While harmonising EU drug policies is unnecessary, it is important that states can learn from drug policy successes and failures in other countries.

Are drug policies in different European Union member states becoming more similar? Caroline Chatwin assesses the development of drug policies in European states and the potential for policies to become harmonised across the EU. She notes that while in some states there has been a trend toward more lenient policies focused on treatment; other countries, such as Sweden, have adopted a more repressive approach aimed at the complete removal of drug use from society. This lack of consensus is not necessarily problematic, however: the most important issue is ensuring that individual states do not become so locked into their own paradigms that they become unable to learn from the experiences of other countries