{"id":17180,"date":"2024-01-25T21:31:44","date_gmt":"2024-01-25T19:31:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=17180"},"modified":"2024-01-25T21:31:44","modified_gmt":"2024-01-25T19:31:44","slug":"drugs-in-europe-the-labyrinthine-network-of-traffickers-and-the-nightmare-of-new-opioids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=17180","title":{"rendered":"Drugs in Europe: The labyrinthine network of traffickers and the nightmare of new opioids"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Europe has been facing an opioid crisis for the last three years, as for 2021 their illegal use is responsible for 74% of the 6,000 drug overdose deaths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the new research carried out by the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) together with Europol, it is estimated that there are approximately 1 million high-risk opioid users in Europe, while the amount of heroin seized by the EU member states . it more than doubled in 2021 to 9.5 tonnes and was the highest amount in 20 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The researchers found that there has been a big shift in the way heroin is trafficked in recent years in the EU, as the transport is now increasingly done by sea and especially through containers. As a result, larger amounts of heroin are being trafficked in shipments from countries in the Arabian Peninsula, eastern and southern Africa, Iran, Pakistan and Turkey to Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Greece, heroin remains one of the most detectable opioids, however there is also an increase in semi-synthetic opioids, such as buprenorphine. At the same time, Greece together with Turkey and Bulgaria constitute the main established land route for the trafficking of opioids to Europe from Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The opioid problem in Europe is rapidly evolving and becoming more complex. As substance use and patterns of use change and become more complex, we need to revise the model for prevention, treatment and harm reduction to meet these new challenges. Thus, it remains imperative to strengthen the ability to detect drugs so that we can then quickly deal with health and security threats”, comments the director of the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction, Alexis Gusdil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heroin trafficking in Europe<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the study, in most EU countries, the number of people who use heroin remains relatively stable. In 2021, users of hard drugs, which are opioids, numbered around one million. The country with the highest number of users per 1,000 inhabitants is Finland, followed by Italy, Ireland, Austria and Denmark.<\/p>\n\n\n

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In terms of overland trade routes for heroin trafficking from Afghanistan to Europe, three main routes were recorded. The most direct and shortest is the so-called “Balkan”, with cargo leaving Afghanistan via Iran and Pakistan to Turkey and then via Bulgaria, Greece or the Mediterranean to reach the final destination. Other preferred routes are either via the east African coast to Europe, or via Iran to Armenia or Azerbaijan and from there to Georgia and then via the Black Sea to Bulgaria, Romania or Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The black market is increasingly multifaceted<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, it seems that the black market of opioids is becoming more and more multifaceted, as in addition to hard drugs, synthetic forms of heroin are now circulating, such as methadone, buprenorphine, fentanyl, and completely new synthetic opioids. In addition to the above, experts describe as particularly worrying the detection of extremely strong benzimidazole opioids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The increase in synthetic forms of heroin is also demonstrated by the analysis of 1,845 used syringes by the ESCAPE network, which covered 12 cities in 11 EU member states. between 2021 and 2022. In addition to heroin, which was the most frequently detected substance in the majority of countries, 54 other psychoactive substances were detected in samples of used syringes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The buprenorphine situation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

More detectable was buprenorphine which, despite the increase in seizures in several European countries in the period 2018-2021, was detected in more than 30% of the syringes collected in Helsinki, Prague and Thessaloniki.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Next is methadone, which was detected increased in Dublin, Vilnius and Riga, while seizures of this substance in Estonia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg and Spain increased by 1267% (from 18 kg in 2018 to 246 kg in 2021) , mainly due to seizures in Spain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Europe has been facing an opioid crisis for the last three years, as for 2021 their illegal use is responsible for 74% of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4493],"tags":[4457,3870,470,4377,5144],"class_list":["post-17180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","category-special-reports","tag-drug-trafficking","tag-drugs","tag-europe","tag-fentanyl","tag-opioids"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17180"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17185,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17180\/revisions\/17185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}