This publication, part of Correlation – European Harm Reduction Network’s Civil Society-led Monitoring of Harm Reduction in Europe 2024 Data Report, examines key findings from drug checking services across Europe over the past years. It provides insights into shifts in drug purity, composition, and market trends.

This multi-year report contains data since 2018 and aims to show the changes in drug markets over time. Most drugs have fairly stable presentations over this time period, however there are some visible trends. Cocaine purity has increased until 2023, but in the first half of 2024 it started to decline, with a noticeable increase in detections of the local anaesthetic procaine. MDMA mis-selling increased significantly during covid, from 95% of samples being only MDMA down to 80%. Dosage of MDMA tablets fell by about 30% on average. The MDMA market is showing a steady recovery to pre-covid levels with over 90% of samples containing only MDMA and tablet strengths increasing to 170mg. Variability of MDMA tablet strength remains extremely high with the difference between "weak" and "strong" tablets being several multiples of an adult dose.

Cocaine showed an increase in average purity during 2023 as lower purity samples became less prevalent, but this trend has reversed, seemingly driven by increasing amounts of the non-psychoactive anaesthetic procaine. While the novel "nitazene" opioids are of significant concern for people using heroin, they are largely confined to the benzodiazepine sedative market at present. This represents a huge concern to people using benzodiazepines, as unexpected strength and combinations of tablets increase risk significantly. Drug checking remains inhomogenous throughout Europe, with just around half of all samples coming from two drug-checking services, in Spain and in the UK. The smallest contributors need more funding and resources if they are to play a role in market monitoring as well as harm reduction.