It acts as a Reitox focal point for the Lisbon-based European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA). The CINN maintains a national system of information on drugs and monitors actions to combat drug addiction at the national and international level. Moreover, it conducts and initiates studies into drugs and drug addiction as well as processes and publishes their results.

The CINN concentrates on five key epidemiological indicators of the EMCDDA’s five key epidemiological indicators:

• general population surveys,
• treatment demand indicator,
• drug-related infectious diseases,
• drug-related deaths and mortality,
• problem drug use.

The monitoring also includes drug demand and supply reduction measures. An important element of monitoring drug demand actions is collecting data on the implementation of the National Programme for Counteracting Drug Addiction. The  CINN analyses drug supply reduction measures taking into account numbers of drug seizures, drug-related crime, drug purity and prices.

The CINN is actively involved in developing the European monitoring by participating in expert panels, conferences and meetings organized by the EMCDDA. One of the main goals of the CINN is the application of the European experience in establishing provincial and local monitoring systems to be used by provincial and local authorities. The outcomes of the CINN work are presented in the EMCDDA National Report and many articles in the professional press.

Under the national drugs information system the CINN cooperates with:

• central institutions and scientific research centres (key indicators experts),
• Marshal Offices (network of Provincial Drugs Experts),
• communes (network of communes monitoring drugs and drug addiction at local level),
• NGOs (network of harm reduction programmes),
• rehabilitation clinics (clinics involved in the TDI pilot project).