LONDON, United Kingdom – December 2017: Several studies have shown that certain groups of people are particularly vulnerable to NPS and often lack awareness and knowledge about the risks and harms of NPS (e.g. men who have sex with men (MSM), prisoners, young people, people affected by homelessness, and people who inject drugs (PWID)).

According to a report by the United Kingdom’s Inspectorate of Probation and the Care Quality Commission on “New Psychoactive Substances: the response by probation and substance misuse services in the community in England”, many offenders in the country first use NPS in prison and are then released with a substance dependency. The inspection conducted by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation found that probation providers frequently are not told of an individual’s drug use in custody, they work in isolation and lack a general understanding of NPS. Probation teams that collaborated with other agencies, such as Integrated Offender Management and the substance misuse services, were evidenced to be most effective in addressing issues of NPS dependency among offenders. Based on these findings, the Inspectorate of Probation recommended that the National Probation Service work more closely with local partners, enhanced awareness at all levels of the probation services, and provided in-depth training on NPS for probation staff.

For more information, please see:

Criminal Justice Joint Inspection report on “New Psychoactive Substances: the response by probation and substance misuse services in the community in England”
https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/cjji/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/11/New-Psychoactive-Substances-report.pdf

UNODC report - “2017 Global Synthetic Drugs Assessment” (pages 22-23 and 57-59)
https://www.unodc.org/documents/scientific/Global_Drugs_Assessment_2017.pdf