Both democracy and the drug trade were given a boost by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the Iron Curtain in Europe.
For the latter, it has meant a growth in the influence of eastern European mafia in the drug trade in many western European nations.
The growth in the collaboration between drug traders and the Eastern Europeans has most recently led to calls from Scotland to set up a pan-European financial investigations body to aid in the tracking of money garnered in the drug trade.
Until now, the liberal (lax?) banking requirements of eastern Europe have meant that profits from the drug trade in other countries can be laundered there. The massive profits from the trade in wealthy western European nations has also attracted interest from crime gangs from Albania, Russia and the Ukraine, some of which have even muscled in on the territory of home-grown mafiosi.
In Italy for example, stories abound of Albanian mafia scaring off the Italian Dons (incidentally, the Albanians are also involved in people smuggling, as well as drugs).
With current cross border investigation being hampered by the lack of a common entity through which to share intelligence, the next logical step for law enforcement agencies will be to institute and formalise a mechanism for any such cooperation on drug investigations.
If the Scots have their way, then this may happen sooner rather than later.