This report highlights the responses taken by the EMCDDA's Reitox network of national focal points to the COVID-19 crisis and describes the challenges met by the organisations and the strategies produced to overcome these challenges.

Table of contents

• Summary
• Introduction
• Responses of the national focal points to the COVID-19 crisis
• Impact of COVID-19 on the Reitox national focal points
• Lessons learned
• References
• Annex

P.16 The Irish NFP produced an evidence brief on the impact of COVID-19 in four areas: Scotland (United Kingdom), New South Wales (Australia), British Columbia (Canada) and New York State (United States). In April, the Irish Department of Health and Social Care (DOH) established a rapid assessment group to look at the impact of the pandemic in Ireland. As part of this rapid assessment, the DOH asked the Irish NFP to prepare an evidence brief examining the situation in a number of comparable jurisdictions. This rapid evidence brief helped the DOH put the Irish response to the COVID-19 crisis within an international context (Mongan et al., 2020). The findings enabled a comparison to be made with the situation in other countries and helped in identifying initiatives that could be relevant to the drugs situation in Ireland. The evidence brief included an analysis of Irish data from the EMCDDA’s Mini-EWSD.