Georgia partners with EU drug agency to fight against drugs

Georgia is stepping up its cooperation with a European Union (EU) drug agency to enhance monitoring and sharing of information about the country’s drug situation.

European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) representatives visited Georgia’s capital Tbilisi yesterday and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the agency and Georgia’s Ministry of Justice.

EMCDDA director Wolfgang Götz and Georgia’s Justice Minister Justice Thea Tsulukiani signed the MoU to facilitate collection, processing and dissemination of information.

The MoU was signed for an initial period of five years. It outlined the sides will implement a joint work program which will be updated every three years.

The program will include steps to enhance [Georgia’s] monitoring and knowledge base on the drug situation and responses to it, particularly through harmonising key indicators in areas of supply and demand,” said EMCDDA.

Special attention will be given to the regular exchange of information on the emergence and use of new psychotropic substances, as well as the technologies employed in their production,” EMCDDA added.

Both sides believed sharing information on the ever-changing drug phenomenon was an essential and indispensable instrument for drafting and implementing drug policies and for assessing the impact of actions to reduce problems originating from drug use and trafficking.

Georgia submitted a formal request to cooperate with the EMCDDA in 2014, and this came to fruition on November 4, 2015 when the sides signed a MoU.