Greece

Greece is a southern European nation bordering the Aegean Sea, Ionian Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Turkey. Greece is not a major drug-producing nation; however, it is a gateway to Europe for traffickers smuggling cannabis and heroin from the Middle East and southwest Asia to the West.

According to EKTEPN, the National Center for Documentation and Information on Drugs, in 2000, Greece had one of the highest hard drug (mostly heroin) user rates per 1,000 inhabitants in the European Union (EU). In 2000 EKTEPN also found that 12.2 percent of the Greek population reported having used some illegal substance (mostly cannabis). EKTEPN reported that, from 1993 to 2003, there was an increase in systematic use of illicit drugs, an upward trend in arrests for drug offenses (especially possession for personal use), a rise in the number of prisoners jailed for drug related crimes, a rise in heroin use among youth, and increases in cultivation (mostly cannabis), sales, trafficking, and production.

Drug use became a social problem in Greece during the 1980s, although musicians from Asia Minor had brought a culture of cannabis use to Greece in the 1920s, resulting in the country's earliest drug policy. Today, drug policies in Greece are shaped by the policies and orientations of EU states. Likewise, EU drug policy is decided by member states and set down in multi-annual strategies and action plans.

The discourse on drug policy issues in Greece, the EU, the United Nations, and the United States is centered around methods of control and prevention that take sides, or try to seek a balance, between “demand reduction,” “harm reduction,” and “supply reduction.” In line with the drug policy ideology and decision-making process of the EU, Greece, although more on the side of supply reduction than the EU, leans toward a policy ideology of harm/demand reduction (prevention) and decriminalization. U.S. drug policy, on the other hand, leans toward demand/supply reduction (law enforcement), and the continued criminalization of drug use. The current U.S. ethos is that harm reduction normalizes the use of drugs.