Sources such as UNODC [9] report about the ban on opium production in Afghanistan in 2023. This ban might have an impact on the heroin market in Europe. It is difficult to foresee what the consequences will be for people who use heroin, drug treatment, drug prevention and harm reduction organizations, police or customs.  

Within the framework of the European DRUG-PREP-project [10], a workshop was organized during Lisbon Addictions following the foresight methodology. The objective of the workshop was to discuss the impact of the ban on opium in Afghanistan, building on a scenario building exercise carried out on this topic in Belgium. Workshop participants discussed and validated the developed scenarios, and used the wind-tunnelling technique to test the resilience of the European Drugs Strategy across the scenarios. 

The workshop allowed participants to support national and European policy makers in how to deal with the consequences of the situation and how to prepare for different scenarios. The methodology used was developed within the aforementioned DRUG-PREP project and tested by the Belgian National Focal Point among Belgian experts.