Drug policy advocacy organisations in Europe

This paper sets out to explore the civil society organisations that engage in drug policy advocacy in Europe. Information was gathered through an Internet search carried out in English, French and Spanish, supplemented by data provided by national agencies in the 28 EU Member States, Norway and Turkey. Only organisations that had an Internet presence were included in the analysis. Of the 218 drug policy advocacy organisations identified, 71 % were found by the English language internet search, and 48 % were located in countries where the search languages were the main language spoken. About 70 % of the organisations were active at national level, with the rest split almost equally between local or regional level and European or international level. The primary objectives of the organisations were predominantly in the area of practice development, with 26 % advocating use reduction and 39 % harm reduction approaches. Primary objectives in the field of legislative changes were pursued by the remainder, with 23 % in favour of control reduction and 12 % calling for control reinforcement.