VIENNA, Austria – March 2018: The Global SMART Update (Volume 19, March 2018) presents an analysis of the synthetic drug situation before and after the rapid emergence of large numbers of NPS. Particularly, this report aims to shed light on how NPS have produced a transformative shift in a market that was characterised by a limited number of substances to one that includes hundreds of substances of diverse chemistries. Despite their diversity, NPS can be grouped into the same six categories of psychoactive effects known from traditional drugs under international control.

For more information, please see:

Global SMART Update Volume 19 “Understanding the synthetic drug market: the NPS factor”
https://www.unodc.org/documents/scientific/Global_Smart_Update_2018_Vol.19.pdf

UNODC Report “Global Synthetic Drugs Assessment”
https://www.unodc.org/documents/scientific/Global_Synthetic_Drugs_Assessment_2017.pdf