, those new substances, they are not really widespread today.
04:40It's a market in perpetual movement.
04:43Cannabis and cannabis derivate is still the first substance being used in Europe.
04:50Cocaine is now much more widespread because of the surge, the huge increase in production
04:56and in availability.
04:58But also we see an increase in production of amphetamine.
05:02And as you mentioned, chemsex.
05:05Chemsex is the practice of using substances to sustain long sexual activity and having
05:14sexual intercourses with many partners, especially among males having sex with males.
05:21But what we see, and in that case, usually they can use, for instance, methamphetamine,
05:26which before was not very widespread in Europe.
05:29But what we see is that over time, there may be an extension of the population that is
05:35using the substances.
05:37So this means we have important risks and important problems and challenges.
05:43And we need also to be much more agile than what was the situation 20 or 30 years ago.
05:50And how those behaviors have also impacted associated diseases like HIV and other diseases?
06:01There are various categories of health-related harms or problems.
06:05One of them is that indeed, as we mentioned in our last European drug report, we see that
06:12we are back to the pre-COVID rates of HIV infection, which is not a good sign.
06:19In other areas, and also in the area of infectious diseases, there are studies showing that there
06:24is an increase in sexually transmitted diseases, and some of them becoming resistant to antibiotics
06:32and to therapy.
06:33So that's important for prevention policies, for drug national or European drug policies
06:40to have a more holistic approach and to try to address and anticipate also for those small
06:46groups of people, initiating some practice that is not yet mainstream, that could become,
06:53but that potentially has serious harms or risks for health.
06:58How would you assess the ability of the health system in general in the European Union member
07:04states to address these health problems in acute situations as overdoses, but also with
07:11people that want to stop the regular consumption?
07:15Well, I would say if we look at the starting point that is and was the heroin epidemic
07:21in the EU, we made huge progress and we have very good results of our collective approach
07:27in Europe the last 30 years.
07:29We have reduced dramatically the number of drug-related deaths.
07:32We have for the moment 7,000, 8,000 people dying from overdose in the EU, compared with
07:38more than 110,000 in the US, for a population that is bigger in Europe than in the US.
07:46We have seen a dramatic increase in the offer of treatment, including substitution treatment.
07:54In the end of the 90s, we probably had 30,000, 35,000 slots for treatment, and we reached
08:01more than 650,000 places of treatment in Europe.
08:04So for the heroin epidemic, this has been progressive, very successful.
08:12The problem and the challenge is more that as we have more substances and more combination
08:18of substances, more polydrug use, we need to change our approach of prevention, of treatment
08:23and of harm reduction, because it's not about substitution treatment that works very well
08:29for opioids.
08:30It's also developing new forms of prevention, treatment and harm reduction for the other
08:36substances and the other uses of substances.
08:39And you see an interest in the health ministries from the EU and EU member states in addressing
08:43that issue?
08:44Certainly there is an interest, but we need to remember that in the EU we faced a few
08:51important economic crises, including the crisis of the euro for countries like Greece.
09:00And this means that after the subprime crisis, one of the consequences has been that there
09:07has been an important decrease in the budgets available for public health in all the EU
09:13member states.
09:14Hence, the new role of our agency, that is to contribute to EU preparedness on new issues
09:20related to drugs.
09:22The first message that we convey to the member states is that as we may face new risks and
09:29new challenges in the near future, we need to maintain the investment in health and in
09:35public health.
09:36At the same time, we need to continue the investment to find new therapeutic approach,
09:42new prevention models for those new substances, new ways of use, which are also associated
09:48to a different perception of the risk among the population.
09:52And so, would it be a strategy like the one you're just describing, the way to addressing
09:57what we can call a grey area of using of substances?
10:01Because cannabis can also be used to treat, to help people that have cancer.
10:06There are some chemical substances that may be useful for severe mental disease.
10:12How to create these boundaries?
10:14That's a very interesting question.
10:16I like it very much.
10:17Why?
10:19For many, many years, there was a discussion against or in favor, for instance, of medical
10:23use of cannabinoids.
10:26And there is usually a lot of confusion between, is it helpful?
10:32Can this serve as a treatment or to be combined in the treatment?
10:37It depends also of what are the extracts from cannabis, because there are many possibilities.
10:43So for me, the main principle of modern toxicology for 250 years is the difference between the
10:51dose, between the poison or the medicine or the drug is the dose, it's not the substance.
10:58So potentially, yes, we need more research and we published report on the medical use
11:04of cannabinoids.
11:06We are going to publish very soon a report on the medical use of psychedelics.
11:13And I think the key message is we should not have an ideological approach, banning substances
11:18or not, because if we were doing so, we should stop using morphine for the control of pain.
11:25And that's the only treatment that works for acute pain.
11:29But we need to push for scientific and medical research.
11:32But for instance, more than 20 years ago, Portugal was the only country that decriminalized
11:38the use of any drug.
11:40They will celebrate 25 years next year.
11:42Exactly.
11:43So only production and trafficking of drugs are criminal offenses.
11:48How do you assess this and why is it still such an isolated case?
11:53That's an isolated, but that's the extremely important and interesting case.
11:57While 24 years ago, there were people who were extremely strongly against and pretending
12:03that this would encourage people to use drugs, scientific evidence shows that it's not the
12:09case.
12:10Now, why is it that the other countries have not followed the same example?
12:14Well, first, it depends on the philosophy and the approach of each specific government,
12:20because drug policy is a national competence, it's not a European competence.
12:25But what we observe is that still over the last 25 years, there was a convergence between
12:32the member states to at least try to reduce and avoid for people only because they are
12:37using drugs to put them in jail.
12:40Because there you create at the end more problems for them and for the society.
12:45Let's talk about production and traffic of drugs.
12:49We know that since the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan in 2021, there has been a cut
12:54back on the OPS production.
12:57How has this affected the heroin market here in Europe?
13:01Well, so far, from the information we have, it has not yet affected the market in Europe.
13:08But it can, and probably it will.
13:10What we can say is that yes, most probably, if it continues, and most likely next year,
13:19we should see some effect of the ban on the production of opium in Afghanistan.
13:26We know that in other countries, like in Asia, there are some other countries producing opium,
13:36but not in the same quantity.
13:37So it will not replace what is not produced anymore in Afghanistan.
13:43What remains to see is what will be the attitude of the users, of the clients.
13:50If we look at what happened during the last Taliban regime, who took the same decision
13:57and who implemented in the same way, we have seen that the behavior of heroin users in
14:03the EU was different from one city or one country to another.
14:08Some people tried to enter into treatment.
14:11Some people moved to other opioids, including synthetic opioids.
14:15This is why we contribute to the Global Alliance on Synthetic Drugs that was launched by the
14:22US, supported by the EU.
14:23There was a meeting two weeks ago, in which we participated, but our message is we need
14:29to remain flexible and agile, and we need to make sure that we maintain the investment
14:37in public health and in the response.
14:40The major flow comes from Latin America to European ports, in Belgium, the Netherlands,
14:47in France, just to give a few examples.
14:50Are there risks of creating the so-called narco-states in the European Union?
14:57That's a question that I receive frequently.
15:01People are afraid and worried.
15:03I think it's not the case.
15:05There is a threat to the rule of law, yes.
15:09And certainly, for me, what is the most worrying development in the last seven or eight years
15:15is the huge increase in drug-related violence in the EU, which means ten years ago, when
15:21we were working with the European Commission, helping the Commission to design a strategy
15:27on drug-related violence, it was about Central America.
15:30Today, we speak about the European Union.
15:33And this is because of the violence between the gangs, the fact that there are already
15:38local laboratories, and so they are competing for the ground, that they are using children.
15:43There are plenty of factors.
15:44Yes, you mentioned some of them.
15:46That's absolutely right.
15:49What I think we see today is also the result of an evolution that probably took ten years
15:56that was boosted, among other things, by the COVID pandemic, because now most of the drugs,
16:03they are coming through containers, which was not the case before.
16:07But I think what we see now is the tip of the iceberg, which was not visible before.
16:13And also before, we had huge challenges, for instance, with the fight against terrorism.
16:18So this means probably we have not really seen the first signs that organized criminal
16:26groups were changing their way of organizing themselves.
16:30And what we see is that, unfortunately, now it's everywhere.
16:34It's almost every day, if not every day, every week in all day or most of the EU member states.
16:40And this is a threat for the rule of law, including in Belgium, there was a threat on
16:46the Minister of Justice.
16:48Exactly.
16:49Magistrates, ministers are being coerced.
16:52Or in the Netherlands, a lawyer was killed in the street, as well as a famous journalist.
16:58So there is a threat to the rule of law.
17:01But at the same time, it's a threat for all democracies, because as the mayors of the
17:07European Forum on Urban Security declared, they made a common statement in Brussels in March.
17:14They insisted that, yes, we need security and safety, but before all, we need a more
17:19holistic and integrated approach.
17:22So the answer cannot be we declare the fight to the users only, because it's like declaring
17:30the fight to our children.
17:31And in the countries where this happened, look at Mexico.
17:36There is no possible positive result.
17:39But we need to find new and more coordinated approaches, more integrated approach, because
17:46it may put in danger our social cohesion model, our European values.
17:52And certainly for me, that's one of the major challenges, which is why we organized the
17:56first European Conference on Drug-Related Violence, end of November, here in Brussels.
18:02And I would like also to speak about the financial aspect, because drug trafficking is extremely
18:08profiting.
18:09It is associated to corruption, to money laundering.
18:14Are you, the member states, the governments, the authorities in general, doing enough to
18:19cut the benefits, the economic benefits of this, let's say, industry?
18:24I think it's one of the most recent and probably, hopefully, most promising developments.
18:30You probably know that the Commission and Commissioner Johansson, they have published
18:36a roadmap for the fight against crime and drug trafficking last year.
18:42In that context, there are some initiatives that are ongoing, new plans, new programs.
18:47And in parallel, during the Belgian presidency of the EU, there was a new agency for the
18:52fight against money laundering.
18:54The principle of creation of the agency was adopted under the Belgian presidency.
18:59So I think there is a convergence.
19:02And certainly, as you said, if you don't target where the groups have their maximum benefit,
19:12which is the reason why they organized this traffic, if you don't target this, there is
19:18no way to hope that just with prevention message we are going to address really seriously
19:23the problem.
19:24We need an integrated approach, but certainly to reduce the financial flows, to intercept,
19:32and also the legislation from some member states for the confiscation of assets is also
19:37something very, very important.
19:39Wonderful.
19:40This is really an important and somehow fascinating topic, but I think we came to the end of our
19:46time in the program.
19:47Alexis Gousteau, thank you very much for all the explanations you gave, and very good luck
19:52for the new agency challenges ahead.
19:56Thank you very much.
19:57Muito obrigado.