Drug policy and drug legislation in South East Europe

In all the countries of South East Europe there are initiatives to change the drug laws. Several countries are changing their legislation in order to adjust it to the new socio-political conditions and some are changing their legislation in order to meet the requirements of the European Union in view of becoming members of the EU.

The Diogenis Association took the initiative to set up a project on Drug Law reform in South East Europe, because this is a crucial period for the development of drug policy in the SEE countries within which civil society involvement can play a positive and decisive role. It is our conviction that non-governmental actors in the field of drugs have to have a say in shaping drug policy and influence drug Legislation.

The empirical part of this study compares the relevant national strategies on drugs, national substantive criminal legislations, national drug laws and institutions, as well as drug law enforcement in practice, sentencing levels, and the prison situations in Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Greece, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, and Montenegro.

This task includes examination and development of laws, theories, structure, processes and procedures, causes and consequences of societal responses to drug criminality, delinquency, and other security issues. The next paper focuses on supra-regional comparisons and aims to explain why NGOs play an important role in identifying the factors necessary for effective reforms.

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