European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction

In 2008, after some controversy from local citizens, the EMCDDA shared new premises with the European Maritime Safety Agency.

The EMCDDA’s mission is to gather and analyze factual, objective, reliable and comparable information on drugs and drug addiction. In this way, the EMCDDA provides valid data for policy-making and anti-drugs initiatives.

Almost 30 years old, the observatory’s main functions are:

• Monitoring trends in drug use and, above all, the responses found to solve the problem;
• Provide and encourage the sharing information on best practices in EU countries;
• Analyze and weigh up the risks of new psychoactive substances;
• Being responsible for a rapid alert system on new psychoactive substances;
• Improve tools and instruments to help EU countries monitor and evaluate their own national policies.

In addition, the beneficiaries of these studies, which are increasingly tailored to the needs required, are in this case: policymakers, particularly national authorities and representatives of European institutions; scientists and researchers; international organizations; professionals; the public.