Over 400 tables and 100 graphs presenting the latest data on the European drug phenomenon are released today in the 2012 Statistical bulletin from the EU drugs agency (EMCDDA) (1).
Monitoring and analysing the nature and scale of the Europe’s drug problems is a central part of the agency's work. Published yearly, the Statistical bulletin is one of the EMCDDA’s key outputs, providing drug-related statistics, key indicator data and trends.
Available for viewing on screen, or downloadable in Excel format, the information is organised according to 11 datasets, covering issues from the prevalence of drug use and the demand for treatment to the price and purity of drugs, responses to drug use and drug-related crime, infectious diseases and deaths (2). Data in this latest bulletin relate to 2010 and are provided from the 27 EU Member States, Croatia, Turkey and Norway.
This year, efforts have been made to improve the product’s visual impact and to facilitate navigation, thereby enhancing how the data are disseminated to the agency’s target groups (policymakers, researchers, practitioners, general public). A new web format offers the user tools to interact with the data online, select countries and zoom into graphs.
One of the highlights in this year’s Statistical bulletin is the inclusion of data from the latest European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) (3). Conducted every fours years, this survey provides a crucial insight into drug use among 15–16-year-old school students. Over 100 000 students took part in the latest survey across 36 countries (23 being EU Member States).
The Statistical bulletin is the result of close collaboration between the national focal points of the Reitox network (4) and experts at national level, and the EMCDDA at European level. Behind the scenes, consultation on data collection and submission is carried out in a year-long process.