“Antidrug policies: prevention of drug phenomena and fight against drug routes. Cooperation strategies in the fight against drug trafficking”

EMCDDA Director Alexis Goosdeel was in Rome from 20–21 February attending the conference: ‘Antidrug policies: prevention of drug phenomena and fight against drug routes. Cooperation strategies in the fight against drug trafficking’.

The event, organised by the Italian Central Directorate for Anti-drug Services (DCSA), gathered participants from over 20 countries as well as from European and international organisations working in the drugs field.

The EMCDDA participated in a panel entitled ‘Policy on the spread of drugs: national and international profiles’, together with Mr Nicola De Benedictis, Head of the Service for ‘Studies, Research and Information of DCSA, Mr Guy Vinet, Head of Strategic Police Matters Unit of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Mr Michal Aleksandrowicz, Deputy Head of Chief Commander Office of Poland and Dr Thomas Pietschmann, drug research expert at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Further sessions focused on:

• Judicial and police cooperation: lessons learnt (investigative aspects: ‘follow the money’)
• Threats, routes and cooperation (threat assessment; routes and international cooperation dynamics)
• Traffic and dynamics in criminal organisations: counter-acting activities (countering drug trafficking criminal organisations; information flows to promote anti-drug activities at international level).

Other EU Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) agencies attending the event were Eurojust and Europol.