European Union Drugs Agency

The European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA), known until 2024 as the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), is an agency of the European Union headquartered in Lisbon, Portugal, and established in 1993.

In June 2022, the Council of the European Union approved a reform of the organization which lead to an extension of its mandate.

The EUDA strives to be the "reference point" on drug usage for the European Union's member states, and to deliver "factual, objective, reliable and comparable information" about drug usage, drug addiction and related health complications, including hepatitis, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis. Though the EUDA primarily serves Europe, it also works with other partners, scientists and policy-makers around the world.

The Agency was founded on the principle that independent scientific research is a "vital resource to help Europe understand the nature of its drug problems and better respond to them."

Its stated missions are to:

Among the Centre's target groups are policy-makers, who use this information to help formulate coherent national and EU drug strategies. Also served are professionals and researchers working in the drugs field and, more broadly, the European media and general public.

At the heart of the Centre's work is the task of improving the comparability of drug information across Europe and devising the methods and tools required to achieve this. As a result of efforts to date, countries can now view how they fit into the wider European picture and examine common problems and goals. A key feature of the drug phenomenon is its shifting, dynamic nature, and tracking new developments is a central task of the Agency.

The new mandate as of July 2024 includes new mechanisms such as a European Drug Alert System, European Threat Assessment System and a European Network of Forensic and Toxicological Laboratories. This way the agency should better anticipate future drug-related challenges and their consequences, alerts on new drug risks and threats to health and security, strengthen the responses to the drug phenomenon and facilitate knowledge exchange for evidence-based drug policies.