NEW PSYCHOACTIVE SUBSTANCES –

POLICY RESPONSES AND UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

Peter SarosiDrug Policy Program Director

Hungarian Civil Liberties Union

Qualitative Study on NPS in 5 countries Aim: to assess how

professionals and affected communities perceive 1) the trends in NPS use and related harms 2) the impact of existing policy responses to the NPS phenomenon 3) the best possible policy responses

We asked our national NGO partners to identify 20 stakeholders with wide professional backgrounds

Public health and social service providers, law enforcement professionals, drug users and club owners

103 phone interviews in 5 countries – wide variety of stakeholders have been interviewed

Drug use patternsRecreational/club drug use

(mostly situational) Young, educated, urban males

with access to Internet Experimenters Major route of use: smoking or

snorting Risks: psychotic episodes,

overdose, aggressive behavior, unprotected sex, HCV

Serbia, Portugal: only this pattern

Dependent use pattern (daily)

Young or middle aged men, low class, uneducated, unemployed, marginalized

Experienced heroin/amphetamine users/methadone clients

Major route of use: injecting

More frequent injecting - needle sharing, rapidly deteriorating health condition, aggressive behavior, paranoia, psychosis

Romania, Poland, Hungary: this pattern is very prevalent

Why the patterns differ so much across countries?Availability of classical

drugs Criminalization of drug

usersAccess to treatment

(OST)Social status of drug

users (concentrated, marginalized Roma communities)

Race: laws are always one step behind drug traffickers

Legislative solutionsPoland: 2010 – Chief Sanitary Inspectorate closed down

more than 1000 shops - amendment of the drug law – introducing the term “substitute drug”

Romania: a new law requires shop owners to register all products containing psychoactive substances – if not, the authorities can close them

Hungary: 2012 generic list of new psychoactive substances was introduced – ban on groups of substances

Portugal: introduced a temporary list with 160 substances, banned all commercial activities with these substances

Assessment of policy responses to NPSs

Media-driven policy making – no evidence base

Creation of black market/replacement of the problem

Lack of transparency of the market

Missed opportunity to regulate the market

No monitoring/evaluation of control measures

Fear-based mass media campaigns: is this effective?

Public health concerns

Injecting NPS use – 10-15 injection per day = growing demand for sterile equipment

Coincided with financial austerity – reduced funding for harm reduction programs

Result: sharing of needles and infections – consequence: HIV epidemics (Romania, Greece)

The treatment system is not prepared to tackle NPS related problems – designed to treat opiate addiction

NEEDS: Trainings Testing of drug samples Treatment guidelines

(not so) balanced approachControlling substances is

not the solution in itself – the solution is on the demand side

Very few public health and social responses to the legal high phenomenon

Policy recommendationsReallocating resources

on education and public health

Research on NPSDecriminalizing drug useRegulatory options – the

New Zealand model Rethinking drug policies

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