'Today, drugs are everywhere,' warns EU Drugs Agency director Alexis Goosdeel
After 10 years in office, the director of the EU Drugs Agency will step down at the end of the month. He takes stock of developments in the drugs market and outlines the challenges facing the bloc.
READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2025/12/11/today-drugs-are-everywhere-warns-eu-drugs-agency-director-alexis-goosdeel
Subscribe to our channel. Euronews is available on Dailymotion in 12 languages
00:00This is the view of an expert in the fight against drugs.
00:05At the end of the month, Alexei Hosdale will step down as head of the European Union drugs agency.
00:11For 10 years, he has observed and coordinated European efforts to combat trafficking and support public health initiatives.
00:19Over the past decade, Alexei Hosdale has seen the market transform.
00:22Today, drugs are everywhere. Everything can be used to be the object of addictive behavior.
00:31And as a consequence, everybody can face personally or indirectly someone who has a problem of acute or chronic addiction.
00:41Then the second point is the violence.
00:43And here we see that over the last six, seven years, we have a huge increase of the drug market related violence in most of the EU member states.
00:56And that's a major difference because 10 years ago, when we talked about drug related violence, we were talking about Central America.
01:05Now it's a bit everywhere in the European Union.
01:07While Hosdale believes that the EU has successfully responded to the challenge posed by heroin,
01:14he feels that the 27 member states are lagging behind in tackling the rise in cocaine use.
01:20Where we are not ready at all for the moment is, as we see in the last seven, eight years, a huge increase in the availability of cocaine
01:29and the indirect indications that there is a huge increase in cocaine use.
01:34We know that it takes more or less 10 to 12 years between the moment a person starts consuming cocaine
01:40and the moment they will need to ask for help for the first time, which is usually not successful the first time.
01:49And here we don't have yet treatment, standard treatment protocols with the same level of efficacy that we have for existing substitution treatments.
01:58Alexei Hosdale is referring to a proliferation of substances over the last 10 years, which requires a more complex public response.
02:08He calls on governments not only to fight traffickers, but also to find ways to protect citizens.
Be the first to comment