Novel Psychoactive Substances Flashcards

Question

Novel ways of getting NPS into prisons

Answer 1

Letters (some prisons are now photocopying letters, not from lawyers, to reduce the level of drugs entering the prison)

Answer 2

* A new paradigm is drug use and human health risk assessment: sewage profiling at the community level * SEWPROF was a research project funded by the European commission, Marie Curie actions, seventh framework programmes, initial training network * SEWPROF aimed to develop inter-disciplinary and cross-sectoral research capability for the next generation of scientists working in the newly emerging field of sewage epidemiology * It provided an integrated approach towards public health monitoring at a community level based on innovative sewage epidemiology techniques

Answer 3

* Results demonstrate significant potential of sewage epidemiology * Complements questionnaire data * Methadone used a heroin replacement therapy, has not peaks at weekends as drug addicts wouldn’t tend to only take at weekends

Answer 4

* Anonymous * Non-attributable * No ethical issues * Informed consent not required * One main sampling issue: no female samples, so a biased source of information

Answer 5

* Global drug survey- annual * EMCDDA “young people and drugs”- 2011, 2014

Answer 6

1. Obtain samples- seizures (police, border patrol etc.), test purchases, hospital admissions, festival, prisons, nightclubs 2. Analyse the samples 3. Report results 4. Disseminate information/data

Answer 7

* Analysis usually starts off with standard drug analysis techniques o Fourier transform infrared spectrometry** (FTIR)**- moderately cheap, very fast, easy, no consumables, not solid dose o **Raman spectrometry**- can be cheap, easy, no consumable, not solid dose o **Gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS)**- more expensive, slower, accurate, any dose form * However, these do not work for new/unknown substances. So, for these, we move on to more complex techniques o **HP LC** (TOF, Orbitrap)- expensive, slow, accurate, requires interpretation o Nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry **(NMR)**- very expensive, very slow, accurate, requires interpretation o **Synthesis**- slow and complex

Answer 8

Reporting NPS- EMCDDA * Early warning system * EMCDDA Reitox network * UK doesn’t have a lot to do with this now due to BREXIT

Answer 9

* Before the PS Act 2016 o Misuse of Drugs act o TCDOs and new processes * After the PS act 2016

Answer 10

* Identify a new substance * Assess harm * Implement legislature under the misuse of drugs acts 1971 * Slow, cumbersome, and not suited to circa 100 new substances a year

Answer 11

* Monitor the appearance of new compounds * Report FEWS, ACMD, EMCDDA (EWS) * Constitute a sufficient problem to warrant import ban (OGIL) or temporary class drug order (TCDO). Harm assessment not required * TCDO (for 1 year) o Perform rigorous risk assessment (by observation of effects on users) o Assess pharmacology  Literature review  Mechanistic studies (in vitro)  Clinical vigilance o Amend misuse of drugs act or remove TCDO o Enforce legislation * But the problem remained and the number of NPS continued to increase

Answer 12

December 2016 “generic synthetic cannabinoids ban” under the misuse of drugs Act

Answer 13

* Budgetary issue for police and labs * Difficult to identify- isomers an lack of chemical standards requires expensive instruments * Non-controlled substances were not a police issue * CPS willingness to prosecute

Answer 14

**Overview of the act** 1. This act created a blanket ban on the production, distribution, sale and supply of psychoactive substances in the UK * But not possession for personal use * Meaning of “psychoactive substance” o “Psychoactive substance” means any substance which- (a) Can produce a psychoactive effect in a person who consumes it, and (b) Is not an exempted substance * For the purposes of this act a substance produces a psychoactive effect in a person if, by stimulating or depressing the persons CNS, it affects the persons mental functioning or emotional state

Answer 15

* The end of NPS in the UK? o Cocaine, MDMA, cannabis etc. o Ireland * More realistically, the break the cycle of new compounds being used as drugs as outside of legislation and then the law catching up with the development of these new drugs

Answer 16

* High street head shops have closed or no longer sell NPS * UK based web sites are closed or moved to other European countries * But… web sites in other countries have picked up their business and prosper, these sites already existed and other may have now opened * The availability of NPS on the dark web has probably increased Other possible results of the PS Act * Sales may have shifted to traditional drug dealers, especially at the start when stock may have been “dumped”

Answer 17

* NPs still available but more difficult to obtain * Still seen but less quantity and less variety * Still prevalent amongst vulnerable populations * New ones still being reported (mostly outside UK) * The act probably has reasonably achieved its objectives

Answer 18

* Not much in the general UK drug taking population (but in 2021 and some 2022 festival increase in cathinones. It is not known if these were mis-sold drugs) * Vulnerable populations o Prisons o Homeless * Synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists

Answer 19

* NPS are unlikely to go away anytime soon * Dealing with them. Even with the PS act, will take significant funding. Funding that probably does not exist