Psychoactive Substances

Over the last decade, and particularly during the recent five years, a rapidly increasing number of novel psychoactive substance (NPSs), often marketed as “designer drugs”, “legal highs”, “herbal highs”, “research or intermediate chemicals” and “laboratory reagents”, has appeared on the drug market in an effort to bypass controlled substance legislation. NPSs encompass a wide range of different compounds and drug classes but had been dominated by synthetic cannabinomimetics and psychostimulatory synthetic cathinones, so-called β-keto amphetamines. Compounds from the later class were first detected in Europe in 2004, and since then 103 new cathinones have been identified and reported to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, with 57 during the last two years.

In light of the recent emergence of Novel Psychoactive Substances (NPS) on a global scale, this book provides a timely analysis of the social and economic impact of the NPS phenomenon, and of the global policy and regulatory responses to it.