Drug testing at work

Cited from Brendan Hughes Drugnet Europe No. 54, April–June 2006

Following discussion of the legal aspects of workplace drug testing at the legal correspondents meeting in September 2005, a new topic overview has been published on the European legal database on drugs (ELDD). This outlines international, European and national legislations on the subject. Workplace drug testing is a complex topic that is rarely regulated directly; much of the legal framework comes from interpretations of a combination of various laws, including those on labour codes, privacy, data protection, and health and safety at work. Nevertheless, new laws have recently been passed by Ireland, Finland and Norway to regulate the issue. Ireland reported that the legislation was welcomed by all parties, as it brought legal clarity to procedures that were already implemented by employers.

The topic overview is available at http://eldd.emcdda.europa.eu/?nnodeid=5036

E-POD: a case study of hallucinogenic mushrooms

Cited from Jennifer Hillebrand, Deborah Olszewski and Roumen Sedefov Drugnet Europe No. 54, April–June 2006

[T]he EMCDDA is in the process of developing a pilot project, E-POD (European Perspectives on Drugs), to explore to explore the capacity in EU Member States to detect, track and understand emerging drug trends using methods that depend on the triangulation of a wide range of different sources to assess the veracity of accumulated information.

The E-POD project follows the European Trend project and utilises data made available by the early warning system on new drugs and the Reitox network. It will contribute to the implementation of the EU drugs action plan (2005–2008) objective: to ‘develop clear information on emerging trends and patterns of drug use and drug markets’, provide better understanding of the drugs phenomenon and thereby help with the development of responses.

New EMCDDA website address

Since 9 May 2006, the EMCDDA’s website address has changed to www.emcdda.europa.eu. The old website address (www.emcdda.eu.int) will continue to work until May 2007, with traffic being automatically redirected to the new domain name when necessary during this interim period.