New psychoactive substances (NPS) are a range of drugs that have been designed to mimic established illicit drugs, such as cannabis, cocaine, ecstasy, and LSD. Manufacturers of these drugs develop new chemicals to replace those that are banned, which means that the chemical structures of the drugs are constantly changing to try to stay ahead of the law. New psychoactive substances (NPS) are being developed at an unprecedented rate. As of December 2015, 643 new psychoactive substances were registered in the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Early Warning Advisory (EWA) on NPS.

Detectability of New Psychoactive Substances

Based on the social and environmental problems brought by NPS, it is of great significance for its qualitative and quantitative analysis and estimation of its abuse for drug control and health risk assessment. However, traditional methods such as social surveys do not accurately and objectively estimate the amount of NPS abuse, and the operating costs are high and the uncertainty is high. In recent years, an analytical cross-reactivity immunoassay has been proposed and used to estimate drugs abuse. The principle is to prepare urine standards by adding blank urine with new substances and to identify cases of poisoning by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) with samples from authentic urine. Several new psychoactive substances have been shown to exhibit cross-reactivity in immunoassays. CEDIA (cloned enzyme donor immunoassay) amphetamine/ecstasy and EMIT (enzyme multiplied immunoassay technique) amphetamine tests show the highest responsiveness to new drugs, as expected by many people with amphetamine-like structures and active substances. The data obtained by this method is more objective, has the advantages of high timeliness, the easy horizontal comparison in different regions, and has played a huge role in estimating the amount of traditional drug abuse. In recent years, the research team has applied this method to analyze and determine urine cathinones and piperazine NPS, this method is considered to have the potential to alert NPS abuse and can be used to evaluate the performance of anti-drug measures. In summary, cross-reactivity data in conventional urine drug screening reports immunoassays for a number of previously unresearched novel psychoactive substances.

Figure 1. Urine liquid chromatography detection²

Supervision of New Psychoactive Substances

NPS monitoring is carried out through the UNODC Early Warning Advisory (EWA) which is launched in 2013 and pursuant to Commission on Narcotic Drugs resolutions 55/1(2012) and 56/4(2013). UNODC EWA collects information on the global appearance of new substances from 101 countries and territories. To support Member States in the detection and identification of NPS, EWA offers information on NPS trends, national legislative responses, manuals for drug testing laboratories and technical information (e.g. analytical methodologies, reference documents, and mass spectra data). The UNODC Laboratory and Scientific Section administers EWA through the Global SMART (Synthetics Monitoring: Analyses, Reporting, and Trends) program.

The new psychoactive substance itself is designed to circumvent legal control. Therefore, when a new psychoactive substance is placed under control, the abuse of the substance is often drastically reduced, but at the same time, new alternative substances are created. In order to solve this problem, countries have adopted many measures different from traditional drug control methods. From the guiding ideology, there are mainly three types:

The first type is temporary control. The method is mainly used in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Spain. The core is that when a new psychoactive substance is newly discovered in the relevant department and it is expected that the substance may be at risk of abuse, it can be adopted for 1 to 2 years temporary control of the year, the control measures are equivalent to the formal administration of drugs. During this period, the police and health departments have sufficient time to assess the hazards of the substance and ultimately decide whether to officially list them.

The second is the regulation of analogues. Its implication is similar to the existing chemical structure of controlled drugs, and substances that are similar to or stronger than the control of drugs (excitement, anesthesia, and hallucinations) are also regulated. This method effectively solves the problem of the regulation of new psychoactive substances that are endlessly formed by the definition of analogs. However, this method has encountered certain difficulties in the actual operation, because the "analog" itself is an ambiguous definition.

The third is the regulation of the skeleton structure. Its implication is to include all substances containing specific chemical framework structures into the scope of regulation. This method is actually an extension of “analogues control”, with a clearer definition and more operability, effectively solving the problem of creating new substances through chemical modification and evading regulation.

References

• Bright, S. (2013). ‘Not for human consumption: new and emerging drugs in Australia’. Prevention Research.

• Beck, O., Rausberg, L., Al-Saffar, Y. , Villen, T., Karlsson, L., Hansson, T. and Helander, A. (2014), ‘Detectability of new psychoactive substances, ‘legal highs’, in CEDIA, EMIT, and KIMS immunochemical screening assays for drugs of abuse.’ Drug Test. Analysis, 6: 492-499.

• Adam Winstock, Chris Wilkins. (2012) ‘The challenge of new psychoactive substances. Transnational Institute Series on Legislative Reform of Drug Policies.’

• Vienna, (2018). ‘New psychoactive substances: overview of trends, challenges, and legal approaches’, Commission on Narcotic Drugs Fifty-ninth session.

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