EU to examine draft proposals for drug alert system for all member states

Wed, 03 Jul, 2024 - 16:37

Cormac O’Keeffe, Security Correspondent

A new EU drug alert system is being set up in a bid to rapidly identify new dangerous substances and advise member states on how to respond.

Draft proposals are being considered this Friday by the EU drugs body which will recommend that assessments be carried out to determine how member states are to identify and deal with new drug threats.

The developments form part of a much-strengthened remit of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, which is being replaced by a renamed European Union Drugs Agency (Euda).

Last May, a HSE-led group urged the Government to give political priority and resources to prepare for future supplies of potentially deadly synthetic opioids hitting the country.

This group, set up on an emergency basis late last year to respond to nitazene overdoses in Dublin and Cork, said its continued operation is “not sustainable” into the future without such investment.

This group also responded to a small outbreak in two prisons in March. In all cases, the nitazene was in powder form and sold to the heroin-using market.

Last month, there was a worrying development when there was a bigger outbreak in the Mid-West and Dublin, where nitazenes had spread to tablets in the form of street sedatives.

The Irish Examiner understands nitazene is suspected of being involved in three overdoses in Limerick. In all the cases, the HSE has issued alerts to users and frontline services.

In addition to the establishment of a new drug alert system, the Euda will also have a brief to publish “health and security threat assessments” to enhance the preparedness of member states. The regulation setting up Euda said its alerts will “complement” national alerts.

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The Euda will also see the establishment of a network of forensic and toxicological laboratories, seen as crucial in the speedy identification of new drugs.

European Home Affairs Commissioner, Ylva Johansson, said heroin remains the “most deadly drug” in the EU, while cocaine is the drug “growing most rapidly” in availability.

She said synthetic opioids can be “very potent and very deadly” and that only a tiny amount can “kill a person”.

The US was not prepared for the arrival of fentanyl from Mexico, she said, adding that this drug was blamed for 100,000 deaths in the US in one year.

“Of course we should not do the same mistake, to not be aware and not have an early warning system, to monitor when new drugs arrive,” she said.

Alexis Goosdeel, Euda executive director, said they were presenting draft recommendations this Friday to its management board to assess the preparedness of member states to the emergence of new substances.

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