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EUDA Reference Group meeting on Drug Markets and Crime

At the EUDA Reference Group meeting on 4 and 5 november in Portugal, drug experts of 27 European memberstates came together to discuss all aspects of illicit drug markets. Ranging from EU policies, drug related violence, external (global) dimensions of drug markets, social structures of criminal networks and how participants are recruited on street level and via the dark web to the environmental impact of the illicit drug market. Within the meeting, KWR presented the recently initiated project to develop a framework to assess the environmental impact of the illicit drug market in a European context, including the effects of production, transportation and consumption.

Drug markets and crime

The EUDA monitors drug markets for over three decades. While their major focus is on illicit activities crimilology and their social and human health impacts. The main aim is to be prepared for changes in drug markets, and make informed decision to reduce harm for society as a whole, including our environment.

The global illicit drugmarket is dynamic due to changing consumption profiles of citizens, ompacts of changing law enforcement and regulatory trends, wars alsn conflicts and regime changes. A diversification of drug trafficking and conceiling of the drugs is observed in drug transportation.This is (probably) a result of intensified law enforcement activities to confiscate trafficked drugs. As a result precursors and illicit drugs are hidden by transportation in carrier materials.

Recently, it was observed that cocaine was even chemically conceiled, and had to be back transformed to marketable product in Europe. This leads to increasing numbers of laboratories to extract or (back)transform the drugs, leading to more risks for the surrounding public ánd the environment. The EUDA is monitoring labs/locations and trends on an European level, to better understand what is happening in the field in time and in space.

The environmental impacts are most relevant for the water sector, but trends in the volume of drug markets, trends in transporting, prepapration sales and uses can affect the environmental impact. For example, increasing total consumption will lead to larger -after use- emissions to surfacewaters via wastewater treatment plants, just like pharmaceuticals (licit drugs). New trafficking methods and especially the conceiling of illicit drugs in carrier materials or transport of precursors will increase the chemical processing of the materials into marketable drugs wich leads to generation of waste and increasing risk for incidents (e.g. fires, explosions) and emissions to various environmental compartments via a variety of routes.

 

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