Further insights into aspects of the EU illicit drugs market: summaries and key findings

The main aims of this study were three-fold: to describe characteristics of users and consumption patterns among differenttypes of users of cannabis, ecstasy, amphetamines and cocaine; secondly, to describe the availability of drugs to the different seven sample EU Member States: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden and England and Wales.

In spring 2012 a web survey was carried out in the seven countries to collect data on these topics for the four drugs under study. The most detailed data we gathered from our survey are those on cannabis use.

The numbers of users of amphetamine, ecstasy or cocaine use (especially the more regular users) were too small to allow a detailed assessment of user types for these drugs in all countries. Analyses on consumption patterns and estimates were therefore limited to three user types (infrequent, occasional and frequent users), with country-specific data being available only for amphetamine in the Czech Republic, Sweden and the Netherlands, and for cocaine and ecstasy for the Netherlands.

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