What the EU drugs agency chief is most worried about in 2025
It’s time to move on from treating heroin as Europe’s main drug problem, according to the head of the European Union’s drugs agency.
That’s not to say heroin isn’t still a major problem. The latest data shows that in the EU, heroin and other opioids are detected in about three in four people who die from a drug overdose.
But in recent years, drug use trends have shifted across Europe, with a corresponding rise in trafficking and drug-related violence threatening to widen the political divide over how best to handle addiction.
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Heroin is no longer the dominating force it once was – today, people take multiple substances at the same time, from cocaine to methamphetamine to synthetic drugs that they may not realise are dangerously potent.
"We have the highest-ever availability for any kind of substances, whether being produced outside Europe and being smuggled to Europe, or being produced in Europe," Alexis Goosdeel, the EUDA’s executive director, told Euronews Health.
To help people suffering from addiction, policymakers, healthcare systems, social services, and even pharmaceutical companies will need to reconsider their approaches, Goosdeel said.
"We still have a model of thinking that is, I think, too much influenced by the heroin epidemic," he said, though it’s still important to “learn the lessons” from that era.
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Treatments for drug addiction
Today, highly effective treatments are available for people addicted to heroin or other opioids.
The gold standard is medication-assisted treatment, where the patient takes medicine that helps blunt opioid cravings while also receiving counselling and behavioural therapy.
Goosdeel said it’s time that new treatments are developed for people who use chemically altered synthetic drugs such as synthetic cannabinoids, cathinones (bath salts), hallucinogens, and opioids like fentanyl, which can be highly lethal.
"If we don’t want to miss the train," he said, "we need, urgently, to change the way we look at different treatment pathways".
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How to handle the drug crisis
Drug smuggling and related violence are also on the rise in Europe, Goosdeel warned.
Traffickers are making gains despite cocaine busts falling sharply last year in Antwerp and Rotterdam, which are seen as narcotics gateways into Europe.
In October, for example, law enforcement in Panama seized 4.1 tonnes of cocaine that were en route to Spain, according to Europol.
Even so, when it comes to drug policy Goosdeel is not in favour of "zero tolerance" strategies that aim to eliminate all illegal drug use, which are deployed in countries like Sweden and Greece.
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On the opposite end of the spectrum is "harm reduction," which emerged in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom in the 1980s and aims to minimise the health risks associated with drug use, with the goal of bringing people into treatment as they are ready.
But failing to get a grip on Europe’s drug problem, Goosdeel warned, could erode people’s willingness to try a harm reduction approach to drug abuse – and deepen the continent’s political and social rifts.
"For me, that's the major challenge," he said.
