1. ELDD Reflection – past, present and future 29th Meeting of the Scientific Committee, 18 Nov 2008

2. Initial thoughts ELDD conceived in 1998, online since 2001 Requirement to fill a knowledge gap – varying drug laws around Europe, not easy public access to them Sensitive subject: MB to appoint LCs, NFPs continue to report laws annually in context LCs should submit laws in national language, with translations obliged by UN Conventions Based on translations, EMCDDA could read laws and write comparative studies.

3. Changing situations, priorities Enlargement of 2004 etc – now 23 languages and counting… Very few translations of legal texts received, despite UN treaty requirements Increasing number of national online legal databases ELDD research carried out more on basis of questionnaires and NFP reports than on legal texts We now have detailed feedback on demand for pages of ELDD via web statistics

4. Change in EMCDDA legal basis, tasks 1993 EMCDDA Regulation: Priority area 2 of the Annex is “National and Community strategies and policies (with special emphasis on international, bilateral and Community policies, action plans, legislation, activities and agreements)”. 2006 EMCDDA Regulation: Article 2, Tasks: (b) Improvement of data-comparison methods …(i) ensuring improved comparability, objectivity and reliability of data at European level …; in particular, the Centre shall develop tools and instruments to help Member States to monitor and evaluate their national policies and the Commission to monitor and evaluate Union policies; …(ii) facilitating and structuring information exchange in terms of both quality and quantity (databases)

5. Reflection paper Online for seven years – what result? Basic evaluation against original objectives Given the changes, how to focus our work in future? Based on interviews with EMCDDA staff, including Director, Scientific Coordinator, four Heads of Units

6. ELDD current content Legal Text section 793 texts from 28 countries, and 69 EU texts. 121 of the 714 non-EN national texts have translations in EN. Texts per country vary from 1 in HU; 2 in CY; 3 in BG, EE, MT to 146 in ES; 133 in GR. 15 of 28 countries have 10 texts or less. Country Profiles Standardised 5-8 page descriptions of all MS drug legislations and EU. Topic Overview section 14 TOs (summary and table); driving, substitution treatment, workplace testing, NSPs, precursor penalties… Legal Reports section 16 reports: Substance Table, Legislative approaches to illicit drug use, Cannabis Monograph chapter, drug asset funds, new drug control systems (in work) …

7. User demand for content over 6 mths (Feb-Jul 08) SectionTop 5 pages download range Legal Text Search240 – 104 Country Profiles1472 – 354 Topic Overviews5519 – 1397 Legal Reports980 – 608 Of the top 40 downloads, one (#38) was a legal text.

8. ELDD Objectives and basic evaluation Two main original objectives of ELDD: Availability and Updating of the relevant texts of the law on drugs applied in the EU member States - not very well done. Research and analysis on specific selected subjects in the areas of the application of the drug laws, in order to exchange good practices and support political decisions. - very well done. Is the former still necessary?

9. Reflection Paper – Options for the future Some 34 options were outlined, subdivided into : 1.Options regarding network responsibilities and management; 2.Options regarding database content; 3.Options regarding marketing of ELDD. We request ScC opinion on two…

10. Request for Scientific Committee’s Opinion To update the rationale for ELDD: “To provide reliable statements on aspects of countries’ drug legislation, and to contribute to analysis and development of tools that help Member States monitor and evaluate their national drug policies” EMCDDA update Legal Text Section based on annual NFP reports – law title and summary in EN. Thank you.