UN warning over legal 'designer drugs'
SOURCE CITED: THE TELEGRAPH
An proliferation of new types of drugs used to gain recreational highs is forming an unstoppable legal alternative to banned substances around the world, the UN warned on Wednesday.
By Damien McElroy
6:15PM BST 26 Jun 2013
The legal "designer drugs" are enticing young people into a life of addiction under the mistaken impression that the products pose no risk to health.
The number of new psychoactive substances – marketed as "designer drugs" and "legal highs" – as reported by UN member states – jumped by more than 50 per cent in less than three years to 251 by last year, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said (Undoc).
"This is an alarming drug problem – but the drugs are legal," it said. "Sold openly, including via the internet, NPS (new psychoactive substances), which have not been tested for safety, can be far more dangerous than traditional drugs."
Names including "spice", "miaow-miaow" and "bath salts" mislead young people into believing they are indulging in low-risk fun.
These drugs, which could be synthetic or plant-based and could be easily altered to create new ones, were now outpacing efforts to control or ban them, it said.
Use of such substances by youths in the United States appears to be more than twice as widespread as the United Kingdom.
New psychoactive substances can be made by slightly modifying the molecular structure of controlled drugs, making a new drug with similar effects that can elude national and international bans.
They are "proliferating at an unprecedented rate and posing unforeseen public health challenges," said the report that examines production, trafficking and consumption trends.
"The international drug control system is floundering, for the first time, under the speed and creativity of the phenomenon" of this type of substances, the report said.
Overall, global drug consumption has remained stable, while the number those paying the ultimate price and dying drug-related incidents was 211,000.
