The UK has been found to have Europe's highest proportion of heroin addicts, with one in three of the continent's drugs overdoses recorded there.
The annual report, from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCCDA), said that Europe's rate of drug deaths increased for a third year in a row and that nearly eight in every 1,000 Britons are high-risk opioid users.
A total of 8,441 overdose deaths were registered in 2015 - a 6% increase on the 7,950 deaths across the 30 countries in 2014, with increases reported in almost all age groups.
The UK accounted for 31% of those deaths, with Germany in second place on 15%. Over three-quarters of the victims were men.
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"The impact of the drugs problem continues to be a significant challenge for European societies," EU Home Affairs Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said in a statement introducing the report.
Over 93 million Europeans have tried an illicit drug in their lives, making up more than one quarter of those aged between 15 and 64.
Separate research published alongside the report found that the UK and Hungary were the two places that had seen 'more extensive use of novel psychoactive substances' among low-income groups and problem drug users.
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A 2015 Public Health England survey of injecting drug users, found that almost 9% of respondents had injected mephedrone in the past year.
EMCDDA researchers said: "More often they are are a secondary or tertiary drug, for example when the preferred substance is not available or to heighten the effects of other drugs.
"This means that it would be uncommon to find many high-risk users, with the exception of specific groups in Hungary and some areas of the United Kingdom."
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Europe's most commonly used stimulants remained cocaine, MDMA and amphetamines - according to the report, these substances 'continue to be associated with diverse and geographically differentiated patterns of use, and all have higher reported purity levels than a decade ago'.
Traces of cocaine increased in 22 of the 33 European cities monitored using waste-water monitoring and around 2.3 million young adults have used cocaine in the last year.
Source: The Guardian