Drug strategies: coordinating responses
National drug strategies are planning and coordination tools commonly used by European countries to set out their responses to the various health, social and security challenges linked to drug problems. They usually include some general principles, objectives and priorities, while also specifying actions and those responsible for implementation. While Denmark has a national drug policy that is expressed in a range of strategic documents, legislation and concrete actions, all other countries have a national drug strategy document.
In 18 countries, the drug strategy is focused mainly on illicit drugs. In the other 12 countries, the policy focus is broader, giving greater consideration to other addictive substances and behaviours. However, within the United Kingdom, the devolved administrations of Wales and Northern Ireland have broad strategy documents. When these two documents are included, the total number of broad illicit drug strategies increases to 14.
These broad documents mainly address illicit drugs, and there is variation in how other substances and addictions are considered. All 14 documents address alcohol, 9 consider tobacco, 8 cover medicines, 3 include doping in sports (e.g. performance enhancing drugs) and 7 look at addictive behaviours (e.g. gambling). National drug strategies support the balanced approach to drug policy put forward in the EU drug strategy (2013–2020) and action plans (2013–2016 and 2017–2020), which place equal emphasis on drug demand reduction and drug supply reduction.
Focus of national drug strategy documents: illicit drugs or broader
Strategies with broader focus may include, for example, licit drugs and other addictions. While the United Kingdom has an illicit drug strategy, both Wales and Northern Ireland have broad strategy documents which include alcohol.
Evaluating a national drug strategy is now a standard practice among the EU Member States. Evaluations generally aim to assess the level of strategy implementation achieved and changes in the overall drug situation over time. In 2016, 10 multi-criteria evaluations, 10 implementation progress reviews and 4 issue-specific evaluations were reported as having recently taken place, while 6 countries used other approaches such as a mix of indicator assessment and research projects. As some countries extend the scope of their drug strategies to include other substances and behavioural addictions, devising methods and indicators to monitor and evaluate these policy documents may become more challenging.