The real market for drugs are the EU prisons, where everything is available

Brussels – Prisons and drugs, an increasingly strong combination that is difficult to break. There is a lot of data and aspects contained in the latest annual report on drugs by the  European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EUDA), and one of them concerns the spread of drugs in European prisons. Everything goes in there, more and more easily and in greater and greater quantities. As a result, “Responding to the drug problem in European prisons remains a challenge“, denounces the study.

The testimonies collected and the research conducted show that people in prison in the EU report one-off drug use, i.e. mostly occasional, prior to imprisonment and “higher levels of consumption, particularly of heroin, cocaine and amphetamines” once behind bars. A reality that draws attention to the problematic nature of detention systems, and “the need to expand some responses” by the national authorities directly responsible. The link between prison and drugs could be due to the increase in the prison population of the European Union, which consequently increases the number of potential customers and the turnover. 

Few controls, growing corruption: this is how the illegal business thrives. “Drugs are brought into prisons in a variety of ways, including internal concealment by prisoners, visitors, and, in some cases, staff, as well as trafficking via drones,” reports EUDA. In this over-tolerated market, “potent substances, such as synthetic cannabinoids, opioids, and various drugs, may be favoured, as they are easier to conceal.”

There is also the issue of health. There is not only the risk of overdose, as denounced by the European agency in the report, because “where drugs are injected, in the context of limited access to sterile injection equipment, the risks of transmission of blood-borne viruses, including HIV and HCV, increase“. As the report further denounces, this is because “very few Member States report the provision of needle and syringe distribution programmes, or naloxone programmes to prevent overdose deaths” within correctional facilities. Another aspect that confirms the unsustainable conditions in European prisons..