The rise and threat of new psychoactive substances: integrated research to obtain evidence-based information on their properties and actual use.

In recent years increasing amounts of new psychoactive substances (NPS) are detected on the drug market. These substances are chemically based on known illicit drugs (e.g. amphetamine, cannabis), have comparable effects, and are designed specifically to avoid drug regulations. The number of NPS detected keeps rising at a high rate with more than one new NPS reported every week in 2013 in the EU. In most cases, no information whatsoever is available regarding their metabolic aspects, effects, and toxicity, and this has resulted in a significant number of deaths worldwide. Furthermore, solid epidemiological data on the extent of use NPS use is lacking. This project aims at obtaining objective and timely information on the use of NPS in Belgium through a three-tiered approach. In first instance, an evaluation of the Belgian drug market will be made for the presence of NPS through a combination of amnesty bin analysis, purchase analysis and information obtained from the Belgian Early Warning System Drugs. The relevant NPS identified from this research will be subjected to in vitro metabolism experiments in order to gather scientific information on their metabolic fate and to identify biomarkers to target in biomonitoring studies. Biomonitoring will be performed on different population levels through wastewater analysis (communities), pooled urine analysis (specific populations) and individual serum/urine samples in order to obtain data on the extent of NPS use in Belgium.

Keywords:DRUGS

Disciplines:Public health care, Public health sciences, Public health services

Project type:Collaboration project